On: Disproved Discoveries That Won Nobel Prizes (2015)

[Tomte]

The value in awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to warmongers is — and the awarding committee is very conscious of it — that it has enough cachet to actually motivate warmongers to stop warmonging and go for the prize (and a relatively well-off, safe and calm retirement).

It may not be fair, but the people who don't die because of that effect won't complain.

[bathtub365 → Tomte]

Do you have any examples of this happening?

[Tomte → bathtub365]

There are multiple instances of violent people who stopped being violent and got the prize. Arafat is one example.

Whether the prize played a role in their decision is something only they can say (and then you might not believe them).

So I find this question useless, because it cannot be answered. The mechanism I sketched is generally plausible, though.

[dnautics → Tomte]

There are also instances of relatively peaceful people who got the prize and became warmongers, e.g. a certain president of the us, who sent 500 drone strikes into Libya in a single year after winning the prize (among other military adventures)

[Tomte → dnautics]

How does that relate to the question in this sub thread?

Do you actually propose that they did violent things because they got the prize?

[jtolmar → Tomte]

If there are as many examples of people receiving the peace prize then going on to be warmongers as there are the reverse, it suggests that the peace prize isn't really doing anything here and we're just looking at the base rate of leaders switching between peaceful and warlike actions.

[Tomte → jtolmar]

No, that's a fallacy, unless you can credibly argue for a causal link, i.e. because of the prize people feel they can get away with violence.

I find that not impossible to argue, but incredible, and would want to see supporting evidence.

[tshaddox → Tomte]

Yes, but that cuts both ways.

[Tomte → tshaddox]

I only argue that there is a plausible mechanism, you argued in quantitative terms.

[diplomatpuppy → Tomte]

The prize may have given them political cover that let their violence go on longer

[Tomte → diplomatpuppy]

They only get the prize after stopping, so you're arguing for something more complicated: violence, then non-violence, then violence.

Possible, but not terribly plausible, IMO. And the examples proffered so far (Obama or Kissinger) certainly don't fit that pattern.