
The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing - jgrahamc
http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/alan-turing-deserves-apology-from.html
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edw519
Whether it's Alan Turing, slavery, war crimes, or anything else, the best
apology to someone who is dead would be to stop doing the same things to those
who are living.

~~~
pierrefar
Agreed 100%.

In this instance, the apology is to stop discriminating based on sexuality.

~~~
mynameishere
So...you want to remove the added legal protections homosexuals have?

EDIT: No, really? Is that what you want, because that's where the
discrimination is.

~~~
knowtheory
If you're referring to hate crime legislation that makes it a federal crime to
perpetrate crimes against homosexuals, you should know two things:

First, the Matthew Shepard Act that would extend hate crime laws to sexual
orientation STILL HASN'T BEEN PASSED. :P It's been stymied under 5 congresses,
which you can read about here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_Act#111th_Congr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard_Act#111th_Congress)

Second, and most importantly, the Matthew Shepard Act does not exclusively
protect gays and lesbians. It protects everyone. If some psychotic gay person
goes out and starts murdering straight people just because they're straight,
that too would be a federal hate crime.

If you want to claim that the law would disproportionately protect gay people,
maybe that's because straight people aren't targeted and murdered just because
they're straight.

Ever think of that? Jerk.

===========================================

I do understand and appreciate the argument that murders and crimes should be
punished equally, regardless of who the target is.

But hate crime legislation isn't really about the direct victim of the crime
being prosecuted.

Hate crime legislation is about crimes committed with particular intent, and
as such are about the mindset of the criminal in question, and ability to
create a climate of fear amongst a particular group of individuals.

So, yes, we should prosecute all crimes equally. But to deny that hate crimes
don't exist, or that they don't have a broader intent, is to deny reality. It
is fundamentally different to say "Lets go beat up some
fags/chinks/paddies/etc" from saying "Lets go find someone to beat up"

============================================

Final note, hate crimes are innately about discrimination. The fact that hate
crime legislation recognizes that reality is not creating discrimination. The
discrimination already exists out in the populace.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Why does it seem that political gays are all about the feds? One would think
they'd be in the states rights camp by now and pursuing things at the state
level.

That said, hate crimes legislation is a horrible, destructive idea. Any
deviation from the idea that we all are equal individuals with the same
protection under the law is bound to lead to bad things.

~~~
ibsulon
Both are happening. However, basic employment protections are near impossible
to gain in some states, such as the deep south.

On hate crimes, however, I disagree. A hate crime is not about targeting one
particular individual; it is a terrorist act designed to instill fear in a
community. A burning cross, a lynching is to create fear in black people, for
example. "Don't date white women" was one in the 60s south. Attacking someone
in front of a gay establishment is a clear message to invoke fear of
congregation in the gay community.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
It's too subjective. With enough imagination and the right judge and lawyer
almost anything can be spun into a hate crime. History indicates that would
inevitably happen. Look at the ridiculous applications of RICO and Patriot
Act.

And it's all pointless. Assaulting people (instilling fear of physical harm)
is already a crime. There's just no need to complicate it.

Now, I'm against employment protections period. But if I weren't, I certainly
wouldn't want the feds involved. Inviting the federal government into an area
has typically proven to get you far from what you want. People should focus on
state laws. If you're in a state with laws you don't like, then move.

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biohacker42
The British Government has been doing terrible things to many, many people all
around the world, for many, many years.

If they start apologizing to people one by one... that'll take a while.

~~~
gaius
I saw that Benjamin Zepheniah on TV, saying the Monarchy should be abolished
because the Royal Family had blessed slave ships.

What he didn't bother to say is that pretty much the entire world (including
Africans) participated in the slave trade at that time, and that Britain had
taken the lead in the fight to stamp out slavery. The first time in history
that former slave-holders had fought to free slaves. Literally fought, with
warships blessed by the Royals.

So yeah, we've done some terrible things - but on the whole (even under New
Labour) the UK is a powerful force for good in the world, and we deserve
credit for that. And we're to "undo" the effects of everything we've done...
Well let's say that Zepheniah wouldn't be sitting in an air-conditioned TV
studio wearing a handmade suit, hatin'.

~~~
biohacker42
You're absolutely right. I just couldn't resist making a very vague reference
to the old joke of using machine guns against people armed with kiwis.

