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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."
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Internet Nominated For 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

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  • Soo.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:27PM (#31046470) Homepage

    who would get the cash prize? Please don't tell me it's "anonymous". I hate that guy.

    • Re:Soo.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by A. B3ttik ( 1344591 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:40PM (#31046578)
      I dunno, is Al Gore even allowed to receive two Nobel Peace prizes?
    • by sznupi ( 719324 )

      More importantly - which of the individuals wearing Guy Fawkes mask gives the acceptance speech and gets the price?

      Hm, a plot to shatter them?...

    • Re:Soo.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:52PM (#31046668) Homepage Journal

      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:Soo.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:18PM (#31046858) Journal

      but why did it get nominated?

      It's been the scene for the biggest flame-wars in history! Is it just because so few people actually died because of these wars?

      And Hitler seems to get mentioned a surprising number of times...

    • This guy???

      The Final Boss Of The Internet [9gag.com]?

    • Of course it will. Right to the 4chan community account for madness and mayhem. :D

      No, just kidding. Reality will be far worse. Al Gore will try to claim it. But in reality, some previously unknown US (!) government agency will take it, and trough some funding program “for protection of rights on the Internet”, will give the money to a RIAA/MPAA joint-venture project to create a “copyright cybersoldier” unit with NSA-like powers. Then trough an ACTA addition, that unit will get the po

    • Re:Soo.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Third Position ( 1725934 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @02:10PM (#31047188)

      I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see the internet in a tux, giving the acceptance speech.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Dekker3D ( 989692 )

        *groan* you DON'T want to see the internet personified, alright? think of things like goatse. tubgirl. 4chan!
        it'll be a giant malformed kitten mooning us all while spouting profanities from all corners of the world.

        in a tux.
        giving the acceptance speech.

        thanks for that image, i'ma go get the mindbleach now.

    • Re:Soo.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @02:58PM (#31047460) Journal
      Obviously Nigeria should get the cash prize. They've given out quintillions through the Internet. Why, I'm getting $3.4 billion this week alone from them.
    • who would get the cash prize? Please don't tell me it's "anonymous". I hate that guy.

      I think the money will go to this deposed Nigerian prince who needs seed money to collect his inheritance.

    • I vote that the prize be divided among all of the people who can prove they had an internet-routeable e-mail account more than 25 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      who would get the cash prize? Please don't tell me it's "anonymous". I hate that guy.

      I think it's obvious that we'd all get a cut.

  • The speech (Score:5, Funny)

    by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:28PM (#31046474)
    The Internet has decided to present its acceptance speech in form of a Twitter live feed.
  • Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NYMeatball ( 1635689 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:28PM (#31046478)
    "At least the Internet's been in office longer than Obama"
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by darjen ( 879890 )

      more importantly: at least the internet is not accelerating or conducting multiple wars while accepting the prize.

      • by ari_j ( 90255 )
        The main thing with the Obama peace prize is that it was all based on his first 12 days in office. Fox News [foxnews.com] (yeah, not fair and balanced, but this one is purely factual and based on the President's public schedule, and good for a laugh) did a rundown of what all Obama did in those 12 days.

        The dumbest thing the man ever did was accept the prize. He would have won a lot more support and respect from both his constituency and the world at large if he had politely declined it for being too soon. I am more
      • God you seriously can't blame obama for that one. I only say this because you are modded up.
    • As much as I like Obama (I did vote for him), I think the Internet is more deserving of a peace prize than Obama was! Guys who spend all day wanking off to free pictures of Cindy Margolis simply don't have the time or energy to wage war!
  • by Anonymous Coward

    when the singularity and skynet arrive we'll all look back at this and laugh(before our demise)

    • Hey, this might actually save our asses. After all, Skynet won't want to look like an ungrateful hypocrite after getting a Peace Prize. So, instead of killing us all, we'll simply be confined to our homes!

  • irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:31PM (#31046504) Homepage

    The US department of defense will be accepting the award, as they funded the first tubes.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by sznupi ( 719324 )

      They would probably twist it in a way that Tim Berners-Lee or similar persona could accept it (easy, "pushed the Internet into mass acceptance" or something like that)

      All I know is that if it wins, I'm flying, driving or taking a train / ferry just to be in Oslo on the occasion.

      Wearing V mask.

  • woo hooo! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Finally, pr0n might win a Nobel prize!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:32PM (#31046514)

    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"?

    • by retchdog ( 1319261 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:01PM (#31046722) Journal

      If Kissinger (1973) didn't kill its credibility, then Arafat; Peres; Rabin (1994) did.

      • by Kral_Blbec ( 1201285 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:07PM (#31046762)
        And if that didn't so it, then last year sure did.
      • Or you view it as a pragmatic organization whose purpose isn't to find the most deserving peacemaker but the recipient which stands the chance of creating the most peace by giving them additional media attention.

        The goal of the peace prize is to promote peace, so it's often given in an effort to draw attention to the cause of someone around the world who is in a position of power to create peace.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by audunr ( 906697 )

      There have been controversial winners throughout the peace prize's history. Sometimes the prize goes to people who have waged war at some point, other times to people who have done something that most people don't think of as peace related.

      No need to discuss if Obama actually deserved the prize, but I think a lot of people here in Norway believe he was awarded the prize because the leader of the comittee, Torbjørn Jagland, wanted to bring about a lot of attention to himself (and Norway).

    • by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @03:28PM (#31047682) Homepage Journal

      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.

    • by Dirtside ( 91468 )

      This "nomination" is nothing special. Anyone can nominate anyone for the Nobel Peace Prize; whether the Nobel committee opts to accept those nominations is another matter, and they don't reveal the list of nominees, just the winner.

      Note that "The nomination was proposed by the Italian edition of Wired magazine for promoting 'dialogue, debate and consensus through communication' as well as democracy."" This is basically a press release from Wired Magazine (Italy) saying that they sent a nomination to the Nob

  • Fail (Score:5, Insightful)

    by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:36PM (#31046554)

    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.

    • by vadim_t ( 324782 )

      The telegraph enabled communication on a very limited level compared to the Internet. The press, and for the most part radio are broadcasting methods.

      What I think the Internet brought is the ability for people from different continents (as we probably are) to easily talk to each other, and realize that there are people on the other side of the globe too, and that civilization doesn't end at their country's border.

      Yeah, you could do that with the phone and telegraph as well, but you couldn't just happen to c

      • The telegraph enabled communication on a very limited level compared to the Internet.

        I'm looking at the amount of social change that resulted from a single invention, not its reach. The Nobel Prize likewise looks at how significant the discovery is for its time period.

    • by kandela ( 835710 )
      The Chinese are trying to expel the internet, the telegraph never did enough to provoke that reaction, and I believe it's a requirement now.
    • The Nobel Peace Prize has become a political game more than anything. I don't even bother clicking anymore when I hear about whatever the next peace price is going to be...
      Overinflated too.

      • 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

    • Re:Fail (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:08PM (#31046788) Homepage Journal
      Telegraph, mail, phone, are basically 1vs1 communications, usually between people that know each other. Newspaper, Television, movies, are 1 or few to many, and sometimes the source of that communication is controlled by very few or follow the policy of government or some groups. But internet is communication everyone with everyone, usually unfiltered.

      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.
      • Telegraph, mail, phone, are basically 1vs1 communications[...]But internet is communication everyone with everyone, usually unfiltered.

        TCP/IP is, fundamentally, the same thing: A point to point transmission medium. The telegraph was used to transmit international and regional news to local newspapers, which dutifully printed the news for general distribution. This model continues today; the difference being that the internet decreased the cost per message which meant that people with less means can still take advantage of the network. But the patterns of communication over the internet looks pretty much the same as the telegraph, it just h

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by chaosite ( 930734 )

          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, m

    • If I'm reading you right, you're saying that something that is very useful and has a lot of legitimate uses but at the same time has a few illegitimate uses should be considered a bad thing. Huh. Who knew? I guess the RIAA has more influence on us than we thought.

