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Comment by yostrovs | Hacker News Reader

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I would rather give the "Fire Safety" prize to the people who installed sprinklers and smoke alarms than to firefighters

And what does that look like in this context, eligible countries that haven’t been at war in a while get together at pat each other on the back?

That misses the analogy.

Such countries already have not only smoke alarms but also building codes and layers of safety systems.

The analogy matches a person who goes to a place with high fire risk and no safety systems in place and through tireless effort introduces common sense measures to protect people.

No, it doesn’t miss the analogy, it questions the applicability of the analogy by asking that it be tied back more completely to the circumstances at play. Analogies are valuable rhetorical devices only in so far as they map to the salient aspects of the comparative target. In this case, either there is a target group to receive the awards, the those doing the safety work, or there is not. In the later case, the analogy is invalidated unless the resulting conclusion is something like “and so we shouldn’t have an award like this because it would just be a strange thing to do” or something along those lines that equally ties the analogy back to the real world.

You may think that but Alfred Nobel disagreed and it is his prize. If she fits the criteria is another question but it was certainly not intended to just be about real wars and real peace (whatever that is).

    den som har verkat mest eller best för folkens förbrödrande och afskaffande
    eller minskning af stående arméer samt bildande och spridande af
    fredskongresser

    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

English translation is taken from Wikipedia and not totally exact but close enough.

Relevant in this context: The translation introduces “nations” , but the original talks about peace between “people”.

I would say that is likely a correct translation as the original text refers to nation as in a group of people with a shared culture. But, yes, it is not nation as in country. So the original text refers to fraternity between peoples of different cultures, not of fraternity between countries.

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

How is the quote contradicting GP's position?

From the quote it doesn't seem like Alfred Nobel had civil or political rights in mind with his prize. (Not that it bothers me to give it to civil rights activists though)

It does because Alfred Nobel cared about internationalism and pacifism, neither "real wars" nor civil rights. I did not say she was a worthy winner just that we should look at what the will actually says instead of just inventing an own definition.

Excuses me, English isn't my native language but how isn't “fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”[1] talking about actual war between countries (which I'm pretty certain is what yostrovs was talking about with (arguably clumsy) “real war” phrase.

[1]: (emphasis mine)

Consider this. There are circumstances in Venezuela that some would consider worthy of a civil war. This award winner has chosen peaceful resistance, acts that may have prevented war.

Who would you give the Nobel Peace Prize to?

Is that even a question!? Ben Gvir, Smotrich, or Mileikowsky.

For raising the bar so high.

That would be far worse than Kissinger.

I was being sarcastic but definitely happy to see the down votes.

Not yet.

From the New York Times "The Daily" podcast today:

  Mark, what you've described and what we're seeing unfold is genuinely an impressive feat by Trump. To be able to capitalize on what seemed like this giant setback. Israel literally bombed the negotiators and the mediators. To turn that around and get a deal that Biden couldn't get done, that no other leader in the world had managed despite trying for two years straight. It is significant achievement. He was able to bring these sides together that had shown no willingness to end the war. And now they've come to this agreement. And it should also be said that one of the biggest things here is that he was willing to put pressure on Netanyahu in a way that President Biden was unwilling to do. Why do you think that's the case?
  I think there's a few reasons. First, I think Trump genuinely wanted to end the war. He campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine and in Gaza.

Too late for this year, but if it holds it should be considered for next year.

This is like buying tickets to watch your favorite sports team win first place. It's good to support the boys, but you'd didn't do anything. The rest of Trump's thinly veiled autocratic tendencies — whether they're rhetoric aimed to rile up opponents or real goals — have done little to promote fraternity amongst nations & people.

"I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!"

-María Corina Machado 9:34 AM · Oct 10, 2025

This is, as yet, being reported in contradictory ways when I went looking to see if it was correct so here’s the link to where she appears to do this, assuming the post is authentic (no reason to believe otherwise but these days…)

https://x.com/MariaCorinaYA/status/1976642376119549990

"Political expediency makes for strange bedfellows, news at 11!"

I'm not even sure I'm against everything Trump is up to (it's unclear to me); I just don't like the autocratic moves: it's unamerican, and bad for democracy. It's setting a standard & an allowable behavior that could be exploited by bad people.

It should be considered all right, but the committee is also going to look at the whole person and Trump isn't exactly the Gandhi-like figure you'd expect to win the prize.

I think Trump genuinely doesn't like people being killed, but he's also driving a wedge in the US that can't be ignored. Sending American troops against its own citizen: not exactly Nobel-prize worthy.

> I think Trump genuinely doesn't like people being killed

This is a strange thought considering his actions.

Between drone strikes, mishandling of COVID, dismantling of foreign aid, defunding American health care, cutting off Ukraine support at several critical moments, encouraging and materially supporting Israel, he may actually end up (or already be) responsible for the most deaths of any president.

> I think Trump genuinely doesn't like people being killed

While I do understand this might be true in essence, things are a lot more complicated. He's said some heinous things that riled up actual loonies into a frenzy more than once. Deliberately. Not peace price material IMHO.

