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How the Nobel Peace Prize Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Brian is with me as always. Jerry's
0:18
Speaker 1: here too. And if you put the three of us together,
0:20
Speaker 1: stir us around, Shake us up a little bit. Put
0:23
Speaker 1: in a raw egg white. Shake us again, Add some mice.
0:27
Speaker 1: Shake us the third time until your hand can't stand
0:29
Speaker 1: the outside of the shaker any longer. Pour us into
0:33
Speaker 1: a coupe or coupe, depending on where you are into
0:35
Speaker 1: the world. Put a real deal marischino cherry not that
0:39
Speaker 1: can you buy the grocery store in US. And a
0:42
Speaker 1: nice little swizzle stick. You've got stuff you should know.
0:46
Speaker 1: I just added a little egg white to my my
0:50
Speaker 1: chuck B drink. What's your chuck B drink? It's my
0:53
Speaker 1: spin on the bee's knees. It's the chuck B. It's
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Speaker 1: in b e yes, sure, neat. So there's honey in it.
1:00
Speaker 1: Whiskey and crem to manth right. No, I do a
1:08
Speaker 1: shot of gin of a blond dart. You got laon
1:11
Speaker 1: dart at your house? No, you want to send me some? Sure,
1:14
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's a local. Uh. It's from old fourth
1:18
Speaker 1: word distillery. It's it's a ginger lemon liqueur. That's pretty cool. Uh.
1:24
Speaker 1: And then I add a little pineapple gum syrup, just
1:26
Speaker 1: a little bit, because that goes a long way, I
1:28
Speaker 1: can imagine. And then what else do I add? At
1:31
Speaker 1: ginger bitters? You gotta have a lemon juice? What about
1:35
Speaker 1: honey honey syrup? Okay? Right? Like I make mountain honey syrup.
1:39
Speaker 1: Not not sure because then it just sits at the
1:41
Speaker 1: bottom like a dumb viscus thing right saying, don't look
1:47
Speaker 1: at me. And then I chake the cred out of it.
1:49
Speaker 1: I've got these beautiful vintage seventies coops. Then I add
1:53
Speaker 1: a little lemon twist. But I've added the egg white
1:57
Speaker 1: this last time, and it just you know, he gives
1:59
Speaker 1: it that lovely little phone on top. It really does
2:02
Speaker 1: you do you add the egg white first, and then
2:04
Speaker 1: shake for a few seconds, and then add the ice. No,
2:07
Speaker 1: I had everything together, and I just I shake till
2:09
Speaker 1: my arms swall off and it bombs up really lovely. Gotcha,
2:13
Speaker 1: You don't have to shake his heart. If you shake
2:14
Speaker 1: for a little bit first without ice, and then add
2:16
Speaker 1: the ice, it's Um, it's way faster and your arms
2:19
Speaker 1: will thank you. I shake for the temperature, not so
2:22
Speaker 1: much as for the phone, gotcha. Yeah yeah, yeah, I
2:25
Speaker 1: like it to be And I freeze my glass like
2:27
Speaker 1: ten minutes ahead of time because I like it to
2:29
Speaker 1: be so cold. It's like that's the key to the
2:31
Speaker 1: Chuck B. Yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you. I
2:35
Speaker 1: want one right now now, yeah, for real, right now now.
2:39
Speaker 1: So I think, Chuck, you deserve a Nobel Prize and
2:43
Speaker 1: awesomeness for coming up with the the Chuck B and
2:47
Speaker 1: naming it too. That's a great name. Thanks. Okay. Uh,
2:52
Speaker 1: you couldn't get a Nobel Prize and awesomeness if you
2:55
Speaker 1: wanted to, because it doesn't exist, although something similar does.
2:58
Speaker 1: It's called the Nobel Peace Prize. Really yeah uh, And
3:02
Speaker 1: that's the focus of this one. I mean, we could
3:04
Speaker 1: probably put out a four part series on the entire
3:07
Speaker 1: Nobel slate. We're not going to do that. But we're
3:10
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. This is mainly about the Peace
3:12
Speaker 1: Prize because Pieces where It's at Ask anybody, anybody, ask Bono. Sure,
3:17
Speaker 1: he'll say, I hate the name you two and pieces
3:20
Speaker 1: where It's at. He doesn't like the name you two. Yeah,
3:22
Speaker 1: that just came out this week. He said he's never
3:24
Speaker 1: really liked the name. Who came up with at the edge?
3:28
Speaker 1: I think so or no, no, no, I think it
3:31
Speaker 1: was maybe a manager at the time suggested it and
3:33
Speaker 1: they went with it and he didn't love it. And
3:35
Speaker 1: now he says he didn't like it. I don't know.
3:36
Speaker 1: Come on, bonno, shut up. It's a great name. He's like,
3:41
Speaker 1: I haven't been in the press for a while. What
3:42
Speaker 1: can I Yeah, exactly, that's probably about right. I haven't
3:45
Speaker 1: been on the cover of Catholic magazine in months. He's
3:47
Speaker 1: probably one of Nobel Peace Prize he is not. Okay, no,
3:52
Speaker 1: but I'm sure he's won some other humanitarian awards. But
3:57
Speaker 1: he has too, because we'll see, like anybody, anyone can
4:01
Speaker 1: be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. There's no great
4:04
Speaker 1: honor in that. I mean there is some, especially if
4:06
Speaker 1: the person nominating you like genuinely means it and you're
4:10
Speaker 1: actually nominated by more than one person. But as far
4:13
Speaker 1: as the Nobel Prize Peace Prize Committee is concerned, group
4:17
Speaker 1: of Norwegian people who take this very seriously, Um, there's
4:22
Speaker 1: no real honor in that you have to really win
4:24
Speaker 1: the prize, or at least make it onto the actual
4:26
Speaker 1: short shortlist to really kind of be significantly um within
4:32
Speaker 1: the warmth glow, the warm glow of the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: I mean, we'll get into nominations later, but you know,
4:40
Speaker 1: several hundred people are nominated, and people like Mussolini and
4:44
Speaker 1: Stalin and Hitler have been dominated. Yeah, so not not Yeah,
4:49
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna nominate us one day. I'm gonna become
4:51
Speaker 1: a political science professor. I'm a nominate nominators for a
4:54
Speaker 1: joint award. And how about this, We'll throw out a
4:56
Speaker 1: bit of mystery here that will explain later. Maybe we'll
5:00
Speaker 1: find out if Bonos was nominated in fifty years. So years.
