Internet Nominated For 2010 Nobel Peace Prize 259
An anonymous reader writes "It's official. The Internet, which has virtually revolutionized world communication, has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. 'Organizers said signatories to its petition backing the nomination include 2003 peace laureate and exiled Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi — which would make it a legitimate entry.' The nomination was proposed by the Italian edition of Wired magazine for promoting 'dialogue, debate and consensus through communication' as well as democracy."
Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Decline of the Prize (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or is the Peace Price rapidly declining into nothing more than an alternate venue for Time magazine's "man/woman/person/object of the year"?
Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet, which has virtually revolutionized world communication, has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
Yeah, okay... How come the telegraph isn't being nominated? It was the first time people on different continents started talking to each other in real-time. Or radio for that matter. The internet is not the greatest thing in the past hundred years of mass communications; The gutenburg press did more to free the masses from tyranny. If anything, the internet may make the problem worse: one of the side-effects of digitalization is that everything can be tracked, monitored, and recorded in perpetuity. The government doesn't concern itself with how to spy on its citizens... it's busy trying to figure out what to do with all this data. And we want to nominate this for a Nobel Prize?
Forget that... I want "None of the Above" to win the award.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Soo.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess, if the internet wins the Nobel Peace Prize, the money will go toward internet infrastructure in poor countries with a violence problem.
Re:Decline of the Prize (Score:5, Insightful)
If Kissinger (1973) didn't kill its credibility, then Arafat; Peres; Rabin (1994) did.
Re:Decline of the Prize (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
Pre-internet you could anonimize all the people of a region, country or culture, put them under an unified view, and see them as the enemy, rival, or whatever your government say. Now you deal directly against with individuals, against people with what you could communicate. Maybe won't stop future wars (i.e. didnt stopped US intervention in iraq) but could make that kind of things harder. If you take governments out of the equation, could be seen as a positive push to world peace.
Ok, until the trigger for WWIII is the discussion on who should get that cash.
Re:darpa (Score:1, Insightful)
(and trying to end)
proof? i've seen nothing of the sort.
Re:Obligatory (Score:2, Insightful)
more importantly: at least the internet is not accelerating or conducting multiple wars while accepting the prize.
Clearly (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobel peace prize (Score:1, Insightful)
Helps to put Obama in perspective (Score:1, Insightful)
If the internet gets the award, it will just prove beyond any doubt the award committee is useless. It was bad enough when Kissinger got it (in fact, worst ever so far) but when they allowed Nobel to be hijacked by the bankers to give out an illegitimate prize in economics - just so those bankers can promote their economic interests; the committee was shown to have lost Nobel's vision. Furthermore, economics is not a science (more like a witch doctor or high priest.)
Al Gore can be put in charge of it, it would be most fitting actually. He didn't invent it (and never seriously said he did) he was the visionary who unleashed it to the public knowing it would further public discourse and education - as it did for the academics and military who had exclusive use of it. He would put it to good use along similar lines - its not like he needs the money and he has become an activist anyhow.
What's going on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, yes, you're right, the internet is at it's core a point-to-point protocol, but its patterns are not the same as telegraph.
Telegraph didn't have a storage mechanism, while the internet does. You couldn't use telegraph to do something as basic as a webpage or an FTP server - the cost of having a living person handling the requests was too high. Telegraph was basically used as a messaging system, like SMS but with less spam.
Another difference is the number of points of access. The internet scales much, much better than telegraph. Even 3rd world countries usually have some sort of access to the internet, at public libraries or such venues. It's also vastly cheaper than telegraph ever was.
Re:Decline of the Prize (Score:4, Insightful)
The Peace Prize has done some excellent service, bringing to the world stage people who were going unnoticed. Nobody had ever heard of Aung San Suu Kyi or Carlos Belo, and the attention really does do some good there. They gain international support for ongoing work. Sometimes it has gone to people who have genuinely done good work and deserve to be rewarded in retrospect, as it is in the science prizes.
On the other hand, some years have been completely out of line, such as Kissinger or Obama. (I'm a big fan of Obama, but the peace prize was completely unnecessary: he needed neither encouragement nor money to do his work. There were other people who could use the attention and money to better effect, and he had no accomplishments of note.)
In other words: a mixed bag. I suppose that the worst failures do little harm, and the successes do some good, so it's worth it. Even if it means putting up with the occasional simultaneous international facepalm.
Internet is a TOOL used for peace and war... (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet is a neutral technology; a tool that may be used for good and bad, it has done nothing in itself to improve peace or cause war.
- Internet is used by people to obtain war technology causing proliferation
- Internet is right now causing tension between US and China which are accusing each other of Internet warfare
- Internet could potentially be used to to send commands for setting of weapons from across the world
- It has been demonstrated Internet hackers could get access to power plants, cause it to malfunction, and cause minor and major "accidents"
How can anyone nominate a TOOL that may be used for good and bad for a peace price when the side of bad is just as big as that of good???
I completely fail to see how Internet in itself have done anything for peace.
Evolution of politics (Score:2, Insightful)
Pre-Industrial Society: I don't even bother rebelling anymore
Industrial Society: I don't even bother voting anymore
Post-Industrial Society: I don't even bother clicking anymore
If we can nominate the Internet ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Soo.... (Score:2, Insightful)
At least the internet has actually done something, unlike the last several winners.
Re:Helps to put Obama in perspective (Score:1, Insightful)