Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

27 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Soo.... by nine-times · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Soo.... by A.+B3ttik · · Score: 5, Funny

      I dunno, is Al Gore even allowed to receive two Nobel Peace prizes?

    2. 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
    3. Re:Soo.... by LockeOnLogic · · Score: 5, Funny

      So, the United States then?

    4. Re:Soo.... by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    5. Re:Soo.... by Third+Position · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --
      American Third Position
      Finally, a real choice!
    6. Re:Soo.... by SEWilco · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

  2. The speech by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Internet has decided to present its acceptance speech in form of a Twitter live feed.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  3. Obligatory by NYMeatball · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  4. irony by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. Let Al Gore Accept by CodeBuster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Al Gore should accept on behalf of the Internet; this way the irrelevance of the Nobel Peace Prize will be complete.

  8. 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.

  9. darpa by portscan · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:darpa by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Informative

      He also just called for increased funding for the development and testing of nuclear weapons. That was all on him.

  10. Officially nominated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Officially nominated? by twidarkling · · Score: 5, Informative

      Excellent point. The Prize Committee doesn't tell who the nominated parties are until 50 years, according to the first link in the summary. I could nominate my toothbrush, and post about it, and it'd be as a legitimate a story as this one.

      --
      Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
  11. Blasphemy! by sakdoctor · · Score: 5, Funny

    The internet's acceptance speech was actually:

    HTTP/1.1 202 Accepted

    1. Re:Blasphemy! by cptnapalm · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nice, short and to the point, much like Joe Pesci's Oscar speech: "Uh, thanks."

  12. I nominate ... by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Funny

    I nominate Inanimate Carbon Rod for employee of the month.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  13. Legitimate entry? Not according to Nobel's will... by LockeOnLogic · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?

  14. 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