5:04
Speaker 1: That's great good foreshadowing there. So I'm pretty sure everybody
5:09
Speaker 1: who has ever heard of the Nobel Peace Prize is
5:12
Speaker 1: aware that it's named after Alfred Nobel. And I would
5:16
Speaker 1: say that a significant portion of those people probably know
5:19
Speaker 1: that Alfred Nobel is one and the same as the
5:22
Speaker 1: Alfred Nobel who invented dynamite. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, that's
5:27
Speaker 1: one of those I think early cocktail party facts that
5:30
Speaker 1: people like to throw around, yeah, because it kind of
5:33
Speaker 1: stands out. Alfred Nobel created an explosive that was probably
5:38
Speaker 1: killed a lot of people in his lifetime, but then
5:40
Speaker 1: upon his death bestowed or endowed a prize um that
5:45
Speaker 1: was dedicated to promoting peace in humanitarian issues and keeping
5:50
Speaker 1: things nice and chill, I think is how he put
5:52
Speaker 1: it in his will. Yeah, although the one New York
5:55
Speaker 1: Times article you since said that during his lifetime, dynamite
5:59
Speaker 1: wasn't really you for war yet mm hmm, more operation
6:05
Speaker 1: plowshare type purposes, you know, blast digging tunnels, John Henry style. Right,
6:11
Speaker 1: So okay, all right, but um, he was an industrialist
6:14
Speaker 1: and there was at least there is at least a
6:16
Speaker 1: story that we'll get to that suggests that he was
6:19
Speaker 1: equated with warfare at the very least his he was
6:22
Speaker 1: following in a family legacy of creating things that, if
6:27
Speaker 1: if weren't directly used for warfare, certainly could be. His
6:30
Speaker 1: father Manuel kind of kicked the whole thing off when
6:33
Speaker 1: he moved the family to Russia and started creating um
6:36
Speaker 1: weaponry for the Russians at the time, I think in
6:39
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century. Yeah, they were, I mean, it
6:42
Speaker 1: was kind of he was kind of Tony Stark in
6:44
Speaker 1: a way, and his dad was, uh, now, I can't
6:48
Speaker 1: think of it was dad Tony Stark's dad, um Oscar
6:54
Speaker 1: from the Odd Couple. We can picture the actor. I
6:57
Speaker 1: can't think of the elder Stark anyway. Felix from the Couple, Sure,
7:01
Speaker 1: Felix Odd Couple. Stark was his name. But the point
7:06
Speaker 1: is his dad made a lot of money in the
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, sort of munitions business, in the arms business,
7:13
Speaker 1: like a ton of money, and moved his family from
7:15
Speaker 1: Sweden to Russia, where his children were raised with a
7:21
Speaker 1: silver Russian spoon in their mark in their mouth, had
7:23
Speaker 1: private tutors and it was a little bit of a
7:26
Speaker 1: Tony Stark thing. Like he the kids ended up brilliant
7:29
Speaker 1: because they had the money to sort of pay for that,
7:32
Speaker 1: you know. I just as a little side note, Chuck,
7:34
Speaker 1: I read an article recently. I cannot remember where where
7:37
Speaker 1: I read it, but it was basically like critiquing the
7:39
Speaker 1: Iron Man franchise, yeah, for promoting the military industrial complex,
7:45
Speaker 1: because they really glorified him as this kind of like
7:48
Speaker 1: you know, weaponry industrialist, advanced weaponry kind of guy, and
7:51
Speaker 1: like that's his whole jam and Um, I thought that
7:54
Speaker 1: was a pretty interesting take, because I mean, I'm sure
7:57
Speaker 1: there's plenty of people out there who are Iron Man
7:59
Speaker 1: fans who hadn't really stopped to think about that. You know.
8:01
Speaker 1: That's just like part and parcel with it. Well, I mean,
8:03
Speaker 1: that's a major plot point in the very first one,
8:06
Speaker 1: was him going back against all that and realizing that
8:10
Speaker 1: he had led to so much war and devastation. And
8:14
Speaker 1: now that's why he kind of changed his tune and
8:16
Speaker 1: started the Avengers and started blowing things up in a
8:19
Speaker 1: very private way. Really, Okay, I wonder if the person
8:22
Speaker 1: who wrote the article like me hadn't seen the first one.
8:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. Interesting, but so um, so Alfred was
8:33
Speaker 1: following his father's footsteps, right, Um. Eventually he was he
8:37
Speaker 1: he um was a very worldly, very well educated person.
8:41
Speaker 1: He was tutored by the best tutors that St. Petersburg,
8:44
Speaker 1: Russia had to offer. Um. He spoke five languages. He
8:48
Speaker 1: was very well versed in literature and chemistry. Apparently said
8:52
Speaker 1: once that he could digest philosophy as well as he
8:55
Speaker 1: could digest a mule, maybe even better. But he was
8:57
Speaker 1: also but he didn't really fart. He did he made
9:02
Speaker 1: the arm farting noise because that's physics, right right. Um, So, uh,
9:09
Speaker 1: he was a he was an odd duck in a
9:11
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and he lived too long ago to
9:14
Speaker 1: pin down in today's terms, but you could call him that.
9:17
Speaker 1: He was Uh, he kicked around in Europe. Um, he
9:21
Speaker 1: was a very wealthy person, kicked around Europe. Um kind
9:24
Speaker 1: of was a dilettante and stuff he was interested in.
9:26
Speaker 1: But it was also very brilliant. But apparently described himself
9:29
Speaker 1: as a missingthrope and a bit of a loner. I think, yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: I mean he never got married, never had kids. I
9:37
Speaker 1: think when he described himself as having a pitiful half life,
9:41
Speaker 1: the quote in full was pretty sad because he he
9:43
Speaker 1: basically says, the doctor should have killed me right after
9:46
Speaker 1: I was born. Really, it's very hard on himself. Uh,
9:52
Speaker 1: despite being a brilliant guy. Um. He eventually started to
9:56
Speaker 1: work in nitroglycerin along with his other emial and there
10:01
Speaker 1: was a tragic accident in eighteen sixty four where a
10:04
Speaker 1: meal and I think four other people died in an explosion.
10:09
Speaker 1: And for a while there, in fact, you could not
10:13
Speaker 1: uh in Sweden, you could not work with nitroglysts, and
10:16
Speaker 1: for a while and experiment with it because of that. Yeah,
10:19
Speaker 1: because I think his family was Swedish and background. Um,
10:22
Speaker 1: so they must have moved back to Sweden at this time.
10:24
Speaker 1: Where else the people in Russia had been like why
10:26
Speaker 1: did you that was a weird low Sweden, just mind
10:30
Speaker 1: your own business. But um, I guess Alfred was living
10:33
Speaker 1: in Sweden at the time because in response to that
10:36
Speaker 1: law he moved his lab off short so think about this.
10:38
Speaker 1: His friend, his brother and other people who has probably
10:42
Speaker 1: probably knew all died in an explosion. That's a grizzly
10:45
Speaker 1: death at the very least for the survivors who have
10:48
Speaker 1: to clean up afterwards. Right, that's a big deal. And
10:53
Speaker 1: he still was like, I'm going to keep pursuing nitro
10:56
Speaker 1: glysts and studies, and and did so by moving his
11:00
Speaker 1: lab out under a barge on the lake um somewhere
11:03
Speaker 1: in Sweden. Yeah, it's I'm not going to pronounce that
11:07
Speaker 1: lake because then I'm gonna do it wrong. My laren,
11:10
Speaker 1: there you go, muller in, Yeah, because there's a oom out,
11:15
Speaker 1: that's right. But he eventually uh came up with dynamite
11:19
Speaker 1: because it was a bit more stable of a form
11:21
Speaker 1: of explosive and sold a lot of it, made a
11:25
Speaker 1: ton of money, selling it to Australia and the States
11:28
Speaker 1: and all around Europe, Western Europe. And you know he
11:32
Speaker 1: I think he ended up with more than three hundred
11:34
Speaker 1: and fifty patents to his name, So he was he
11:37
Speaker 1: was a consummate inventor, uh, inventing all kinds of things
11:41
Speaker 1: and making tons and tons of money along the way.
11:44
Speaker 1: I think in the end he died with um and
11:47
Speaker 1: this is very important. We'll get to his will and
11:50
Speaker 1: how it was used. But he died with close to
11:51
Speaker 1: ten million bucks, which for back then was like three
11:55
Speaker 1: hundred and change today. Yeah, like a lot of million,
11:59
Speaker 1: three hundred million, not three backwards. It didn't deeply Yeah, um.