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yangyang
It's not just the government though. If you asked people at the time if what
had been done was correct, how many would have said yes?

Attitudes change (for the better in this case). An apology from a government
doesn't change history.

~~~
bitdiddle
there's some truth to this. As a child I recall being taught that some
scientists thought hormones could treat homosexuality, as it was considered an
illness.

It's amazing how ignorant we were just 50 years ago, and likely still are :)

What's particularly sad about Turing was that he was such a great war hero. We
make movies about famous spies capturing machines behind enemy lines, when the
reality was largely Turing and I believe a group of polish refugees slaving
away in basements building computers.

~~~
jlees
Captured machines did play a fair part in the codebreaking!

I would say the saddest thing about Turing related to the Government is simply
that his work went absolutely unacknowledged for so long. I actually visited
Bletchley Park last weekend and a curator told me of a woman in her late
eighties who, even now, had an ingrained attitude of "I can't talk about it".
(She was a Wren working at Bletchley).

I think it was thirty years or so before anyone even knew the massive
contributions this man had made to our science.

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dtf
Touching fact regarding the statue in Sackville Park: the sculptor's own
personal computer, a 20-year old Amstrad CPC, was buried underneath the statue
as the "sacrifice".

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scscsc
The damage has already been done. It is not reversible. Apologies do not mean
much usually. They probably mean less than nothing coming from a government.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I agree that they don't mean much, but I wouldn't say "less than nothing."
Rather, I'd say they count for "something slightly more than nothing."

If the government of the UK were to apologize, the story of Turing's
mistreatment at the hands of the government would fill a news cycle. It's not
much, but it's not nothing.

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J_McQuade
You think _that's_ overdue - the Greek government still hasn't apologised to
Socrates!

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slackenerny
_The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing_

How?

~~~
jgrahamc
The Australian government apologized for the treatment of the indigenous
people of Australia.

I think apologies matter a lot. Even though Turing is dead and has no family
to apologize too, an apology would make a point about how prejudice warps the
world.

~~~
slackenerny
Okay. But how?

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eugenejen
Just doing something like Vatican said sorry to Joan of Arc for her death. All
it needs is a statement from UK government said "we are sorry for forcing Alan
Turing to commit suicide. And we are sorry for cutting short his potential
contributions to human being."

Maybe ask Morrissey to hold a memorial concert and play some Derek Jarman's
movies.

~~~
jgrahamc
I like the idea of a spoken apology, but I would prefer that someone non-gay
be involved as a figure head. I'm not gay, but I feel very strongly that the
treatment of Turing was despicable.

Someone straight needs to be a figure head so that people can't easily dismiss
any apology as somehow tied to the agenda of a gay rights group.

~~~
eugenejen
No problem for this. And I know a straight figure head is much better for this
purpose.

At the other hand. The UK government can always say those standard lame
excuses such as "because of cold war, we have to prevent Turing to be used by
communists spies".

At the other hand, I wonder why gay right activists ignore Turing's story for
a long time. I learned Turing's story pretty early on (I am just always
curious of private lives of great minds since I was a kid)

~~~
slackenerny
_I wonder why gay right activists ignore Turing's story for a long time._

That is fortunate. I wouldn't like Turing to become another archetypal wicked
scientist in tv shows puppetry inventory. Compulsive schizophrenic Nash
seducing boys, autistic Newton, insane Cantor crawling on the floor whispering
"infinty, infinty" are enough for me already.

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ashleyw
Homosexuality was illegal in many parts of the world at the time, and it was
believed to be morally incorrect by citizens (in most cases), just like how
the majority of people see cannabis as a very harmful drug today. So if
anything, it should be the world apologising, not the British government alone
(whos apology would likely be meaningless anyway, due to the change of power
since that time.) The same goes for discrimination against women and blacks.

What's done is done, and thankfully we are now open to the thought that we
were wrong in our moral standards. And in a lot of cases, we now fight
strongly for the rights of people who were once discriminated against.

To me, an apology is only worth something if the person/people apologising had
an opinion which conflicted with the general opinion of the population,
otherwise who's to say the victim wouldn't have thought the same if he/she was
in the same situation? (i.e. not gay.) That's not to say the general
populations' opinion was right, but that it can be massively rub off on your
own.

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Herring
The British Government should apologize to a lot of people..

~~~
nailer
I see your point, but Peter Andre's actually Australian.