(To be fair, I generally lean left, but I don't agree with Obama getting the prize in 2009 as well, what with the targeted assassination program and all)

Its almost like there should be a Nobel "anti-prize" denouncing these people.

It remains to be seen if this turns into anything. He deliberately misunderstood the Palestinians and made the proclamation that everything was fixed. The Palestinians have to give up some major things for this to work, things they were previously unwilling to do, and are probably still unwilling to do.

Yeah it might be eligible but the academy won't change an upcoming winner in only a few days

The nominations for this year's prize closed January 31st; anyone doing anything worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize after that date may be considered for next year.

> To turn that around and get a deal that Biden couldn't get done,

Biden had different pressures. E.g. I suspect that he judged that the knife-edge election he was facing didn't allow him enough leeway to put more pressure on Israel.

In addition Netanyahu made it easier to force through a settlement given he'd manage to alienate practically everyone, including uniting the Arab world after that unbelievable strike on Doha.

If you were a cynical person you could also ask whether this settlement owes anything to Trump's personal narcissist saviour complex or need to distract from domestic issues such as the Epstein files...

Still, even despite some significant scepticism about Trump's motives, I think there is a reasonable case to be made for awarding him the prize. It was still a significant (maybe even brave) jump to break with American political orthodoxy to put this kind of pressure on Israel, and the practical result of this could be very significant in terms of saving lives and potentially long-term peace in the region. We also need to encourage these kind of acts, even (or especially) amongst unlikely peacemakers like Trump.

Let's see what it looks like next year, though. Middle East peace deals don't have a great history of holding together.

I would love full transparency to the Biden Admin's dealings wrt Israel.

I've wondered if one of the (under reported) pressures was the realpolitik geopolitical machinations of containing Iran. Especially wrt Iran's closer ties with Russia and China.

But even with insight, I would not forgive.

The whole thing just angers and saddens me. Neighbors killing neighbors. For nothing.

So many missed opportunities, snafus. Imagine what could have been. Normalization between USA-Iran (post-9/11, pre- "Axis of Evil"). Some kind of accommodation for coexistence. Nurturing democracy and development throughout the middle east.

And on and on. Going back decades, generations, ...

Trump does not fit the criteria set out by Alfred Nobel. By increasing the NATO spending he worked against "the abolition or reduction of standing armies" and he has made the "fraternity between nations" a lot worse with random threats which I doubt would weight up his "promotion of peace congresses".

I really hope they would not award someone the prize who works so blatantly against the word and spirit of the criteria in the will.

Those criteria sound like they should disqualify the person who actually got it.

Perhaps, but I was talking about Trump now. He would be a pretty big violation of the spirit of the will even if he would not be the first such.

I will personally try to refrain from commenting on the Venezuelan opposition since I do not know enough about them.

I hadn't heard of her either before today, I'm basing that on what people have said here - all good for sure, but unrelated to those criteria.

"...he was willing to put pressure on Netanyahu in a way that President Biden was unwilling to do."

Unwilling or unable? Netanyahu hated Biden and has done everything in his power to sabotage anything Democrats have done to try to help resolve the conflict, even prior to Oct 7.

Not even sure there's evidence of the pressure? What pressure?

Trump let Netanyahu run roughshod, and the proposed peace agreement (which almost certainly won't hold) is pretty... let's say vague... about the plan for Gaza post hostage-release.

All that's happened here is another agreement to exchange hostages for prisoners, which has happened multiple times in this war already. Not much else is actually agreed to and obviously even less has actually happened.

Unwilling. Biden has been a Zionist and Netanyahu/Likud supporter for decades. They put on a show in press briefings but did nothing behind closed doors, instead kept supplying them.

Biden wasn't even trying though.

Far more importantly, this might force Trump to continue the pressure on the Israelis, whose very nature is to be untrustworthy, not worth trusting, since they love not just violating agreements but also using agreements as a lever for abuse. There are all the typical Israeli fingerprints all over the current deal that the Israelis will likely use to bring the whole thing back down around Trump unless he can maintain pressure. This prize increases the slim likelihood that he will have to of he covers that prize as much as it seems he does. I do not think he can or will though, and the Israelis may just even persuade him that they have a far more juicy prize to offer him instead.

I think Trump wanted to force the rather compromised committee to make a similarly foolish decision as giving Obama the prize, which would have then permitted immediate Israeli breach of the settlement.

Not to take away from Machado’s work, but this year’s prize is at the very least political, to both appease Trump in line with the above and also send a message in the face of the war build-up against Venezuela. At the same time their decision also facilitates the American takeover through less than lethal means by CIA revolution and the combined pressure of it all on the Venezuelan government. Machado is in fact a CIA asset, whether she realizes it or not.

Machado is in fact a CIA asset, whether she realizes it or not.

If you think Eastern Europe was liberated without involvement from the CIA, which has a mixed history w.r.t. competent ops in that region, I've got a Nobel prize to sell you.

No. I just don’t care for America “liberating” other people in direct violation of the founding principles of America before it was overtaken by all manner of parasitic foreign vultures that want to commandeer America for their own little ethic agendas and priorities that expose all of them as not actually being American, regardless of what the paperwork says. You can’t be made American when America exists in name only anymore.