12:07
Speaker 1: He subscribed to that Garfield poster from the eighties where
12:10
Speaker 1: Garfields standing in front of a mansion, in front of
12:12
Speaker 1: a Lamborghini, et cetera. It says he who dies with
12:15
Speaker 1: the most toys wins. You remember that poster. Yeah, I
12:19
Speaker 1: was in the Garfield I was too, But even at
12:22
Speaker 1: the time, I was like, this is a this poster
12:24
Speaker 1: is wrong. Yeah, I don't know about that message. And
12:26
Speaker 1: what's the deal with Lasagna. It's strange. Plus Also, it
12:29
Speaker 1: was all live action to like it was a real photograph,
12:32
Speaker 1: and then they just drew Garfield over it, which is
12:34
Speaker 1: not a good combination to begin. It never looks good. So, um,
12:38
Speaker 1: here's where we reached this point where that I referred
12:40
Speaker 1: to earlier, where there's a kind of a lower a
12:43
Speaker 1: legend around Alfred Dobell and why he went from inventing
12:47
Speaker 1: stuff that make things go boom to bestowing or endowing
12:53
Speaker 1: a major award, the Nobel Prizes, in particular the Nobel
12:57
Speaker 1: Peace Prize. And there's a really great story that may
12:59
Speaker 1: or may not be true about an obituary that was
13:03
Speaker 1: accidentally printed about him before he died. And how about
13:07
Speaker 1: this cliffhanger style. We'll get to that story right after
13:10
Speaker 1: a break. Yes, this is quite a cliffhanger. All right,
13:38
Speaker 1: I'm on the cliff. I'm hanging there like Tom Cruise,
13:41
Speaker 1: a mission impossible. Whatever. As the story goes, some people
13:46
Speaker 1: say it's a myth. I think it's a pretty good
13:47
Speaker 1: story either way. Is that when Alfred's brother Ludwig died
13:53
Speaker 1: in a French newspaper got it all wrong and thought
13:58
Speaker 1: that Alfred had died, which is a very interesting experiment
14:02
Speaker 1: to think about if you could read your obituary while
14:06
Speaker 1: still alive, Like, what would that look like? I thought
14:08
Speaker 1: about that a little bit. Then I was like, no
14:09
Speaker 1: one would even write an obituary for me. That would
14:12
Speaker 1: be The saddest thing. Is the New York Times to
14:15
Speaker 1: be like pooh, but at any rate, or maybe a
14:18
Speaker 1: French newspaper would get it wrong. But they called him
14:23
Speaker 1: the merchant of death, and that said he his wealth
14:26
Speaker 1: came from the invention of new ways to mutilate and kill. Um.
14:30
Speaker 1: The fact that they may not have used dynamite specifically
14:34
Speaker 1: for war during his lifetime is if the New York
14:36
Speaker 1: Times is correct, um, he still had his hand in
14:40
Speaker 1: many kinds of munitions. So the reason that people are
14:44
Speaker 1: suspect about this maybe being apocryphal is that historians have
14:48
Speaker 1: been unable to actually locate an original copy of that article. Yeah, well,
14:54
Speaker 1: just not to say it did not exist. But even
14:56
Speaker 1: if it didn't, it's definitely a story worth relating because
14:59
Speaker 1: at point Alfred Nobel definitely did go from misanthrope who
15:04
Speaker 1: was a loner um who just liked to kick around
15:07
Speaker 1: Europe to dying and in a very big shock to
15:10
Speaker 1: everybody in particular his heirs who were expecting to inherit
15:13
Speaker 1: that three fifty million dollars, saying this is what I
15:17
Speaker 1: want you to do with my my vast wealth. I
15:20
Speaker 1: want you to set up a prize that promotes the arts,
15:23
Speaker 1: the sciences and peace. And here's how we're gonna do it.
15:27
Speaker 1: That's right, other people say. And this was a pretty
15:30
Speaker 1: pivotal relationship in his life. But at one point he
15:33
Speaker 1: hired a woman named Bertha of On Suttner to work
15:37
Speaker 1: for him, as I guess it would be sort of
15:40
Speaker 1: like an executive assistant these days, and that was for
15:43
Speaker 1: a misanthrope, ended up being one of his closest friends.
15:47
Speaker 1: Worked for him until she got married, and she was
15:50
Speaker 1: a peace activist writing a book called Laid Down Your Arms.
15:54
Speaker 1: And some people say that he may have been um,
15:57
Speaker 1: not trying to curry favor, but just influenced by her. Yes, um.
16:01
Speaker 1: And she actually won the Nobel Peace Prize in nineteen
16:04
Speaker 1: o five in part because of her influence on the
16:09
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize even being created. So I think they
16:13
Speaker 1: definitely even thought contemporaneously that she definitely had a huge
16:16
Speaker 1: hand in his his kind of change of heart, because
16:20
Speaker 1: apparently before he was one of those mutual assert destruction
16:23
Speaker 1: types where he's like, no, no, if you have like
16:26
Speaker 1: if you could use dynamite to blow everybody up at once,
16:29
Speaker 1: and everybody realizes that you can blow everybody up at once,
16:31
Speaker 1: they're just gonna stop fighting, which you know kind of works,
16:35
Speaker 1: but you know that that's not really a very peaceful stance.
16:38
Speaker 1: And apparently he changed his team before he died, and
16:42
Speaker 1: there were many more weapons to come. You know, he
16:44
Speaker 1: didn't know that at the time, but he didn't think
16:47
Speaker 1: about like, oh, wait a minute, but what if they
16:49
Speaker 1: made something worse than dynamite, right, and then oh, I
16:52
Speaker 1: don't know, escalate to nuclear arms one. Um. So he
16:56
Speaker 1: passed away in eight December ten, Uh, I think, so sure,
17:04
Speaker 1: let's go with that. It's definitely December ten. Yeah. I
17:07
Speaker 1: think it was because it took a few years uh
17:11
Speaker 1: to get to the very first prize in nineteen o one.
17:13
Speaker 1: Because he had lived sort of all over, like you
17:17
Speaker 1: you were talking about um when he was young and
17:19
Speaker 1: even when he was older. He had a place in France,
17:22
Speaker 1: he lived in Sweden some, he spent time in Russia,
17:24
Speaker 1: he spent time in Italy, so there was a lot
17:27
Speaker 1: of um legal wrangling to do when he changed his
17:30
Speaker 1: will towards the end in a I don't know if
17:33
Speaker 1: it was haphazard, but it definitely had some holes in
17:36
Speaker 1: it enough that his family could complain about it and
17:39
Speaker 1: sort of tie it up legally for a few years,
17:41
Speaker 1: which they definitely tried to. And there's another great story
17:44
Speaker 1: to um that his executor, the executor of his estate,
17:47
Speaker 1: was very worried that some of the French we're going
17:50
Speaker 1: to try to put a claim on them on his fortune.
17:54
Speaker 1: And so he actually gathered his money millions of dollars,
17:57
Speaker 1: so this is about three fifty million hours today in cash,
18:01
Speaker 1: put it on a stage coach and drove it through
18:03
Speaker 1: the streets of Paris to the Swedish embassy to deliver
18:07
Speaker 1: it safely, to make sure it made it to Sweden
18:10
Speaker 1: with a revolver on his lap, because apparently people would
18:13
Speaker 1: crash into you at the time with their carriages, like
18:15
Speaker 1: a bump and run kind of thing, right putting in
18:18
Speaker 1: a carriage, and they would have had quite a paid
18:21
Speaker 1: day had they realized that this guy had three fifty
18:23
Speaker 1: million dollars inside. Yeah, and you know, the word gets
18:27
Speaker 1: out and all of a sudden it's crash city, that's right.
18:31
Speaker 1: So the first prize finally gets awarded, like they figured
18:34
Speaker 1: this out. One of the other reasons that it took
18:36
Speaker 1: so long to chunk was not just the legal wrangling
18:38
Speaker 1: by the heirs, but the fact that Nobel basically said,
18:41
Speaker 1: here's what I want you to do with the money.
