Nobel Peace Prize

Unless you live in China.

Wait, what?

It matters not anyways. The Nobel Peace Prize became worthless when they gave it to Obama for effectively nothing.

edited 8th Oct '10 3:13:51 PM by MajorTom

It was too soon for Obama, I admit.

But this one is highly deserved, and China are being predicably fucktarded in criticising it.

The Nobel Peace Prize became worthless when they gave it to Obama for effectively nothing.

I'd push it back to Teddy getting it, personally.

It's a silly award.

Lol conservatives. 'This group of people gave an award to someone I disagree with! THEY HAVE BECOME THE ENEMY.'

Obama himself stated that he considered his award premature. It was certainly not, however, the Nobel Commitee's worst decision.

I'd push it back to Teddy getting it, personally.

They should have given Teddy TWO nobel prizes - one for peace, the other for safari.

Awh yeah!

Giving Obama the peace prize when he hadn't actually done anything was just stupid. Its amazing: even the Nobel Prize committee thought he'd fix everything.

It's the least meaningful Nobel prize. They should stick to science.

Or make it one of those very special prizes they only give up when someone does something fairly spectacular. Things like ending Apartheid. I'd reserve one for whoever can end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or bring peace to Somalia. Or even someone who brings great progress towards those goals. The kinds of very rare achievements that save thousands of people and mark a breakthrough in the quality of life for an entire region.

edited 9th Oct '10 10:56:27 AM by GameChainsaw

I'm just glad that someone finally decided to call china's bluff when they threw a temper tantrum this time. "Stop decrying our human rights abuses, or we'll...uh...be really mad at you!"

Of course they doll it up with fancy language and lots of bullshit, but that's what it amounts to.

(Yes, I know that they could actually do something in response, but my point is they're not going to over something so trivial.)

I know of only 2 peace Nobel prizes, probably because both of those were controversial: the one given to Obama (before he accomplished anything) and the one given to both the late prime minister of Israel and the late leader of the Palestinians, who also did not accomplish anything.

This is the only information I have and I'm not in the mood to do any research. According to this (extremely limited) info the Nobel peace prize does indeed look like BS.

The link in the OP is not mainly about the peace Nobel Prize however, it's about the Chinese government censoring information they don't like, and that means anything that they think hinders their ability to oppress their people.

edited 9th Oct '10 11:25:09 AM by Kolikeos

The Literature prize is worse than the Peace one. The prize committee is pretty much openly biased against American writers.

The literature prize is wholly subjective and should be scrapped. How can you objectively measure the merit of a fictional piece of writing over another?

Who else totally called that Major Tom was going to say that?

I thought these prizes are sort of obsolete long ago. A bit like the Oscars.

About the one with the Prize for Literature, yes, it's subjective, inevitably so, but writers in general yearn for something other than platonically producing writings and share it with the masses. It can seem absurd and purposeless in the long run. Also the masses need some kind of yardstick, and these prizes are like the Oprah book club for the highbrow crowd perhaps. It's human too. Not everyone writes for a bizarrely over-personal reasons like Kafka.

It matters not anyways. The Nobel Peace Prize became worthless when they gave it to Obama for effectively nothing.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been worthless for a long time, but that really was the cherry on top of the uselessness cake. It's a disgrace to the other Nobel Prizes.

As for the article, meh, China censors its internet, film at 11. Everybody who cares knows how to get around it.

edited 10th Oct '10 11:45:38 PM by jaimeastorga2000

All of the Nobel Prizes are completely pointless. If I was ever in a position to earn one, I'd keep the prize money and sell the prize for more money, while flipping the bird to Swedes in general. (Nothing against Swedes in general. I just feel it would piss the committee off.)

If anything, there should be a Nobel Prize for the most effective and epic use of TNT.

Heh. The Nobel peace prize just happens to be the one Nobel prize not awarded by Swedes (or even in Sweden). The winner is chosen by a delegation of the Norwegian parliament.

A few of the people that got the prece prize actually deserved it btw, though that appers to be the exception. But what are you gonna do? Nobel said in his testament that it is to be awarded every year, even if they have to reach to find a candidate. Scratch that. Turns out they can just not award it if they choose to. They should do that more often.

edited 10th Oct '10 4:49:27 PM by DasAuto

If anything, there should be a Nobel Prize for the most effective and epic use of TNT.

I'm all in favor of giving the Myth Busters a Nobel Peace prize.

The Mythbusters deserve a Nobel Prize in physics at least. How many people can actually lay claim to actually doing several thought experiments like "If you fire a bullet from a level position and drop a bullet from the same height at the same time, will they both hit the ground at the same time?". (For the record, Myth Confirmed in a world first)

edited 10th Oct '10 5:24:01 PM by MajorTom

So everyone here seems to think that if an award is subjective, it has no reason to exist.

So everyone here seems to think that if an award is subjective, it has no reason to exist.

Putting extremely subjective awards next to a bunch of those with more objective standards is a bad idea. It conflates them. The Nobel Peace Prize may or may not have reason to exist, but it shouldn't be nearly as prestigious as it is made out to be.

^^^ But the answer to that is plainly obvious to anybody who's taken a high school physics course...

Not saying that the mythbusters don't deserve credit. They deserve lots of credit for promoting scientific inquiry, as opposed to relying on preconceived notions.

edited 10th Oct '10 5:50:21 PM by Chubert

^ It was so plainly obvious that people never actually tried it in a proper experiment.