That is.... actually a seriously meaty article from a blog I've never heard of. Thanks for the pointer.

> It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (59.3 million in 2022; 23.1% of the U.S. adult population).

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness

Most people don't understand just how mentally unwell the US population is. Of course there are one million talking to ChatGPT about suicide weekly. This is not a surprising stat at all. It's just a question of what to do about it.

At least OpenAI is trying to do something about it.

If you're looking at it like how an athlete would get a gold medal, maybe? Even then, the fact that an unqualified person (such as with doping and cheating) was given a medal, doesn't take away from someone's accomplishment.

But back on Obama, was your expectation that he wouldn't hurt a fly? Did he start a war? Did he not set the stage for withdrawing from two wars (both justified imho!)? Did he order the killing of anyone who wasn't a legitimate military target? I'm not saying he should have been given any award, and certainly his was premature, but it is hardly without precedent.

The peace prize is given to leaders who worked towards peace. It gives them recognition, sort of like a pat on the back so they won't give up.

Would you rather a retired politician get the prize so he can boast about it? or an active politician so that he now has the prize as a reminder of their promises and work towards peace?

He said it best:

"Throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes," Obama said. "And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action—a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe. But the US did pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and conflicts in Syira, Libya and all over the world sprung that were too easy for the US to be involved in but the US didn't. The US military responded to various natural disasters providing crucial aid, such as with the 2011 Haiti earthquake.

I think this sentiment is held largely by people who don't want to be bothered by nuance and who have an immature concept of peace, one that doesn't involve violence or military action (despite concepts like "peace keeping force" existing).