18:43
Speaker 1: You go figure it out, um, And so it took
18:47
Speaker 1: a little while to figure it out. Like he I
18:49
Speaker 1: saw it put that he um endowed an institution that
18:52
Speaker 1: didn't exist yet, and that he left it to his
18:55
Speaker 1: errors to create it. And there was actually a potential
18:58
Speaker 1: that it just wasn't going to be followed through, that
19:00
Speaker 1: it was gonna be too into a headache, or that
19:01
Speaker 1: his heirs really should have the money. Um. But finally
19:05
Speaker 1: they got it worked out and they started um releasing
19:08
Speaker 1: the first are giving out the first Nobel Peace Prize
19:11
Speaker 1: in one and apparently from the outset it was it
19:16
Speaker 1: was a very well known prize. It didn't start quietly
19:19
Speaker 1: and then build over the years. From the get go,
19:21
Speaker 1: people knew about the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, I mean
19:25
Speaker 1: from what I saw, just doing something like this create
19:28
Speaker 1: a large cash prize was very unique for the time. Uh, now,
19:34
Speaker 1: to give out a big prize with an award, like
19:36
Speaker 1: a cash award attached to it is you know, you
19:38
Speaker 1: see that a lot these days, but back then it
19:40
Speaker 1: was um. Just the fact that it was a cash
19:42
Speaker 1: prize was a big deal. And a couple that with
19:45
Speaker 1: the fact that this, along with the uh, you know,
19:48
Speaker 1: the other Nobel prizes, this was a piece award and
19:51
Speaker 1: it was the creator of dynamite, and we make big
19:55
Speaker 1: hay about that now, but they also did the same
19:56
Speaker 1: back then. Yeah, and that was a huge cash prize too.
20:01
Speaker 1: I mean even out of the get out of the
20:03
Speaker 1: gate it was worth about a million dollars, So I
20:07
Speaker 1: mean like it was a lot of money that was
20:09
Speaker 1: suddenly given for people promoting peace. So yeah, I think
20:12
Speaker 1: it was innovative, and then it was you know, the
20:15
Speaker 1: it was a big cash prize. And then the inventor
20:17
Speaker 1: of dynamite is the one who did it, who was
20:19
Speaker 1: already a very well known figure internationally too. So the
20:23
Speaker 1: way he went about funding it too was interesting. He
20:25
Speaker 1: didn't just assume that that nine million bucks would be
20:29
Speaker 1: forever money. So he said, here's what we're gonna do.
20:32
Speaker 1: I want you to invest this money. And then the
20:34
Speaker 1: prize money will be doled out from the money that
20:39
Speaker 1: that money makes from the interest and so over the years.
20:43
Speaker 1: It's not like a set amount. It's sort of varied
20:45
Speaker 1: over the years depending on how his investments went. Um.
20:49
Speaker 1: But like you said, in today's dollars, it started off
20:52
Speaker 1: at about a million, and it's usually I think since
20:55
Speaker 1: like the eighties, it's been about that every year. Yeah. Um.
20:59
Speaker 1: And so one I think one of the original intents
21:02
Speaker 1: possibly was that it's kind of like a genius grant
21:05
Speaker 1: where you're, you know, you get a million dollars for
21:08
Speaker 1: your work, and you're you're meant to continue on with
21:11
Speaker 1: this work. You don't have to worry about running around
21:13
Speaker 1: getting grants or you can just focus on the work
21:16
Speaker 1: part because you're doing such a good job. But um,
21:19
Speaker 1: and I think that some people keep the money with
21:22
Speaker 1: the other Nobel Prizes, the ones for like literature and physics. Um.
21:28
Speaker 1: But I do know for a fact that for the
21:31
Speaker 1: Peace Prize, it is customary and traditional, though it's not
21:34
Speaker 1: you're not obligated to, but it's customary to donate that money. Um,
21:38
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. I mean, wouldn't you just immediately
21:42
Speaker 1: question your decision as the Nobel Committee if the recipient
21:46
Speaker 1: just kept the money, like thanks for the money, this
21:48
Speaker 1: is it's gonna go a long way to paying off
21:50
Speaker 1: that r V I crashed. Uh, they would question that.
21:54
Speaker 1: But as one of the rules will probably pepper in
21:56
Speaker 1: rules you in there, there are no takes these backseas. No.
21:59
Speaker 1: No matter what you do, you could you could get
22:01
Speaker 1: the Nobel Priest Peace Prize. And and some people have
22:04
Speaker 1: gone on to do some not so peaceful things and
22:07
Speaker 1: they're sort of admonished. But UM, no takes these back seas. No,
22:13
Speaker 1: And there's no appealing it. Like if you knew that
22:15
Speaker 1: you were nominated and you think this was bs Nobel
22:20
Speaker 1: Committee because totally passed me over. I was the right one,
22:24
Speaker 1: they won't even hear it. Like there's no process for
22:27
Speaker 1: you to appeal it. That's just not not do that.
22:31
Speaker 1: I don't know some people out there who would do that.
22:33
Speaker 1: I should have won forget Mawala, Yeah right, what would
22:37
Speaker 1: you do? Right? No way? So UM. One of the
22:42
Speaker 1: other things there was like a positive feedback loop that
22:45
Speaker 1: happened to between the awards and the people that UM
22:48
Speaker 1: received the awards over time is that the the awards
22:54
Speaker 1: started to become associated with some like towering figures on
22:58
Speaker 1: the international stage, um heads of state, people who um
23:05
Speaker 1: essentially founded modern humanitarian, secular religions, like just really important people.
23:13
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, the Nobel Peace Prize being
23:17
Speaker 1: awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just puts a huge glow
23:20
Speaker 1: over you for the rest of your life. Um. Olivia
23:23
Speaker 1: helps us with this one, and she put it like, um,
23:25
Speaker 1: it's it's the being having been awarded the Nobel Priest
23:29
Speaker 1: Prize is usually in the first line of a famous
23:31
Speaker 1: person's obituary who received it, right like that. They don't
23:34
Speaker 1: save that for the middle or the end. It's like
23:36
Speaker 1: the first thing. It's that important. But at the same time,
23:39
Speaker 1: as you're kind of bestowing this honor onto huge figures
23:43
Speaker 1: that go on ideally to become even bigger figures, they
23:47
Speaker 1: kind of in turn reflect that glow back onto the
23:50
Speaker 1: Nobel So it's this positive feedback loop where it just
23:54
Speaker 1: keeps becoming more and more important, which is really saying
23:57
Speaker 1: something because there's a lot that has been criticized over
23:59
Speaker 1: the years in rightfully so, and to the Nobel Committee's
24:02
Speaker 1: Peace Prize committees credit they've accepted this criticism and you know,
24:06
Speaker 1: publicly wrestled with it from time to time. Um, but
24:09
Speaker 1: despite like some really big stumbles, like that prize is
24:13
Speaker 1: not diminished in stature one bit and in the general
24:16
Speaker 1: public's eyes. No. And you know, they've even said that
24:20
Speaker 1: they hope that it uh will continue to inspire people
24:25
Speaker 1: to do well. Like you can't win the Nobel Peace Prize,
24:29
Speaker 1: there's a lot of pressure on you after that to
24:31
Speaker 1: keep that train rolling, you know, yes, yes, And one
24:34
Speaker 1: of the reasons that they're doing that too, or that's
24:37
Speaker 1: what I should say, that's one of the reasons they
24:38
Speaker 1: have the rule that, um, it can only go to
24:41
Speaker 1: living people, because the hope is that you can take
24:43
Speaker 1: this prize and do even bigger stuff, which there's a
24:46
Speaker 1: there's a critic I can't remember his name who basically said, um,
24:50
Speaker 1: that's great and and like that's a really good thing
24:53
Speaker 1: to do. But it's also very risky business because people
24:56
Speaker 1: don't always you know, grow into the expectations of the
25:01
Speaker 1: Nobel Committee. You know, as far as the Nobel Prize
25:04
Speaker 1: being bestowed on somebody earlier in their career goes. Come on,
25:10
Speaker 1: I know who that was. That was, j Alfred poppy Pants.
