I will Get That Nobel Peace Prize Yet!

Before you say “Someone already did your idea,” I should point out that no one has done it quite the way I’m describing it.

What I’d like to see is a pen pal web site designed to end war. The idea would be to connect citizens in different countries at such a high rate it would be politically impossible for the two countries to start a war.

You might support your government in a war against a country full of people you don’t know. But would you support a war that has a good chance of killing your e-mail friend Phlubanakawahaha and his entire family? There is some theoretical level of citizen-to-citizen contact that makes war between two countries virtually impossible.

And think how much you could learn if you had a pen pal in Iran or Syria or China. It would be hugely interesting, especially for senior citizens and students who have extra time on their hands.

The Internet forces most users to learn English. I don’t know the percentage of English-speaking Internet users in other countries, but it is probably fairly high. Still, you’d need your pen pal service to translate automatically. I could send my e-mail in English and have it translated automatically into Spanish or whatever.

Internet penetration isn’t as high as it needs to be worldwide for this idea to work yet, but we’re getting there. This would be about the right time to get the system going. Maybe it’s a good project for the U.N., funded by the Gates Foundation.

The $100 laptops we keep hearing about will eventually give Internet access to even small villages. Imagine having a pen pal in some tiny African village. You learn that all they need is one of those foot-operated water pumps for irrigating fields and a bag of seeds and they can build a decent life. For a few hundred dollars you could save an entire village and get to see the results in real time. Who could resist?

While we wait for all of that to happen, I will clear a place above the TV for my Nobel Peace Prize.

Comments

[George Porter]

In regard to a Nobel Peace Prize and the inability of people who like each other to fight, you need only look at the U.S. Civil War, and numerous other civil wars, to debunk the idea of friends not fighting.

[Steven McDaniel]

Scott, I am constantly amazed at how you 'atheist' types (as implied on your presidential election manifesto previously) fatuously insist on conferring the solution to world evil upon technological advances. It hasn't happened yet. The internet can start a war as easily as prevent one. Your friend Phlubanakabwahahahaha could just as easily say 'Die, infidel!' in his e-mail to you, as, 'Hello my good western friend who has brought our sweet little village these $100 laptops so we can all go virtually skipping off hand in hand into a humanist millenium, singing, "It's a Small World After All!" ' The internet is simply an amoral facilitator that takes on the character of those that use it. And, Scott, there's some nasty people out there. Keep your day job, Ghandi.

[t]

I love your idea. I also read the first comment about Skype for free calls and about adding internet to those places where it's still a LUXURY.
I just want to say, about Skype, YES, that's the way to do it, and I hope you do it and get the Nobel Peace Prize; and about internet - I'm African and the internet-starvedness bothers me a great deal, and let's build the bandwidth!

[Cavpollo]

yeah, its a nice idea... but I cant help but be negative and think... teh skepticals will say it will not work and somewhere under the rainbow it will disappear (like those other revolutionary ideas)... hahahaha

[tenelus]

Unfortunately, Sean Sutton has a good point... i even had the good idea buzz for a while there... such is life.

[Carl]

I like the idea.. With respect to the Internet not being present in all the little African villages, I think we can come up with a workable solution to that also.

Skype is a fantastic way for getting free calls to other users of the service, as we know. What happens with Skype is that you can also call land line numbers in another country and the call is routed on the Internet for as much of this route as possible, e.g. to a server within the local area of the land line. After this the call is transferred onto the normal telephone system to complete the connection (I think that's how it works anyway), this means that effectively you've turned an international call into a local call, thus reducing the cost.

If we adopt a similar approach for your pen pal service, users that both have a connection to the Internet get along fine with the direct email connection. What happens in the case of a remote village is that the email is sent as far as possible until it comes out in some 'exchange' in a local(ish) area to the recipient. The email gets printed out in this exchange and then physically posted - the result of this would be the same as if the sender had posted an actual real-life letter (remember those???), apart from that you wouldn't be able to include any seeds for them to build a farm from.

