When I read this the first time, I mistakenly read futility instead of utility, I guess as some kind of internal projection. Therein lies the problem with life in general. Alfred Nobel creates dynamite to help engineer and shape the world, and we quickly turn it into bombs to kill people.The format isn't broken, it's simply revealing its ultimate utility: fluid, anonymous discourse amongst the disinterested.
...Joseph Pulitzer invents the Spanish-American war, and quickly creates a prize to celebrate important journalism. Explosives to kill people predated Nobel by a fair shot. Dynamite just made it less likely to be hoist on your own petard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petard#.22Hoist_with_his_own_pe...
No, I get that. And my point is that when people accomplish great evil by accident they tend to put a band-aid on it and hope nobody notices. Nobel gets a bye from me because the morality of making it easier for your guys to kill the other guys is pragmatic in nature, whereas so many humanitarian awards are directly related to the scumminess of the people they're named after.