25:13
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. What a disappointment, but out of left field
25:16
Speaker 1: to everybody had such high hopes for him. So as
25:20
Speaker 1: far as the process goes, UM, the technical definition is
25:24
Speaker 1: that should go to the person who has done the
25:26
Speaker 1: most or best work for a fraternity among nations, for
25:29
Speaker 1: the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the
25:32
Speaker 1: holding and promotion of peace Congress. And it is decided
25:37
Speaker 1: upon by what's known as the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which
25:42
Speaker 1: it's in itself is five people appointed by the Storting,
25:46
Speaker 1: which is Norway's legislative body. And this is just one
25:50
Speaker 1: way that it differs from the other awards. The other
25:53
Speaker 1: awards there are Swedish committees. Um, they're given out in Sweden.
25:57
Speaker 1: This is he went all Norway the Peace Award and
26:01
Speaker 1: all Sweden with the others. Yeah. Um. And he never
26:05
Speaker 1: explained why. But historians, including people on the like Permanent
26:11
Speaker 1: Nobel Staff, Nobel Peace Prize Staff UM, have kind of
26:15
Speaker 1: suggested that at the time there was UM, there was
26:19
Speaker 1: a union between Sweden and Norway UM, and they were
26:23
Speaker 1: starting to split, and apparently to Nobel and probably a
26:26
Speaker 1: lot of other people, Norway seemed to be the more democratic,
26:29
Speaker 1: the more peaceful and peace oriented UM of the two nations,
26:33
Speaker 1: so he just kind of either trusted them more or
26:36
Speaker 1: maybe wanted to shine a spotlight on that, or maybe
26:39
Speaker 1: in that way he was trying to to UM create
26:42
Speaker 1: public expectations for Norway to continue along that way. Maybe.
26:46
Speaker 1: So that's a good point. If you are selected as
26:49
Speaker 1: a committee member, you're there for six years unless I
26:52
Speaker 1: guess you quit, but you have a six year term.
26:55
Speaker 1: You can come back for another term and get reelected.
26:58
Speaker 1: And so far everyone has been a Norwegian national in
27:02
Speaker 1: the committee, even though you don't have to be. No,
27:06
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a rule. UM. There's also
27:08
Speaker 1: assistance UM, Lots and lots of research assistance. There's some
27:11
Speaker 1: that are appointed, there's some permanent ones too, UM, and
27:16
Speaker 1: you need assistance and advisors because there's a lot of
27:20
Speaker 1: people that get nominated every year. I think on the
27:24
Speaker 1: order of usually three hundreds something people get nominated and
27:29
Speaker 1: UM as part of the process you are UM you
27:33
Speaker 1: have to like research those people like. You can't just
27:35
Speaker 1: be like, well, i've heard some good things about that guy.
27:38
Speaker 1: I heard that guy doesn't tip very well, So we're
27:40
Speaker 1: not gonna give it to him and just leave it
27:42
Speaker 1: at that, Like there is thorough research. The recipients are
27:46
Speaker 1: thoroughly vetted, not just to make sure that they are
27:49
Speaker 1: worthy of the prize, but I think also because the
27:51
Speaker 1: Nobel Committee wants to protect its reputation too. They don't
27:55
Speaker 1: want to miss anything. So there's a lot of research
27:57
Speaker 1: that goes into investigating the the nominees who make that
28:01
Speaker 1: short list. Yeah. I actually got my hands on Malala's
28:05
Speaker 1: case file. Oh there are pages and pages and pages,
28:08
Speaker 1: and at the very end it just said, also great tipper,
28:14
Speaker 1: that put her over the edge. I believe it too.
28:17
Speaker 1: I didn't get my hands on that casepole by the way,
28:20
Speaker 1: thank you. Uh who is on this committee? Used to
28:24
Speaker 1: be there could be real deal politicians, but eventually they said,
28:28
Speaker 1: you know what, that may be a conflict of interest
28:30
Speaker 1: to have like active politicians and political leaders. So you
28:35
Speaker 1: can't be an active government leader at this point. Um,
28:38
Speaker 1: So they're mainly retired politicians now right, which is a
28:41
Speaker 1: little better. But and it makes sense too, because you'd think,
28:44
Speaker 1: you know, they'd be like, well, hey, actually Norway really
28:47
Speaker 1: needs a lot from Brazil right now, so make sure
28:49
Speaker 1: that the president of Brazil gets it. You don't want that,
28:52
Speaker 1: and you would hope that retired politicians are a little
28:55
Speaker 1: less like that. But uh yeah, but again this is
28:59
Speaker 1: the These are the committees that have the final say,
29:01
Speaker 1: but they rely heavily on the reports written up by
29:05
Speaker 1: the advisors. Yeah, that happens. I think the nominations are
29:08
Speaker 1: due by the end of January. Then in February March
29:12
Speaker 1: is when all this research is going on. Uh to
29:16
Speaker 1: where this initial research and they would let down to
29:18
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty. They can also nominate their own people
29:21
Speaker 1: if they want as a committee, and then through March
29:24
Speaker 1: in August, the big time research happens. And this is
29:29
Speaker 1: when they're actually deciding the winner from that whittled down
29:32
Speaker 1: list of from three plus. Yeah, and I guess they
29:36
Speaker 1: announced in October and then finally on December tenth, the
29:40
Speaker 1: actual ceremony where the winners bestowed the Nobel Peace Prize
29:44
Speaker 1: happens in in Oslo. I believe that's right on the
29:48
Speaker 1: anniversary of his death. Also, just little housekeeping here, can't
29:53
Speaker 1: have more than three laureates win the award in any
29:56
Speaker 1: given year, but you can be an organization. So Doctors
30:00
Speaker 1: Without Borders is one. The Red Cross has one three
30:04
Speaker 1: times uh plus the very first one which went to
30:08
Speaker 1: Henri do Not who started the Red Cross. So technically
30:12
Speaker 1: they've gotten four awards, so you can get more than
30:15
Speaker 1: one award, yes, um, yes. And the only other thing,
30:21
Speaker 1: the only other rule, well, there's plenty of other rules,
30:23
Speaker 1: but one of the other big rules is, like we've said,
30:25
Speaker 1: you cannot get the award posthumously. It happened one time,
30:29
Speaker 1: uh to um dog Hammer's guard Hammer Scold Hammer School.
30:35
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a tough word. Dog Hammer Scold. He
30:39
Speaker 1: was the guy who oversaw the the the true like
30:42
Speaker 1: creation in um Um Expansion and I guess the guy
30:48
Speaker 1: who really set the tone for the Unit United Nations
30:50
Speaker 1: as a sensibly a peace seeking body. And he played
30:55
Speaker 1: black Metal two, which was weird. Yeah, he always were
30:59
Speaker 1: the heavy, heavy mess Gara triangles under his eyes, this
31:03
Speaker 1: cool look, but really surprising when you look at that name.
31:09
Speaker 1: That's that's black Metal all the way Marston or Yeah,
31:14
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm sure we're pronouncing that wrong too.