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justin_hancock
It's not really a good idea is it? The people who perpetrated this are dead,
it was under an earlier Government. Further more the whole situation was
likely whipped up by the right wing press, Sir John Gielgud's treatment was
another appalling example of this. The general populous at the time were not
really bothered either way about a person's sexuality.

The best way is to remember him would be to create a large research
institution in his honour. Apologizing changes nothing in this instance.

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Jem
Given the current problems the British government are having holding the
country together, an apology to Alan Turing is NOT something I want them to be
thinking about.

Don't get me wrong, I am 100% for gay rights, laws against discrimination, etc
(my mum is gay, and is 'married' to her partner), but I think priorities
should lie in making life worth living for those still with us at this time.

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ojbyrne
Just googling around, there's a lot of stuff that the British government has
to apologize for, but hasn't. Specifically

* Irish Potato Famine

* Acadian Expulsion

I'm sure there's more.

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nailer
I'm not sure why you're being moderated down. The conditions causing the
Potato Famine to have such devastating consequences are known to be a
political issue rather than than an ecological one.

Wikipedia has a fairly extensively referenced article on the issue
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)>. See 'Causes and
contributing factors'.

~~~
ojbyrne
I generally just assume that it's common knowledge that it was genocide by
neglect, and was copied and improved upon by Germanic efficiency 80 years
later. As evil as the holocaust was, the groundwork was laid by the British
(and Canadians/Americans) the century before.

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lukas
I'm surprised there's so much negativity about this post. Alan Turing made
huge contributions to mathematics and philosophy.

But not only that, he was a war hero. How many other people in the 20th
century contributed so much to the world on both practical and theoretical
levels?

And the British Government drove him to suicide for no good reason.

I think his story deserves far more recognition.

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kingkawn
Apologize so that successive generations do not have to continue arguing about
whether they should.

~~~
vixen99
OK, appeasement is certainly one solution.

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vixen99
Governments do not even hold themselves responsible for the previous
adminstration's fiscal measures let alone the laws that were in place
generations ago. Nor should they. The dead are dead. Let's expend our energies
on being decent to ourselves, the living.

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pwoods
At the very least we should apologize for the chemical castration! WTF is
that? Yeah not good.

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jcl
Barely on topic, I know, but the slate statue of Turing at Bletchley Park is
really cool: <http://www.stephenkettle.co.uk/turing.html>

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davidw
Hrm. Alan Turing was definitely a hacker, and so is jgrahamc, but the
resulting discussion here isn't particularly hackery...

~~~
tc
I scroll down to bottom of these threads just to see where you've reliably
complained about them.

~~~
davidw
Well, then, "hi!". Sometimes I'm at the top of the threads too, because they
aren't appropriate:-)

~~~
tc
I certainly sympathize, but it isn't always black and white. Even the ultimate
arbitrator of appropriateness here jumps into politics from time to time [1].
And hackers _are_ interested in the law for at least a handful of reasons
particular to our culture: 1) many hackers are outside of the social
mainstream, which puts them at increased risk of majority-oriented
persecution, 2) many hackers are reclusive by nature and value their ability
to "be left alone," which is at odds with collectivist governments that want
everyone to jump on for their latest scheme, and 3) the law is a codified set
of rules and procedures, about which hackers can reason, finding
incongruencies more readily than the mainstream population.

Perhaps we should pick our battles, and call out more egregious violations
such as name calling and thoughtless recitals of canned talking points, rather
than engaging in the sort of constant nagging that will just blend into the
background noise.

[1] e.g. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=664314>

~~~
davidw
I've never said that these topics aren't interesting - my point is that they
are poisonous: they are more likely to set off flame wars, because people are
pretty set in their opinions, and that they're likely to attract people who
are _not_ hackers yet who are interested in politics/economics/etc... This
last point is especially important.

Also, in this case, I was really just making a direct observation of the
conversation... it's pretty much all off on a tangent, and is very much
'politics'.

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ijuyhgtyu
I can't think of anything more insulting than a government that has no
interest in science deciding to do a big honoring Turin publicity stunt in the
hope of a gain in gay voter support.

There is also considerable doubt that his 'treatment', which had ended a year
before, was a cause of his suicide - rather than a feeling that his work
wasn't leading anywhere.

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TweedHeads
...funding a million sterling pounds research institute in his name.