Job done.

[Sean Sutton]

I would wholeheartedly disagree with you that expanded communication would decrease the opportunities for war. On the contrary, I fully believe that the more we see the horrors inflicted upon our fellow man, the less likely we are to ignore the dictators and genocides by grabbing a $4 limited-release micro brew and settling down to an evening of watching Project Runway.

Right now, warlords and dictators are actually doing everything that the most extreme left in this country accuses our own government of doing, plus much worse. People are justifiably worried about war killing civilians but according to UNICEF, the sanctions in Iraq before the war killed over a million civilians at a staggering rate of over 10,000 a month. Currently, the war has lowered this to less than 600 a month. Is this an acceptable number? It's certainly about 600 a month more than I would like. However, it's undeniably better than 10,000 a month.

War is a horrible, terrible thing. The question, though, is why are we aren't appalled by things even worse? By interconnecting people throughout the world, we're going to see up close and first-hand all those things which are much worse: the child soldiers in the Congo, the rape squads in Darfur, the militant tribes in Indonesia, the violent dictators in dozens of countries throughout the world. When we see people we have come to know, have come to care for be abducted in the middle of the night and hacked to pieces by machetes in order for some petty dictator to live in unabashed luxury while his people starve, our first thought isn't going to be grabbing that StarBucks and having a latte. It's going to be a thought of justice and of revenge.

[Roby Bang]

Besides all the conditions of online translators, lack of citizen influence on the government, and human apathy and anti-social tendencies, one thing still needs to be pointed out. The fact you rely on ideal conditions and behaviors to make the perfect world. If ideal conditions existed, then there wouldn't be a problem, would there?
If everybody was exactly the same, there would be no source of conflict, because everyone would understand each other. If everyone in the world was a pickpocket, we'd be fine. I would steal Bob's money, Bob would steal Steve's money, and everything would just circulate until everyone found a way to prevent being robbed or an equilibrium occured where no one lost anything. But not everyone steals and not everyone cares, so don't hold your breath.

[Louie LeDurchi]

Global Pen Pals to ensure world peace?
Yes sir, and here's how to start:
1) Match everyone up with a pen pal from another country and force them to write daily - and if they do not write daily, kill them.
2) Scratch number 1. Match everyone up with a pen pal from another country and let them write of their own free will - and if they refuse to write, kill them.
3) Scratch number 2. Change human nature. Yea, that's the ticket.

[SRR]

Homeland security will of course be monitoring your emails (no warrant required).
"Perhaps you could explain to us why you're writing to a Sayeed Abdahollian in Bryzigistan."
"He's my pen pal. He's 11 years old. I'm helping his father equip a well, so that their village can have water. Sayeed translates because his father only speaks Urdu."
"Are you aware, that we can hold you for questioning without charge indefinitely?"
"Am I being charged with something?"
"That's classified information."

[Etherplain]

Better hope that the translation engine that allows the pen pals to actually communicate to eachother in their native language works pretty damn well! Could start a war if you inadvertantly call someones mother a dog.

[Reinhardt Smit]

Hey Scott,

I love the idea, and would like to draw your attention to this website, which is a project run by a Youth Organisation affiliated with the UN. http://www.chattheplanet.com. I don't know how far they've gotten and all, but it's a step towards your ideas...

Maybe the Gates Foundation can give them some much needed money...

[Indian]

Surprisingly enough maybe you gave substance to a thought I came across today by an author Bhishma Sahni who has written a novel about the India-Pak partition which happened back in 1947.

"If people knew each other, they would find it hard to hate."

[Tyler Holmes]

Let them eat nothing healthy
And act irresponsibly
They learn nothing morally
But YOU pretend that they DO
Claiming learning business is more important than how to live
They soon become the next generation to give
Rise to the vicious circle..
Grown children having more
The cunning make them into their whores
Even turning on their families for:
The poison now in every part of their automated bods
Pills, pills, pills and more pills make their brain stay calm,
Add to that the belief of a very distant god
Keep them treating the symptom
Not the cause.