31:18
Speaker 1: There's a lot of I think Nail that's not a
31:21
Speaker 1: very good hotel chicken name. It draws too much attention
31:24
Speaker 1: to because they say, how do you spell that? You right? Mark?
31:28
Speaker 1: Can you pronounce that again, No, I can't say it
31:31
Speaker 1: anyway you want, goodness, So I guess we'll talk a
31:34
Speaker 1: little bit about nominations, because we keep saying things like,
31:37
Speaker 1: hundreds of people are nominated and it really isn't even
31:39
Speaker 1: an honor. Um. We're not saying it's not an honor,
31:42
Speaker 1: but we're saying that a lot of there's been a
31:44
Speaker 1: lot of dicey nominations over the years, so much so
31:47
Speaker 1: that the Nobel Committee actually says, hey, just because you
31:51
Speaker 1: get nominated doesn't mean you can imply that you're affiliated
31:56
Speaker 1: with us in any way at all. And there's this
31:59
Speaker 1: weird I don't know if it's weird, but there's a
32:02
Speaker 1: fifty year rule that we alluded to earlier about finding
32:05
Speaker 1: out if bono what had been elected in fifty years.
32:08
Speaker 1: Supposedly that is under lock and key for fifty years
32:11
Speaker 1: by the person nominated and by the nominator. They're not
32:15
Speaker 1: supposed to say anything either. But you sent those articles
32:19
Speaker 1: that there was a bit of a conflict there, like
32:22
Speaker 1: one said that if word gets out, it's uh been leaked,
32:26
Speaker 1: but other people said, no, it doesn't even get leaked.
32:29
Speaker 1: It's purely speculations. So I'm not sure how it works.
32:33
Speaker 1: But you're not supposed to reveal it for fifty years. No,
32:36
Speaker 1: but they're probably people who are who qualify as nominators,
32:41
Speaker 1: who could care less what the Nobel Peace Prize committee
32:44
Speaker 1: thinks of them, and especially if they're one currying favor
32:49
Speaker 1: with whoever that they they've nominated for the Peace Prize.
32:52
Speaker 1: You're gonna send an email saying like, hey, you know
32:53
Speaker 1: I nominated you for a peace prize like that that
32:56
Speaker 1: could happen. I wonder if you can get that revoked
32:58
Speaker 1: though I don't know as a nominator, you know that
33:01
Speaker 1: like that should be the punishment, like keep your mouth
33:03
Speaker 1: shut or you're not getting you can't vote next year? Yeah?
33:07
Speaker 1: What is that? Um Omerita? What's that? Isn't that the
33:12
Speaker 1: mobs like vow of silence? Is it? I think it is?
33:17
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Was that for the loud in there
33:20
Speaker 1: somewhere your own your own life? No? No, it's a
33:23
Speaker 1: it's a a little bit of both, Okay. Um, So
33:27
Speaker 1: we talked about nominators, Chuck. There's a lot of people
33:30
Speaker 1: out there who are qualified to nominate somebody for the
33:33
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Price. So again, anybody can be nominated for
33:36
Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize, but a small fraction of humanity
33:40
Speaker 1: can actually do the nominating. Uh if you are an
33:42
Speaker 1: elected official, uh in at the national level of any
33:46
Speaker 1: government in the world, you can. So if you're a
33:49
Speaker 1: congress person or president or vice president or Secretary of
33:53
Speaker 1: the Treasury or secretary of commerce, who cares, you can
33:58
Speaker 1: nominate somebody for the Nobel Peace Prize right now? Is that?
34:01
Speaker 1: What I didn't get is is that automatic? Like if
34:05
Speaker 1: you if you hold an office like that, it's automatic? Yes,
34:08
Speaker 1: Well what about other ones? What about if like because
34:10
Speaker 1: another some professors can are they invited to be a nominator? No? Um,
34:16
Speaker 1: they they apparently for the other Nobels, the Swedish Nobels
34:20
Speaker 1: for like literature and physics and all that, they actually
34:24
Speaker 1: actively seek people out. They recruit people to do the nominations.
34:28
Speaker 1: This is more like I think you or I could
34:31
Speaker 1: send in a nominating letter. They just wouldn't take it
34:34
Speaker 1: into consideration because we're not qualified with our credentials. So
34:37
Speaker 1: I think part of accepting a nomination is verifying that
34:41
Speaker 1: the person doing the nominating is credential qualified to to
34:45
Speaker 1: to make that nomination. Okay, fair enough, that's my take
34:48
Speaker 1: on it. That's great. I love it. You should be
34:51
Speaker 1: able to lose those credentials though. I think I think
34:54
Speaker 1: you're right. I think you should be stripped of them. Uh,
34:57
Speaker 1: they should take your saber and break it over their knee,
35:00
Speaker 1: send you out into the to the frontier to live
35:03
Speaker 1: as a as a scorned cowards, revenant style. Now have
35:08
Speaker 1: you ever seen that show Branded? Now? Oh, last I
35:12
Speaker 1: was referring to. There's a great fifties Western, like black
35:16
Speaker 1: and white Western TV show called Branded. I think it
35:19
Speaker 1: was Chuck Connors who there was an attack on a
35:22
Speaker 1: FOURT and something happened, but he was mistaken as like
35:24
Speaker 1: a deserter, and so he was kicked out of the
35:27
Speaker 1: cavalry and he's basically spending the entire show like getting
35:30
Speaker 1: his clearing his name and like helping people along the way.
35:34
Speaker 1: But he had this like half saber that they left
35:37
Speaker 1: him with the handle in the first half, and um
35:40
Speaker 1: that he used. I think he's sharpened into like a
35:42
Speaker 1: short sabers. It was pretty pretty cool show if I
35:45
Speaker 1: remember correctly. And now that I'm saying, yeah, I haven't
35:47
Speaker 1: seen it since I was like ten, So if it's
35:49
Speaker 1: like super racist and I'm just haven't seen in a while.
35:51
Speaker 1: Please forgive me in advance. Yeah, it probably is. Josh
35:56
Speaker 1: likes racist shows, right, he admitted it, young John. Uh.
36:01
Speaker 1: The metal itself is worth talking about. Um. They were
36:05
Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty made from twenty three care gold. Now
36:09
Speaker 1: it is eighteen Carrett green gold, which is a gold
36:11
Speaker 1: silver alloy plated with twenty four Carrott gold. Uh. This
36:15
Speaker 1: is another way that differs from the Swedish medals, and
36:18
Speaker 1: that this one is designed, um differently. It's designed by
36:23
Speaker 1: a sculptor named Gustav Vigland and on the front has
36:28
Speaker 1: Alfred Nobel's image, which again is different from the Swedish one.
36:32
Speaker 1: And I keep on to say Swiss and they I
36:36
Speaker 1: think there are three men with some Latin on the
36:38
Speaker 1: back for the peace and brotherhood of men in Latin.
36:42
Speaker 1: That would be pro pace at fraternitate gentium propo. Did
36:51
Speaker 1: you take Latin? No? You just some know that somebody
36:54
Speaker 1: I picked that up somewhere along the way, and for
36:56
Speaker 1: some reason it's always stuck with me. Prop All right,
36:58
Speaker 1: Well now I know I'll know it forever. What pautch
37:01
Speaker 1: a or just the whole thing, just the part? Oh sure? Yeah,
37:06
Speaker 1: And then you get your name and grave of course,
37:08
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get mixed up with you know, and
37:11
Speaker 1: customs or whatever. Right. So um, so okay, so I
37:16
Speaker 1: think we've reached a point. Oh you want to take
37:18
Speaker 1: a break before we go on. Yeah, okay, we're gonna
37:21
Speaker 1: take a break everybody, and then we're gonna come back
37:22
Speaker 1: with some more great stuff. So don't go anywhere, because
37:24
Speaker 1: you're gonna love it. Okay. So we kind of alluded
37:49
Speaker 1: earlier to the idea that, um, the Nobel Peace Prize
37:52
Speaker 1: Committee is like when they give a prize, it's not
37:56
Speaker 1: just like, hey, good work, it's hey, keep doing good work.
