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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.
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.