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by andrewgjohnson 1843 days ago
The Swartz Prize? I like that namesake better than some others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Criticism

"Criticism of Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales, and some question his motives in creating his prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation."

4 comments

Here in Scandinavia, the usual narrative about Alfred Nobel is that he wanted to offset the damage his inventions have contributed to the world. To acknowledge that, he probably felt that it was intertwined with his reputation and his own concsience.
Yea, people are fallible. It seems ok to me if he tried to make amends by trying to add a little incentive for people to better the world.
> some question his motives in creating his prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation.

That seems backwards to me. Part of the purpose of reputation is to incent people to do good things.

If his primary aim was to improve his reputation, wouldn't he have created the Nobel Prize before his death?
I think his brother died and newspapers thought it was Alfred and there were some very unkind reports about him that said stuff like he was a merchant of death and good riddens. That made him rethink his long term legacy and he tried to improve it.
Yea, that name definitely gets my vote.