37:59
Speaker 1: You know, the world's watching you. So there's there's actually
38:02
Speaker 1: been since there's different people who have served on the
38:06
Speaker 1: committee over the years, the committee as a whole is
38:09
Speaker 1: kind of taken different routes to deciding who should get
38:13
Speaker 1: what award. And there's a legal scholar named Roger p
38:17
Speaker 1: Alfred out of Notre Dame UM and he says that
38:20
Speaker 1: you can pretty much divide the era um or the
38:24
Speaker 1: history of the Nobel Peace Prize into different eras depending
38:28
Speaker 1: on the committee, and that basically leading up to World
38:31
Speaker 1: War Two it was mostly like pacifist committees UM or
38:37
Speaker 1: like peace committees, peace congress is like Nobel Is specifically
38:42
Speaker 1: called out in his will. And then after World War
38:45
Speaker 1: Two and then into the Cold War, it started to
38:47
Speaker 1: kind of shift a little. Yeah. You know people who
38:51
Speaker 1: put democracy forward, a lot of humanitarian and human rights
38:55
Speaker 1: individuals and groups UH, people like Desmond two two and
39:00
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela and Malala UM. Jimmy Carter got one in
39:03
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's for his post presidency work that
39:07
Speaker 1: he's done. People like that, UM, I think that they
39:13
Speaker 1: can give it to and many times have given it
39:16
Speaker 1: to UH and sometimes to some controversy. People on UM
39:21
Speaker 1: different sides of an issue. UM, like the ninety three
39:26
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela got it along with F. W. De Clerk.
39:29
Speaker 1: You might remember from our apartheid episode. He was the
39:32
Speaker 1: South African president who negotiated UM to end apartheid UM
39:37
Speaker 1: with Mandela and other black leaders. So sometimes sometimes they'll
39:41
Speaker 1: do something like that, mix it up and say, you know,
39:44
Speaker 1: these two people broke here this even though they're on
39:47
Speaker 1: different sides of the of the issue. Initially, yes, so
39:51
Speaker 1: they've they've tried that. It was successful with Mandela and
39:55
Speaker 1: the Clerk UM. At the same time they tried that.
39:59
Speaker 1: They had tried it twenty years earlier for the nineteen
40:02
Speaker 1: seventy three award. They tried to UM give it to
40:05
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger and Uh lay Duke To, who was North
40:10
Speaker 1: Vietnamese UM politician and he helped broker the end of
40:14
Speaker 1: the UM the Vietnam War between Vietnam and the United States,
40:19
Speaker 1: although the Vietnam War continued on and lay Duke To
40:23
Speaker 1: actually was the only person Uh in the history of
40:26
Speaker 1: the Nobel Peace Prize to turn it down because he
40:29
Speaker 1: had to share it with Kissinger. And he said that
40:31
Speaker 1: the award put the invader and the invaded as equal,
40:35
Speaker 1: and I mean even taking the idea that it was,
40:37
Speaker 1: you know, a joint award between Kissinger and lay Duke too.
40:41
Speaker 1: A lot of people have said, like, you can't give
40:43
Speaker 1: a Nobel Peace Prize to Kissinger. He's a war hawk.
40:47
Speaker 1: He was, he was a war criminal. A lot of
40:50
Speaker 1: people think like he did some really awful stuff, carpet
40:54
Speaker 1: bombing's civilian like just to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.
40:59
Speaker 1: UM asked elation of the war like a secret war
41:02
Speaker 1: in Cambodia. UM, all sorts of terrible stuff. We'll have
41:05
Speaker 1: to do a uh um episode on Henry Kissinger one day.
41:08
Speaker 1: But um, that's a good example of a controversial winner
41:11
Speaker 1: and also a split Nobel Prize winner and also somebody
41:14
Speaker 1: turning down the Nobel. Yeah. Um. A lot of times
41:18
Speaker 1: they will admonish people in retrospect, even though there are
41:21
Speaker 1: no takes these back seas, like we mentioned. Uh they
41:24
Speaker 1: will say, hey, we give you a Nobel Peace Prize
41:26
Speaker 1: and then you went on to do some not so
41:28
Speaker 1: peaceful things. Even admonished Barack Obama who won in his
41:32
Speaker 1: first year presidency for things like drone strikes and overthrowing Kadafi. Um.
41:38
Speaker 1: So you can get your your hands banked afterwards. Again,
41:42
Speaker 1: they can't they can't really do anything, but they can
41:45
Speaker 1: say you're very publicly you're not living up to this
41:49
Speaker 1: prize that you earned, and that's the expectation. Yeah, I mean,
41:52
Speaker 1: and that's a problem with with That's part of that
41:54
Speaker 1: thing of like giving out awards to people who are
41:56
Speaker 1: still alive and still in their careers, you know. Um.
41:59
Speaker 1: And song Suki from me and mar was like this
42:04
Speaker 1: huge democratic activist and I guess everybody just presumed that
42:09
Speaker 1: she was also a peace activist too, And when she
42:12
Speaker 1: finally came to power. Um, she actually oversaw a lot
42:17
Speaker 1: of UM like basically war crimes carried out by her
42:21
Speaker 1: troops against minorities within her country, which really surprised a
42:26
Speaker 1: lot of people. UM. And I think it's surprised the
42:29
Speaker 1: Nobel Committee. Um. There's an Ethiopian prime minister named Abiy Ahmed.
42:34
Speaker 1: He won in two thousand nineteen because he helped finally
42:38
Speaker 1: end the civil war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is
42:42
Speaker 1: a big deal. I mean that that that civil war
42:44
Speaker 1: been going on for since the nineties, I believe. But
42:48
Speaker 1: a short time after that, he also oversaw ethnic cleansing
42:52
Speaker 1: in a region where minority has lived in his own
42:55
Speaker 1: country as well. So, UM, it seems dicey to give
42:59
Speaker 1: it to a head of because there's so much dirty
43:01
Speaker 1: business involved in just being ahead of state in the
43:04
Speaker 1: twentie and twenty one century that I just I can't
43:08
Speaker 1: imagine giving it to I can't see them giving it
43:10
Speaker 1: to another head of state again, especially after Obama too.
43:14
Speaker 1: They got swept up in that the you know, the
43:16
Speaker 1: whole two thousand, two thousand eight Hope campaign, and gave
43:20
Speaker 1: it to him within a few months of him becoming
43:22
Speaker 1: president in two thousand nine. Yeah, it was, and they
43:25
Speaker 1: even said it was premature. And even at the time
43:28
Speaker 1: people Democrats and Republicans alike thought it was a premature,
43:32
Speaker 1: kind of a miss step. Really. Um. So I'll bet
43:35
Speaker 1: they don't give it to another head of state again
43:37
Speaker 1: in any time you and I are still alive. MM.
43:40
Speaker 1: I could see that for sure. I mean they you know,
43:43
Speaker 1: they do their own thing because they can, but they
43:45
Speaker 1: certainly don't love these controversies. Um. The fact that Gandhi
43:49
Speaker 1: never got one is is a sort of a big
43:51
Speaker 1: stain on the the committee. He was nominated either five
43:55
Speaker 1: or six times over the years and never got it. Um.
