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by doe_eyes 612 days ago
> Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science?

Even without searching, I'm sure they back a number of organizations that do endow various awards, scholarships, and so on. I doubt they could come up with a "flagship" one that would be as prestigious as the Nobel Prize, though. Our attitudes toward modern-day "industrialists" and their pet projects are quite different today. Whatever controversies surround the Nobel Prize, they would be many times worse for the Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk Medal of Merit.

1 comments

This seems kinda confused. The Nobel is now controversial because after all, Nobel invented dynamite and he wanted to expunge his guilt. Yet you said it was "prestigious" -- but you want to cancel that, regardless?

But somehow the Nobel Prize in Computer Science would be too controversial even given all that.

OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk. Maybe you're just jealous.

> The Nobel is now controversial because after all, Nobel invented dynamite and he wanted to expunge his guilt.

It's not controversial for that reason. It's actually a fantastic origin story for the prize, especially since he arranged for it on his deathbed.

> OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk.

Huh?