If you've been paying attention, you see that Trump is not, as you put it, appeased at all. He doesn't know who Machado is. He utterly and publicly and loudly missed the irony.

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were not hijacked by ethnic agendas, again,, as you put it. The outcome they achieved was the whole point of the Cold War. It was an outcome with bipartisan support over the course of decades. Defending the value of that outcome by supporting Ukraine and NATO is also not anything as small as an ethnic agenda.

There’s kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and rape of political dissidents.

They created an exodus of 8 million people.

Starved the population.

Killed people in the thousands in the favelas and other poor areas without a trial.

Steals elections.

To me that’s a regime at war with its own population and it deserves all the condemnation possible and all the support necessary to help transition back to democracy.

What he is being accused of is a tiny fraction of what has been proven to have taken place in Gaza, under the protection of the west.

Yet the aircraft carriers are poised in the gulf to enact a third regime change operation in this oil rich country America wants under its thumb with a puppet running it.

This is the PR campaign beforehand, just like the "WMD" PR campaign in the run up to Iraq, with a woman who supports genocide in Gaza (https://x.com/VenteVenezuela/status/1286346531591852036 ) being lauded with a nobel peace prize. This is probably to lend her legitimacy when she becomes that puppet.

Saddam was a bad man too but he was an average evil. The warmongers who want to destabilize every country with oil, send in the tanks and install yet another Western puppet to maintain an iron grip on global oil supplies are a very special and unique kind of evil.

I’m not going to engage in a competition of tragedies. You are replying to a venezuelan with relatives and friends that have suffered and still suffer the consequences of the regime.

Just stop and think for a moment before even think about downplaying or comparing what is happening in my country with other world conflicts, and please don’t even dare to explain what I’ve been living.

All countries that have a regime have many factions: supporters, opposition, those who are well-intentioned and those who would just like their side to get into power again and suppress those others. Your lived experience as a Venezuelan is not imbued with some infallible essence that just wants peace and justice and good things; all people, also those who are telling the honest truth, have their own limited perspective and motivations and cannot speak for The Country alone.

We certainly accept this when the topic is some country that we know better here. We don’t accept the proclamation of an-ordinary-American as the infallible voice of the people. Why should we treat other countries differently?

So given the above, the other poster is within their right to compare tragedies and speculate about whether the price was deserved—it’s a competition—, and you can’t trump that by saying “but my lived experience”.

The Palestinian diaspora is also around 8 million. Chavez and Maduro made the Venezuelans poorer than the Palestinians. I think Israel (and Stern/Irgun before that) has killed more than Chavez/Maduro in all its "defensive" wars of conquest. The Israeli Supreme Court seems to be surprisingly reliable and fair, even to Palestinians. Venezuela's courts are entirely under regime control.

... and yet the consequences of what's going is as if there was war, the economy is suffering as if there was war, the people are fleeing as if there was war and dying as if there was war

You don't need a war to have a lack of Peace!

to add to your comment, check out the list of the biggest refugee crises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_refugee_crises

Venezuela is number 5 by the number of displaced people, the rest are all wars, it's crazy for a country at peace

But then there are dozens of impoverished and unjust places on earth. I think the reality is that the five exclusively Norwegian politicians on the Peace prize committee are politicians. And they act accordingly. What if the committee would consist of Russian politicians exclusively, or Venezuelan ones?

> But then there are dozens of impoverished and unjust places on earth.

They only give out one prize, which means that no matter which they pick, there will be dozes of impoverished and unjust places that don't get recognized by it. That can't be used to reject a choice, since it's true no matter what choice they make.

Nobel peace prize was always political. Obama got it. Gandhi was rejected.

This has confused me for long enough. What specific action did Obama do to be awarded the Nobel peace prize?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize provides a good overview of why he got the award and the surrounding controversy.

- Promotion of nuclear nonproliferation.

- Reaching out to the Muslim world.

I see. Thank you.

Obama and Gore both got it for not being Bush.

I can remember when that was a huge contrast.

It was probably premature.

But the relation between USA and the Arabic states were on an all time low after the Bush Crusade.

And Obama reached out to fix the relations. This is my recollection of it.

But i can agree that the rushed decision created problems afterwards for the committee. Like today when it is questioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize

> The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to United States president Barack Obama (b. 1961) for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

Interesting summary. The relationship with some Arab speaking states has had some recent relevance.

Black. It had a very high approval rate in Europe.

> black

> throwaway48476

Every time.

Doesn't mean that he's wrong, just that he knows it is an unpopular position. I can think of other positions that become fashionable or not with no relation to being correct or incorrect.

I personally don't know if he's right or wrong, I don't live in Europe, but the need to use a throwaway account is not evidence for being wrong.

The difference between whataboutism and discussion is that in discussion you propose an alternative. For example: how about that real estate developer who has fumbled multiple diplomatic initiatives?

That would be a basis for discussion.

I don't know honestly if some people feed on negative attention or if they just live their life trying to fit square pegs into round holes

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