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Internet Nominated For 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-don't-know-where-to-send-the-fruit-basket dept.

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."

21 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory by NYMeatball · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "At least the Internet's been in office longer than Obama"

    1. Re:Obligatory by darjen · · Score: 1, Insightful

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

  2. Decline of the Prize by Anonymous Coward · · 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"?

    1. Re:Decline of the Prize by retchdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    2. Re:Decline of the Prize by Kral_Blbec · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And if that didn't so it, then last year sure did.

    3. Re:Decline of the Prize by jfengel · · Score: 3, 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.

  3. Fail by girlintraining · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Fail by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Fail by chaosite · · 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.

  4. Tim Berners-Lee by wigaloo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have always thought that Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World-Wide-Web, is deserving of a Peace Prize. Communication is the foundation of peace, and it is hard do identify another individual who has done so much for world-wide communications in recent history.

    Awarding the Peace Prize to a thing? Ugh. Don't get me started. Awarding the Prize to organizations is silly enough already.

  5. Re:Soo.... by penguinoid · · 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.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  6. Re:darpa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    (and trying to end)

    proof? i've seen nothing of the sort.

  7. Clearly by ShiningSomething · · Score: 2, Insightful

    These people have not heard of 4chan.

  8. Nobel peace prize by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    has become a joke.

  9. Helps to put Obama in perspective by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    1. Re:Helps to put Obama in perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And the Nobel Prizes for Psychology and Sociology are respectable awards established by Alfred Nobel himself.

  10. What's going on? by D.+Taylor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Has the Nobel Peace Prize jumped the shark along with everything else?

  11. Internet is a TOOL used for peace and war... by kandresen · · Score: 2, 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.

  12. Evolution of politics by ElusiveJoe · · 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

  13. If we can nominate the Internet ... by Anarchduke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
  14. Re:Soo.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At least the internet has actually done something, unlike the last several winners.