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The Imitation Game Fails Test of Inspiring the Next Turings
reifman writes In 'The Imitation Game': Can This Big Fat Cliche Win Best Picture?, reviewer Monica Guzman blasts the film for distorting history and missing the opportunity to inspire today's tech savvy, highly surveilled generation to follow in Turing's path: Instead of an inventor, it shows a stereotype. Instead of inspiring us to follow in the footsteps of a person who shaped technology, the film inspires us only to get out of the way of the next genius who can. The Imitation Game changed aspects of the real Alan Turing's personality to conform more closely to our idea of the solitary nerd. It falls in line with the tired idea that only outcasts could love computers...As for explaining the science behind Turing's code-breaking machine, the movie doesn't bother. if invention doesn't deserve top billing in this story, where the technology at its heart is not only historically significant but hugely resonant in our lives today, then I don't know where it would. The message of the movie is that the uncommon man can do amazing things, but the message we need is that the common man, woman, anybody can and should tinker with the technology that manages our whole world.
There's no such thing as a mediocre human being.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Yes there is-- we elect them all the time.
Some people are stronger than others, some are smarter, some have a fundamental understanding of computation (Turing) or electricity (Tesla) that the rest of us simply do not have-- This idea that we all *HAVE* to be equal is insane-- we should recognize, and celebrate, our differences. I would no more want Stephen Hawking to build my next house than I would want Usain Bolt to design a CPU for my next computer.
Humans are genuinely an amazing animal... but to claim that all humans are above average is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of awareness of both math, and humanity.
1. Alen Turing was gay.
2. He was briefly engaged to his coworker lady friend.
3. He worked on Enigma.
4. He died after the war.
Besides that it was a complete fiction. "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" was more historically accurate.
If you want the truth, I suggest starting with wikipedia: "Marian Rejewski", then "Bombe", then "Bletchley Park", then "Coventry Blitz".
Sadly, the real story is way more interesting and moved much faster than the movie. The Poles gave Enigma cracking plans to the French and the Brits on July 24th 1939. The Brits started up Bletchley Park, brought in Turing and many others, and had a working Enigma cracking program (many machines) by the end of fall 1939!
Another interesting detail that many books on Enigma (and this movie very loosely alludes to) still get wrong has to do with the German upgrade to their code machine in 1942. David Kahn in his "The Codebreakers" book attributes the success in cracking Enigma after 1942 to capturing code books. The truth is that Alan Turing became the technical ambassador to the United States and came over the pond November 1942. He met with some engineers at NCR and developed an electronic version of the mechanical bombe, the plans were finished and approved by the US Navy in January 1943, and the first working prototypes that were 10000 faster than the British bombs were working by May. The rest of that story is at wikipedia: "United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory".
These are the stories I want to see, not the I'm-the-misunderstood-genius-Asperger-syndrome Turning bullshit that "Imitation Game" put out there.
- Minarke
I find it ironic that the movie chooses to portray Turing in an inaccurately negative light,
when so many times, the film industry polishes up a flawed human hero in a Hollywood retelling.
What I find ironic is how they manage to mention the people who actually cracked Enigma twice and only in passing. First one of those British intelligence types blurts out something about Enigma being "stolen by Polish intelligence" and a second time when Turing claims his machine is based on "an old Polish decryption device" (or something to that effect). At the time this movie is supposed to have happened the bomba kryptologiczna, which is probably what they are referring, to was about 3 years old. That may be dated technology today but by the standard of the 1930s three years was not 'old technology'. Turing achieved great things but he and his team didn't crack Enigma all on their own with British ingenuity. They stood on the shoulders of people like Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski and many others who cracked Enigma with Polish ingenuity. They were the ones who originally had the audacity to think that they could crack the world's most sophisticated cypher technology with the meagre resources the Polish cypher bureau had.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
What are you talking about? The vast majority of politicians are highly-educated, often with many academic awards, and also usually wealthy (many times by their own efforts).
They may seem mediocre because of the specious reasoning they give for their policies. This is an illusion created by your own credulity: you believe they are motivated by a statesman-like desire to serve the greater good. In fact, they are motivated by a very selfish desire to acquire and exercise power, and also to acquire great wealth (while empowering their political allies to do the same). They often lie in order to justify policies that accomplish this.
And they are very good at it.
Others have failed to mention the peasants that worked the land that not only fed Mozart but kept Mozart's patrons wealthy enough to support the arts by commissioning Mozart's works, or indeed made it possible for all Mozart's spectators to enjoy arts rather than spend the day doing subsistence farming themselves. Without them, all arts we'd have would be able to sustain is the odd folk singing after a hard day's work.
Others have mentioned the craftsmen that made his instruments, but also keep in mind the folk that made and gathered paper, ink and quills he used to write his music. Or even the millions of ordinary people of his past that helped shape the language he used, without which it would be impossible to sustain human civilization.
Thus Mozart, stood on the shoulders of millions of completely ordinary folk.
The lesson here; next time you believe the bullshit of "self-made man" and "I didn't receive no help from nobody", think of what steps are actually necessary for the life we live today.