43:59
Speaker 1: Some people will say that, oh, Gandhi was to India
44:03
Speaker 1: centric and he was a nationalist. Other people say that
44:06
Speaker 1: there were violent protests that he certainly didn't um call for,
44:11
Speaker 1: but uh, we're done because of the things he was doing. Um.
44:17
Speaker 1: Other people say, well, that's just a symptom of this
44:20
Speaker 1: eurosentrism that the Nobel Committee has, which is like, up
44:24
Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty, I think it was almost exclusively Americans
44:28
Speaker 1: and Europeans that got it, and then since then there's
44:32
Speaker 1: been quite a few you know, non Europeans and Americans,
44:35
Speaker 1: but people will still criticize and say, yeah, but even
44:38
Speaker 1: when it goes to a non European or American, it's
44:41
Speaker 1: someone that's probably aligned with their interests in some way. Yeah,
44:45
Speaker 1: because we said earlier that, um, you know, you can
44:48
Speaker 1: some people divide the eras of the Nobel Prize up
44:52
Speaker 1: in one of those eras as pro democracy, and the
44:56
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize Committee has definitely like cast their lot um
45:00
Speaker 1: among the democratic part of the world order, like they're
45:04
Speaker 1: pro democracy, which doesn't account for communism and other, um,
45:09
Speaker 1: other political ideas that would have them turn a blind
45:16
Speaker 1: eye I guess to people who are doing good, peaceful
45:19
Speaker 1: work but aren't necessarily pro democracy, I think is one
45:22
Speaker 1: of the big criticisms. Yeah, that's a sliper slope, it
45:26
Speaker 1: really is. And I mean like, yeah, no, it definitely is.
45:30
Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody's saying like, hey, you should
45:33
Speaker 1: turn your back on democracy. I think what they're saying
45:36
Speaker 1: is is like, hey, just because somebody's you know, pro communist,
45:39
Speaker 1: if they're doing more activist peace work than anybody else
45:43
Speaker 1: on the planet, don't don't overlook them, I think, is
45:45
Speaker 1: the point. Yeah, like get put in his day, right,
45:51
Speaker 1: I wonder how many times he's been nominated. Oh, I'm
45:55
Speaker 1: sure there have been some interests that have nominated him,
45:59
Speaker 1: don't you think. Definitely? Yeah, where they got the poison right?
46:05
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't even say that out loud. Oh that's
46:07
Speaker 1: the other thing we can't. You can't nominate yourself. Oh yeah,
46:12
Speaker 1: that seems obvious, but yeah that's a rule. Um yeah,
46:16
Speaker 1: I mean imagine the Peace Prize winner who nominated himself
46:20
Speaker 1: for herself. Yeah, you couldn't do that. There is an
46:23
Speaker 1: alternative award that some people say we should look to,
46:26
Speaker 1: which is the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative
46:30
Speaker 1: Nobel Um. Swedish German writer Yakob von UKs Kool created
46:35
Speaker 1: this nineteen eighty after he went to the Nobel Committee
46:39
Speaker 1: and the foundation said, hey, why don't we add prizes
46:42
Speaker 1: for the environment and one that promotes perspectives from other
46:47
Speaker 1: people that aren't necessarily European or American And they went nah,
46:52
Speaker 1: And he said, all right, so I'll create my own
46:54
Speaker 1: prize and they'll say great, no one cares. I don't
47:00
Speaker 1: like they said that. They said, get out. Well, yeah
47:02
Speaker 1: I saw that. They politely turned it down. Yeah, I'm
47:05
Speaker 1: sure it was all above board. But the Right Livelihood
47:07
Speaker 1: Award is what some people say we should look to,
47:10
Speaker 1: but I've never heard of it, so they're not certainly
47:13
Speaker 1: not marketed well. So apparently he funded it, and he
47:16
Speaker 1: also offered to fund those two additional um Nobel prizes
47:20
Speaker 1: by selling his stamp collection. Oh really, isn't that cute?
47:25
Speaker 1: How much money to get for that? He had a
47:27
Speaker 1: million dollar stamp collection apparently at the time. Hey, not bad.
47:32
Speaker 1: So that's it. That's the final word on Nobel Peace Prizes.
47:35
Speaker 1: What do you think? I think it was pretty good? Yep,
47:39
Speaker 1: same here. And if you think it was pretty good,
47:41
Speaker 1: then stick around for some pretty good listener mail. Because
47:45
Speaker 1: Chuck said pretty good, I said pretty good, and I
47:48
Speaker 1: said listener mail, which of course means it's time for
47:50
Speaker 1: a listener mail. Hey guys, I have to push back
47:56
Speaker 1: a little here on something you said in your cookie podcast.
48:00
Speaker 1: The point was made that brownies are technically cookies, bar cookies.
48:04
Speaker 1: Chuck wasn't on board, but Joshua was, and I just
48:06
Speaker 1: can't let it go you guys. I turned over all
48:09
Speaker 1: night over this one. How can a brownie be a cookie?
48:13
Speaker 1: Cookies are made from dough brownies. Like Josh said, uh,
48:17
Speaker 1: you can't be a batter like cake, but brownies are
48:20
Speaker 1: definitely batter. Cookies can be made into large pan size
48:23
Speaker 1: street brownies have to be made that way. You can't
48:27
Speaker 1: make individual brownies on a pan because of the nature
48:29
Speaker 1: of the batter. They have to be cut into pieces
48:31
Speaker 1: like cake. Lemon bars are brought up as another example
48:33
Speaker 1: of a bar cookie, but lemon bars have a bottom,
48:36
Speaker 1: crust and filling more like a pie and can't be
48:38
Speaker 1: baked individually either. I have to think that the ability
48:43
Speaker 1: to make individual items on a pan and the classification
48:46
Speaker 1: of the pre baked components dough versus batter versus spilling
48:50
Speaker 1: or crucial parts of what separates these desserts. Maybe there's
48:53
Speaker 1: something I'm missing in the bar cookie designation that makes
48:55
Speaker 1: it appropriate, but otherwise I just can't get on board
48:58
Speaker 1: with calling brownies cookies. If anything, I think they belong
49:01
Speaker 1: in the cake family and lemon bars in the pie family.
49:04
Speaker 1: I love you guys in my family and I will
49:06
Speaker 1: continue to enjoy your work. Danielle from Anaheim, California, or Man,
49:11
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this is daniel Okay. When we you said
49:15
Speaker 1: it in the French way. Yeah, exactly. Sorry Daniel, Um, sorry, Uh.
49:21
Speaker 1: And I think I don't know if it's gonna make
49:23
Speaker 1: you feel better or worse that I've actually come around
49:26
Speaker 1: to the idea that brownies are not cookies. Hey, look
49:29
Speaker 1: at there, everybody. It's true. The batter fact just completely
49:33
Speaker 1: undermines the idea that they're cookies. If they're made from batter,
49:36
Speaker 1: so they can't be cookies. I I agree, And I
49:38
Speaker 1: think the idea that lemon bar is actually more related
49:42
Speaker 1: to pie, as Daniel put it as, pretty persuasive too.
49:46
Speaker 1: So just forget I ever said the whole thing about
49:48
Speaker 1: brownies being cookies. Throw some meringue on a lemon bar
49:52
Speaker 1: that's a piece of pie. Yeah, it totally is, especially
49:56
Speaker 1: if you cut it in like a little triangle wedge. Uh. Well,
49:59
Speaker 1: if you have been tossing and turning all night and
50:02
Speaker 1: have to get something off your chest to us, we
50:04
Speaker 1: want to hear it. You can send it in an
50:06
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.
50:12
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50:15
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