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Comment by swyx | Hacker News Reader

Im not sure why this is but I'm always happier about the prize going to an organization rather than an individual person. I think literally placing the entire weight of world peace on one person is too much, and it places that person under incredible scrutiny for the rest of their life (or conversely anything bad they personally did in the past gets dragged up). handing it to an org recognizes that it takes much more than a single person to effect change and puts the cause above identity or personal flaws.

Malala does seem to be handling it well, so what do I know.

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Very much in agreement with you.

In this day and age, a single person having this level of impact on the world is rare. They might be the figure head, but there is usually a team behind the figure head that finally implements it. The team also deserve the recognition.

In 1998 'United Nations Peacekeeping Forces' [1] won the peace prize; and this particular winner (org had people from multiple countries) is true embodiment of the point - "it takes much more than a single person..".

[1] aka 'The Blue Helmets' https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d-2uMYBSL68/maxresdefault.jpg

Don't know if this one really aged well considering how rapey the blue helmets turned out to be. It's more of an Aung San Suu Kyi type of example.

Totally agree. The European Union got the peace prize in 2012. Europa used to be most warn torn part of the world, and the origin of two world wars. Members states of the EU are expelled if they have armed conflicts with their neighbouring countries.

Not exactly - there's no mechanism to expel a member state from the EU.

Member states may have "certain [...] rights deriving from the application of the Treaties to the Member State in question, including the voting rights of the representative of the government of that Member State in the Council" suspended, but "The obligations of the Member State in question under the Treaties shall in any case continue to be binding on that State." (Article 7 TEU)

The only way for a member state to cease being a member state is through the withdrawal process in Article 50 TEU (i.e. like Brexit).

The United States are still waiting for their peace prize on the same grounds. And the peace has lasted longer.

Was America a war torn region before the states united? As far as I know, not by a long shot.

Quite a bit of genocide occurred in the territories, but most of that calmed down before they reached statehood.

The genocide and marginalization against the native population continued well after the union, as far as I know.

Did the creation of the EU stop some war in Western Europe?

That is commonly believed, yes - it has brought together countries that had been in a bitter war less than 50 years earlier, and may well have preserved the peace.

Pure speculation. Just like the states haven't had a war because they're the United States. Imagine if the states would have become independent countries. I can imagine the endless warfare. Nobel in Peace as clearly deserved as the European States.

Sure, it's all speculation, not claiming otherwise. But this can be said about any historical event that was "prevented" - by definition, it didn't happen, so we can only assume that it could have happened if something didn't stop it.

Wasn't that the NATO instead?

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