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Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown
99luftballon writes "The British government has officially apologized for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era. An online petition got more than enough signatures to force an official statement and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a lengthy apology. 'Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.'"
Don't get me wrong, I feel the statement is fine and all that, just strikes me as weird to put those two concepts together.
I suppose we should be pleased that Brown has issued this apology, just a shame he's part of a government that knew about torture of terrorism suspects under interrogation. I don't think chemical castration is any worse, and it was even legal at the time. How times have changed eh? Now the government only does awful things to you without evidence and when you've not even had a trial.
To stop this turning into a rant though, I salute you Alan Turing for bringing philosophy into Computer Science through all your pioneering AI work. You deserved far better.
Yep. Good apology, politically safe to make it, he's still dead.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
"...thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britainâ(TM)s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing."
Read: We got ganged up on and were forced to issue an apology for treating Alan Turing like shit.
I'm glad the apology was (finally) issued, but was it just me, or did it seem like it was given somewhat grudgingly?
It's actually highly unlikely he committed suicide. But I guess if it makes you feel better...
There's an excellent short story Oracle by Greg Egan imagining what would have happened if Turing's life had gone slightly differently. Egan portrays a very interesting world with heavy emphasis on how Turing might have interacted with C.S. Lewis. See http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/MISC/ORACLE/Oracle.html.
Yes.
Genuine progress and enlightenment does not require a political mandate.
Consider that today, you can be gay and a programmer, and nobody cares except the bigots.
And yet when you have consenting sex with your sister you will still get thrown into jail for up to two years, as it still seems accepted to punish people for whom they chose as partner. I would prefer it when they would clean up the other unjust laws that are still left, instead of just apologizing for those that already got fixed.
I was going to moderate, but decided to respond to this instead.
An apology never "changes" anything. Harm done is not undone by saying "I am sorry". But an apology is an admission that "I" if I'm the one who did the wrong, or "We" if it is an entity that still exists (such as a company, country etc) recognise the action committed by people like us is wrong and shameful.
An apology is always humbling, and one is humbled they end to listen better.
We recently had an, admittedly symbolic, apology to the "Stolen Generation" (http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2162035.htm) A lot of people in the previous Government scoffed at it as symbolic and will not change the plight of the indigenous peoples, but they completely missed the point. The point to the Indigenous Peoples is a "recognition of wrongs done".
The apology itself was didn't wind back time or give, now adults, the time they lost with their parents!
I was not born (I was not even a twinkle in my parents' eyes!) when these "legal" actions were taken, but I felt proud that we acknowledge wrong done to others by my country.
A previous post mentioned: Justice delayed is justice denied. This, imho, is BS. Justice should always be sought and welcomed when it is offered.
How significant is it for people to apologise for acts for which they bear no guilt? On the face of it, it is a meaningless political gesture and I see it as a gross act of cynicism. A decade ago we saw the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa where people who were guilty of horrific acts in the name of apartheid apologised and attempted to atone for what they had done (I know that in some cases, but not all, the motive may have been to avoid prosecution), but at least the people doing the apologising were the guilty parties. Now we have the absurd spectacle of George Bush apologising for slavery, for example. He had nothing to do with slavery and does not have a mandate to apologise for his ancestors. Should I demand that the Italian government apologise to me because, when he invaded Britain, Julius Caesar did bad things to my ancestors?
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
I know it throws up all kinds of references to Gattaca, but the difference is simple. Brother and Sister is information readily available to everyone without violating anyone's privacy. Capturing genetic profiles and then basing marriage licenses on it, or "procreation licenses" would be far different and regardless of motivations, I find my own genetic profile to *deeply* and *profoundly* private. I can see 100 years in the future that we wear clothes designed to prevent DNA from falling off and being collected by little robots in restaurants for marketing purposes.
Siblings procreating has the highest certainty of genetically damaged offspring. 1st cousins next.
I think we can draw the line at siblings and 1st cousins. Genetic profiling is not required for that, and I would never support genetic profiling under any circumstances. Ever. The only person that should have access to your genetic information is your primary care physician and that information should be strongly protected by the most strenuous legal language possible with severe consequences for unauthorized dissemination.
Your just playing with histrionics again. Nobody is suggesting that two people that are dwarves cannot procreate. Just brothers and sisters. You keep wanting to expand the restriction, when nobody is agreeing to it in the discussion. I am not even suggesting that two people that have Down Syndrome cannot procreate either.
Keep it to brothers and sisters. Which, BTW, have very high chances of severe abnormalities that require life-long care. We are not talking Down Syndrome or being smaller than average either. Far more severe.
