Last year the Nobel Prize committee was widely criticised for (prematurely) awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an unproven Barack Obama. To atone, they’ve taken the only logical step and nominated an intangible inanimate object that touches all of our lives – religion the internet.
That’s right the Internet has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was petitioned by the Italian arm of tech Bible Wired Magazine: “The internet can be considered the first weapon of mass construction, which we can deploy to destroy hate and conflict and to propagate peace and democracy,” explained Wired Italy Editor-in-Chief Riccardo Luna “What happened in Iran after the latest election, and the role the web played in spreading information that would otherwise have been censored, are only the newest examples of how the internet can become a weapon of global hope.”
While this is a forward-thinking and deserved nomination we have a few queries…
– Who accepts the award? If “The Internet” does indeed win – who accepts the award? Mark Zuckerberg? The keyboard cat? The two girls from two girls one cup? The cup from two girls one cup? Or, as we hope might happen, will The Internet show it’s true form and materialize on stage sporting a data-cloak and meta-boots while screaming “I AM THE INTERNET!” and shaking it’s menacing porn tendrils at world leaders?
– How do the other nominees feel? Think about it this way. You work your entire life for the good of mankind. You strive constantly for world peace and when that ultimate accolade finally comes knocking, you have to fend off the internet? What the fuck is that? The Internet won’t cry itself to sleep because it didn’t win an award. The internet doesn’t even know what peace is. I mean, no one wants to look back on their life and think – Man I would have totally won that Nobel Peace prize if I wasn’t up against The Internet.
– Is this the first step toward a Matrix-style machine takeover? Sure it seems innocuous at first. Give The Internet a Nobel Peace Prize and everyone feels included – it’s democratic, it’s funny, it’s deserved, it’s revolutionary. But what happens when The Internet reads about its Nobel Peace Prize win ON ITSELF and becomes conscious/self-aware? That’s when the machines takeover, mankind gets turned into skin-headed batteries and the hopes of a planet rest in the incapable hands of Keanu Reeves and many interpretations of the phrase “whoa”.
– Is The Internet really that peaceful? Riccardo Luna states that the internet can “destroy hate and conflict” and that’s certainly true. But what Wired Italy’s Editor-in-Chief has failed to consider is a little thing called Youtube commenters. We’ll call this Exhibit A:
Via Wired
