{"id":28736,"date":"2020-10-13T10:45:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T14:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=28736"},"modified":"2020-10-13T10:45:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T14:45:51","slug":"nobel-peace-prize-should-have-gone-to-network-engineers-and-sysadmins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/13\/nobel-peace-prize-should-have-gone-to-network-engineers-and-sysadmins\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Peace Prize should have gone to network engineers and sysadmins?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite having engineered the first two Middle East peace agreements in the 21st century<\/a>, Donald Trump has apparently failed to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a> (maybe if he advocated for the deportation of Muslims, he could join Aung San Suu Kyi<\/a> in the ranks of the winners?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who got the award? Some highly paid bureaucrats at the United Nations who take money that other people worked hard to earn, spend the money on food, and then hand the food out (BBC<\/a>). This is analogous to borrowing a neighbor’s car, giving it to non-profit org (I recommend Harvard or MIT!), and donning the mantle of pure Jesus-like charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers: Who should have gotten the award, if not these UN bureaucrats who were simply doing the job for which they were hired and paid? (or maybe you want to argue that they deserved it!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My suggestion: The network engineers and sysadmins that enabled richer people all over the world to cower in place while enjoying streaming video entertainment, Zoom and similar video collaboration tools, and other services that we would have expected to fall over in the face of a sudden 10X boost in demand. How is it “peace”, though? Consider that people from different nations have been able to continue to work together despite travel bans, thus promoting international trade and cooperation. There would surely be a lot more domestic strife and violence if locked-down people couldn’t reach out electronically and\/or zone out with Netflix. Why not recognize the people who built the Verizon and Comcast networks, Amazon Web Services, and similar?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite having engineered the first two Middle East peace agreements in the 21st century, Donald Trump has apparently failed to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize (maybe if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering"],"yoast_head":"\nNobel Peace Prize should have gone to network engineers and sysadmins? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/13\/nobel-peace-prize-should-have-gone-to-network-engineers-and-sysadmins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nobel Peace Prize should have gone to network engineers and sysadmins? 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