Indeed, and whilst many may think you only have reason to be thankful if you're gay because justice has been done, that's not the case.
My reasons to be thankful to Turing are because he was one of the founders of the field I work in and love so much, one of the most important contributors along with the likes of Godel to what I find one of the most fascinating and enjoyable fields of math, and because, most importantly, his work allowed my grandfather to cross the channel back to England safely for his wedding to my grandmother and if it were not for this, I might never have even come to be.
As odd as it sounds being not born until nearly 30 years after his death, I almost certainly owe my existence and livelihood to Turing and of course, there's always an argument that if Turing hadn't done it someone else would have, but the point is, someone else didn't, Turing did so he is the man I have to thank. To me, it was unacceptable that a man to which I and many owe so much be treated like this and often ignored in recounts of great moments and people of British history.
So I also genuinely appreciate it.
All of the studies are going to be very small by their very nature. That is not surprising, and I don't think it completely invalidates the study. Such incestuous relationships are rare for both biological and social reasons.
Conceptually, it is not that hard to understand why offspring from such incestuous pairings have much higher probabilities for severe abnormalities. We may be arguing about the exact percentage, but I think we both know, it is not less than 10%. Quite a bit higher.
Brother-sister/father-daughter offspring is pretty much the closest you can get and it is not surprising (nor should it be) that the probabilities of severe defects are an order higher than 1st cousin pairings.
But if we are getting down to percentages here, just what percentage are you comfortable with? Do you support the creation of such offspring?
The whole reason to prevent such pairings is the public interest is not deliberately creating children that will suffer so horribly. Do you think even if the chances are greater than 50% we should let them roll the dice?
Churchill was busy being Prime Minister at the time.
That should say a lot about Churchill's real character- if anyone could've protected Turing he could, and he chose not to.
Churchill made some great speeches during the war, but remember as soon as the war was over his government was kicked out, yes they got back in next term but only because his government was better than the, at the time, found to be even worse Labour government.
This view of Churchill as a great Briton is questionable, he talked a good talk during the war, even in the case of Turing referring to him as a great person. But his actions exist in sharp contrast to his words. Even politicians back then said one thing and did another.
How exactly does
we affirmed Justice was doing one's own business, and not being a busybody
*define justice explicitly*??
All they say in this dialogue is that allowing people to go about their business is doing them justice, and interfering in people's business is an injustice, but it doesn't claim to give an ultimate definition justice. The whole dialogue tries to come up with a definition of justice, but mires down into a debate about self interest versus acting just and the quality of rulers. Having said that, I guess the original poster's comment is not a quote from Plato, so you're right. But the original poster did stay closer to the meaning of the Republic in my view.
But for some reason, and correct me if I'm wrong, the phrase "There is no true measure of justice, but it is important for a government to give the appearens of justice to society" sounds like a Machiavellian thing to say and reminds me of the Cardassian justice system. :-D
As a gay programmer myself, it often amazed the people I worked with that the two parts of my personality weren't in conflict. I very seldom ran into predjudice, though. In fact, often I was recognized as a good teacher and the other employees felt free to come and ask my help when they had a tough coding problem.
Alan Turing has been an idol of mine for a long time, and he was treated badly, yes. But more important than the apology is the recognition that there have been contributions of significance to the world by gay men and women and transgendered persons. Our history has been actively suppressed for centuries, but we are finally being recognized as having value in the modern age.
God bless Alan Turing, and Gordon Brown. Every little bit of kindness and generosity makes the world a better place for all of mankind.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Jay Wiseman (author of SM101) said it best:
"Being into S&M is like being gay 25 years ago"
More true now than ever.
living in a world where our deepest-held moral convictions are set aside for technological progress sounds like a nightmare scenario.
Sounds like paradise to me. A society governed by reason rather than moronic superstitions.
it makes the world sane in a way to know that society's mores and taboos will be enforced.
Quite the opposite. Societies taboos should be shunned on principle. Mob-mentality instituted into law. Moronic superstitions codified and enforced by people in uniform. What makes the world insane is that our morals (which I assume is what you meant) and taboos are enforced.
that instinct is a very important part of how we interact as social creatures.
Instincts are what makes us animals. Reason is what makes us human.
The people giving the apology were not the people guilty of the crime. There is nothing to be absolved of. This is a government recognizing a man for his contributions to the country, and stating that what their predacessors did to him was wrong.
If you find fault with that, you are sick. That is the same mentality that allows senseless generational conflicts to continue for millenia on end. Just look to the Middle East, they are charged with racial tension for reasons nobody remembers. Most of the people leading the ideologies of hatred think exactly like you do.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller