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#wikifinds “After the death of his younger brother Emil in an 1864 nitroglycerin explosion at the family's armaments factory in Heleneborg, Stockholm, Nobel founded Nitroglycerin AB in Vinterviken, Stockholm.”
what a backstory. fazed by the death of his brother from explosives, guy founds a new company called Explosives Limited
i've been reading a bit about Alfred Nobel's life history today, since, well, it's Nobeldagen today and i'm a Swede now and Sweden is more than a little bit excited to be the country that produced him, and uh… wow, dude was actually pretty cool, i'm glad he got what he wanted
reading about Nobel, what strikes me is how little has changed between his time and ours. he grew up in industrial capitalism, came up with some profitable chemical inventions, travelled through Europe setting up various companies around them, amassed a fortune, and donated it.
120 years after his death, we're still in industrial capitalism, and this is as normal as anything. reading his will, you see a list of places and ways that his wealth was stored: property, stocks, money, patents, royalty agreements, scattered across Europe. wouldn't differ today
i only partly believe the whole “Nobel came up with the prizes in order to whitewash his legacy” thing now. dude was a scientist, friends with pacifists and his many explosive innovations have more civilian applications than military ones. maybe he felt guilt, but he wasn't evil.
the main change in our times is that you could do a Nobel even if you're a woman, which is cool i guess. hashtag girlboss
@hikari people who want to whitewash their legacy usually do a much worse job of it.
Importantly, they usually *just lie about giving the money away* instead of actually doing that. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2019/07/the-lesson-from-the-ruins-of-notre-dame-dont-rely-on-billionaires/