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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.