_*_ DuXionZ.com _*_ DuXionZ.com _*_

[Tyler Holmes]

Let them eat nothing healthy
And act irresponsibly
They learn nothing morally
But YOU pretend that they DO
Claiming learning business is more important than how to live
They soon become the next generation to give
Rise to the vicious circle..
Grown children having more
The cunning make them into their whores
Even turning on their families for:
The poison now in every part of their automated bods
Pills, pills, pills and more pills make their brain stay calm,
Add to that the belief of a very distant god
Keep them treating the symptom
Not the cause.

_*_ DuXionZ.com _*_ DuXionZ.com _*_

[Adarsh Bhat]

Yeah, it's going to work until they cut off Internet connections during the war.

[ABTechie]

Great idea!

[Bill Tkach]

I'm not sure about that "The Internet forces people to use English" bit. That's quite a Western outlook.

I'm sure if you go to China, or India, and try to find a computer to use, it doesn't use English, unless it is geared to tourists.
The push to add languages to computers is as great as the push to segregate computer communications between countries. Although the Internet used to be a wild west, with little visible control, the lines between countries are becoming more visible, even between Canada and the US. Where we once could access everything US, now a lot of the sites poll for where you are coming from, and either redirect you to a Canadian site, or give you a page saying the website is inaccessible.
Maybe one day you will be required to give your passport number to access sites outside of your country.

But back to languages. Even if we don't talk in the same language, you can still communicate using various translation programs found on the Internet. This might make it more dangerous, though, especially if something is translated incorrectly, or "evil forces" take over translation services, and translate incorrectly what you are trying to say, causing tension between two countries.

But who wants to email people 9000km away? Me emails to friends locally are usually as brief as I can make them; I can't imagine how short they'd be if the person is in Botswana!

[knjendu]

Human interaction creates the opportunity for conflict. you would inevitable end up arguing with Phlubanakawahaha about politics, religion or ideology and want to e-nuke him. People just can't help pissing off each other, be it your next door neighbor or Phlubanakawahaha from Elbonia.

[Tomas Liubinas]

DEFINITE YES!! I think this is the most efective way to stop various conflicts. The reasons starting all wars basically consists of the idea of fighting aliens + media booster. And when you have a chance to communicate more or less directly or to have a glimse in your "enemies" daily life, it does not seem so alien at all. Remember when you thought about why the hell you are in cold war against Soviets? The only reason why you will not get the Nobel prize is that you do not need any special penpal site for this. The INTERNET itself in its various protocols and forms is perfect media for this kind of communication. And this is what I told long time ago that the founders of the Internet should get the Noble peace prize.. (plus you have to hold the fighting before you read all your RSSs)

Greetings from Lithuania
http://tomas.liubinas.com/

[vishalrix]

It would be so funny if some Dane were to take this as an opportunity the expand the mind of his pen-pal by sending the pen-pal some of those Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

They will take back your Nobel prize before you'd have blogged(bragged) about it here - and just because they would know where you'd have kept it, above the TV.

[vishalrix]

It would be so funny if some Dane were to take this as an opportunity the expand the mind of his pen-pal by sending the pen-pal some of those Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

They will take back your Nobel prize before you'd have blogged(bragged) about it here - and just because they would know where you'd have kept it, above the TV.

[Will]

2 millions people in London marched AGAINST the last war we got ourselves into - it had zero effect on our government.

So nice idea, but only if everyone in the government has to have a penpal.

[A. Guy]

I'm a translator, so if and when automatic translators become really good I'll be out of a job. I'm not worrying too much though. That level of automatic translation will emerge only when there is real kick-ass AI capable of truly human-like thought. Of course, that day may come sooner than we think.

[Calle b]

Hey man I hate to be the one to tell you this but most people in the world dont like each other that much (thats one of the reasons theres war in the first place) and as mutch as Id like to do my part to help the world Id rather not have to talk to people will im doing it