      • If I'm reading you right, you're saying that something that is very useful and has a lot of legitimate uses but at the same time has a few illegitimate uses should be considered a bad thing. Huh. Who knew? I guess the RIAA has more influence on us than we thought.

        You are not reading me correctly. As to illegitimate uses, the telegraph was used for that as well -- the lines frequently transmitted information about cargo on trains, which criminals used to plot which trains to rob. But that's not my point:

        I am looking at the social change that was brought about as a result of the technology. The telegraph allowed realtime worldwide communication, which previously didn't exist. The result was the world got a lot smaller, fast. The internet performs the same function as

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      All the examples you list are either broadcast or point to point communication. The internet is an evolution of these technologies that allows for both kinds of communication at a low cost of entry for billions. Not the greatest thing in mass communication in the last 100 years? A large and rapidly growing number of the population of this planet has the capacity to instantly communicate regardless of geographical location. It seems magical by comparison to communication technology of the past.

      As for gove
      • The internet is an evolution of these technologies...

        I rest my case. The Nobel Prize is awarded for revolutionary changes or significant advancements in the state of the art and our understanding of science, as well as acts which significantly advance peaceful behavior between people. The internet qualifies as neither a revolutionary technology, nor one that advances "peaceful behavior". I also somehow doubt it would win any awards for literature -- 4Chan comes to mind as a reason against.

    • Because the Internet has a property that none of those other options have: It’s the first time in history, that the general public has a intelligence agency more powerful than anything else on the world.

      But hey, the Internet getting a prize, and other things getting it, are no mutually exclusive concepts. So your “argument” is moot anyway.

      • Because the Internet has a property that none of those other options have: It's the first time in history, that the general public has a intelligence agency more powerful than anything else on the world.

        ...And the public has shown a remarkable disinclination towards self-education despite this. The idea that increased access to information will necessarily stir people towards enlightenment is one of humanity's oldest illusions.

    • by ildon ( 413912 )

      Forget that... I want "None of the Above" to win the award.

      That guy already won it in 1948. [wikipedia.org]

    • Well in a certain way of looking at things, nominating the Internet includes nominating all of those other things at the same time. Essentially you're nominating "the state of the art in mass communication", which includes sending signals over wire and mass reproduction of text.

  • Well... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by mobby_6kl ( 668092 )

    *fetches a flamesuit*

    well, at least that's not as ridiculous as when Obama got the prize!

  • How about we nominate the guy from all those stories about the 40th aniversery of the internet that we had to listen to in October? Can't remember his name but he worked at DARPA and got tired of having to change seats every time he wanted to use a different computer and was also tired of not being able have two computers in two different parts of the country talk to eachother instead of having to type things over and over again.

  • by CodeBuster ( 516420 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:43PM (#31046592)
    Al Gore should accept on behalf of the Internet; this way the irrelevance of the Nobel Peace Prize will be complete.
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:46PM (#31046612)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Awarding the Peace Prize to a thing? Ugh.

      They already gave it to Al Gore already. As far as animatronics go, he isn't even very life-like.

      At least the Internet has some personality.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by raddan ( 519638 ) *
      You can't award a Peace Prize to Berners-Lee: he's a knight [wikipedia.org]! Didn't you know? He didn't just beat Gopher-- he slew it!
      • Not true, gopher is still alive and well. Most of the people reading this still have a gopher client on their machine :)

    • I have always thought that Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World-Wide-Web, is deserving of a Peace Prize.[...] Awarding the Peace Prize to a thing? Ugh. Don't get me started. Awarding the Prize to organizations is silly enough already.

      Tom: Uh, how'd you solve the door dilemma?

      Buzz: Homer Simpson was the real hero here. He jury-rigged the door closed using this.

      Man 1: Hey, what is that?

      Man 2: It's an inanimate carbon rod!

      Everyone: Yay!

      [Time magazine cover: "In Rod We Trust"]

    • You know that the WWW is only a PART of the Internet?
      As in: The USA is just a PART of the world.

  • darpa (Score:5, Funny)

    by portscan ( 140282 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:46PM (#31046616)

    So, the award would really have to be given to DARPA -- the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is where the Internet was invented. After all the attention last year given to Obama receiving the prize while waging two wars, I think giving it to the US Military directly would really drive some people over the edge.

    • by santax ( 1541065 )
      You know, there is way to much truth in what you are saying. See that van outside? With that guy in black? Thats me. Please step out of your house sir and approach me with your hands where I can see them.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06, 2010 @12:54PM (#31046682)

    Okay, from RTFS, it seems like it's only been "nominated" by Wired magazine itself, which is not the same thing as receiving an official nomination. Is this the same shit that happened with that doctor in the Schiavo case, who went around on talk shows introducing himself as a Nobel Prize nominee because some Congressman wrote a letter to the Nobel committee once? It's like posting in a blog that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg deserve an Academy Award for Epic Movie and then going around calling it an Oscar-nominated film.

  • by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:01PM (#31046724) Homepage
    I nominate Inanimate Carbon Rod [wikia.com] for employee of the month.
  • There is a precedent for Nobel prizes to other than natural persons, and for the prize to not be awarded in a particular year. There's no reason they couldn't allocate the prize money back into the prize fund (like they did in 1972) while issuing a proclamation praising the Internet for whatever they like.

    The alternative would be to award the prize to DARPA, which is probably not really in keeping with the spirit of the award.

    • by argent ( 18001 )

      The alternative would be to award the prize to DARPA, which is probably not really in keeping with the spirit of the award.

      "Peace through superior firepower"

  • There is something to this, in that when individual citizens of different countries
    communicate directly with each other, and can read a broad range of perspective,
    their political views will inevitably slide toward global norms.

    The non-hierarchical, international nature of the Internet is a threat to
    the sovereignty of state governments. The state government now just becomes
    one of many voices communicating with its people.

    The challenge to peace-loving people will be resisting the tendency of threatened state

  • by LockeOnLogic ( 723968 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @01:30PM (#31046924)
    Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel (emphasis added): "...divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the PERSON who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the PERSON who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the PERSON who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

    This nomination of an object clearly goes against the founders intent. Are we going to aware the physics prize to the LHC someday?
  • Clearly (Score:2, Insightful)

    These people have not heard of 4chan.
  • Yasser Arafat for bring "peace" and then Obama for things he had yet to do?

    This is about as meaningful as who wins an Academy Award.

  • ..since not one, but two new types of war were discovered with the Internet - cyberwar and flamewar.

  • What's going on? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by D. Taylor ( 53947 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @02:39PM (#31047358) Homepage
    Has the Nobel Peace Prize jumped the shark along with everything else?
  • A THING is winning the Nobel prize?
    I guess it makes as much sense as Obama's winning it, and what did the Prez do to deserve it?
    IMHO Obama won the prize for being the first black US president & for being "anybody but Bush".

  • by kandresen ( 712861 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @05:33PM (#31048416)

    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.

  • Yes, Internet maybe is a mess, full of useless web, pr0n, even radical entities who calls for killing people because of race/religion/conditions/etc. But, in same time, it's wonderful media to help people in Iran to spread the truth about what's going on here, to help people in Haiti with all great web projects which (I really hope) helped rescuers on the ground (accidents report, map crowdsourcing from satphotos and info from the ground, etc.). For each useless and oxygen-waste sales-man who tries to spam

  • For his vast financial contributions to charity and the effort he is putting into focusing it. His example has inspired other "new money" to be more charitable too.
  • Ok, fine. its important. How about award the teams that started the entire thing instead?

  • by Anarchduke ( 1551707 ) on Saturday February 06, 2010 @08:20PM (#31049500)
    Then I want to nominate the Pacific Ocean for a Peace Prize. Without the Pacific Ocean separating The Americas from Asia and Australia, I am certain we would have had more wars.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov

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