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Comment by oefrha | Hacker News Reader

And last year it went to someone praising Netanyahu on multiple occasions and tried very hard to kiss Trump’s ass—Trump even got gifted that frigging medal, which was a huge embarrassment for the committee a couple months back. That’s among a long list of extremely questionable recipients. Sure they may have selected the “right” recipient (to some) this year. But why even bother paying attention to a broken clock.

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The Peace Prize seems somewhat hit or miss. I'm sure we all remember when it was given to Barack Obama for his lifelong work of not being George W Bush. And of course it was given to Henry Effin' Kissinger.

Maybe this speaks to the difficulty of peace in general. One asshole warmonger can destroy thousands of lives on a whim, but ending or preventing war takes long, steady efforts by large numbers of people. It's not very amenable to an individual prize.

I think the best recipients tend to be those who are involved in "structural" work to advance the cause of peace, rather than those who have been involved in helping settle specific conflicts.

For example, consider the difference between the first five recipients (all for founding various influential peace organisations) vs the sixth (for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War).

In that respect, Pillay seems one of the better laureates of recent years.

Looking at the history it was awarded to organizations a decent number of times in the past, (even up to Nihon Hidankyo in 2024 which focuses on impact from Nagasaki/Hiroshima and anti-atomic weapon advocacy)....

which to your point does seem to make more sense than singling out an individual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laur...

I think people are making a mistake when they view the Peace Prize as an evaluation of a person's character or their entire career. Often it's targeting specific negotiations or treaties, which in retrospect were failed attempts at peace. This applies to Kissinger in the case of the Paris Peace Accords, Begin/Sadat for the Camp David Accords, Arafat/Peres/Rabin for the Oslo Accords, etc.

I can’t comment on the others, but this perspective doesn’t really make Kissinger’s case any better. Even his co-winner thought it was ridiculous and refused the prize.

María Corina Machado has stood up against authoritarianism in Venezuela for more than a decade. I don't think awarding the prize should require that the recipient is a perfect person or holds all of the "correct" opinions according to bystanders who have no skin in the game.

That vendepatria hasn't stood up to any authoritarianism; all she's done is buddy up with other authoritarians to try to obtain power. Her giving her Peace Prize to Trump might be one of the most humiliating things she could have done.

I don't put much weight on guilt by association. She's led public protests against the Maduro regime and had to go into hiding to escape imprisonment. She's advocated for free and fair elections, rule of law, separation of powers, civil liberties, decentralization, private property, and competitive markets. Can you explain how those actions and ideas are authoritarian?

She also advocated for the USA to invade her country to depose Maduro. That alone should disqualify her from a Peace prize.

Can you explain how you can praise Trump if you

> advocated for free and fair elections, rule of law, separation of powers, civil liberties, decentralization, private property, and competitive markets.

Venezuela is America's bitch. As is much of South America with the honourable exceptions of Mexico and Cuba.

These are just typical talking points of opposition. Many a politician has completely reversed course once they’re in power themself, so judging an opposition politician trying to obtain power on that is pretty stupid for students of history. They don’t typically call for foreign invasion though, and don’t tend to get a Nobel Peace Prize for that.

Oh and don’t get me started on what historically passed as “free and fair elections, rule of law, separation of powers, civil liberties, decentralization, private property, and competitive markets” for puppets ruling South and Central America.

Upvoted for using the word "vendepatrias".

For those who don't speak Spanish, it means someone who would sell their homeland, the worst kind of traitor.

She genuinely fcked that one tho. Despite having skin in the game, that was one big loosing move.

Many "hard science" Nobel prize recipients also turned out to be complete embarrassment of themselves... There is even a name for that. "Nobel disease".

These horrible Nobel Peace Prize recipients (and in some cases, Literature Prize recipients as well) are nothing like “Nobel disease”. Said recipient was praising the genocide perpetrator and war criminal (according to this year’s recipient, ironically) as well as performing the ass kissing and inviting foreign invasion before the award was given. The committee bestowed the award knowing very well what they’re getting into, and time and time again it’s nothing more than a political endorsement of a specific kind of “peace”—well, if you consider inviting foreign invasion an act of peace. Actually it’s more like endorsement of a particular ideology, sometimes not even peaceful.

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