
The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.” - jgrahamc
https://medium.com/backchannel/the-man-who-made-the-uk-say-im-sorry-for-what-we-did-to-turing-8fc468dcea6b?
======
rmc
(Disclaimer: I'm an openly gay man working in technology).

A part of me dislikes how Alan Turing was given a pardon and apology. It's
like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if
you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis.

What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law? Why do they
not get a pardon/apology? Do we have to help stop evil genocidal dictators
before we get the same respect?

~~~
nl
Initially I agreed with what you say here.

After some thought, one aspect came up that I'd be interested in your views
about:

 _It 's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but
only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis. What about all
the other gay men persecuted under the same law?_

What you say here is so obviously _right_ that is is difficult to argue with.
Maybe pardoning Turing is a necessary first step to see that everyone deserves
similar treatment?

(Non-gay, white male. Not sure it matters in this response.)

~~~
rmc
> _Maybe pardoning Turing is a necessary first step to see that everyone
> deserves similar treatment?_

Perhaps. But I haven't seen any moves to pardon all the other people as well.
And the cynic in me things it won't happen.

~~~
nl
My suspicion is that pardons don't miraculously happen. I suspect it happens
because of the hard work and passion of people who want to make a difference.

~~~
DanBC
The group of people who would campaign for pardons largely overlaps with the
group of people campaigning for equal treatment under today's laws. (Same age
of consent was law in England & Wales in 2001; 2009! for Northern Ireland;
protections for discrimination - partial since 2003, full since 2010; gay
marriage since 2014, civil partnership since 2005).

There's only so much you can campaign on.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingd...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom)

------
vixen99
"I'm sorry for what we did to Turing". On the other hand, if you don't happen
to be a genius, tough! The countless, ordinary blokes in the street who
happened to be homosexuals and were prosecuted in the 1950s and earlier can go
hang as with the millions of others who with hindsight suffered unfairly at
the hands of various laws of the land in past centuries.

However it seems to me that for people alive today to apologize for laws made
by people now dead is a cheap, meaningless (reform laws on gay sex were passed
long ago - that's an 'apology' that means something) gesture. I'm all for
memorials and public honourings of people like Turing (I read the Hodges
biography a long time ago and was greatly moved) but I wish people would stop
cheapening the word 'apology'.

~~~
barking
Of course it is and it assumes that we are also superior to those that came
before us and had different morals.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Well, that's only because non-bigots _are_ superior to bigots, all other
things being equal.

------
gommm
I remember following your campaign when it happened on HN. I was impressed
that someone took a stand for Turing.

Congratulations jgrahamc and thank you!

------
LeoPanthera
I always liked the speculation that the original Apple logo (the rainbow one)
was a reference to Turing. He (allegedly) killed himself by taking a single
bite out of a cyanide-laced apple, and the rainbow stripes are a reference to
his homosexuality.

As far as I can tell, the idea is almost entirely without merit - but it's a
nice idea.

~~~
eksith
The real story of the design is pretty interesting though
[http://creativebits.org/interview/interview_rob_janoff_desig...](http://creativebits.org/interview/interview_rob_janoff_designer_apple_logo)

------
packetized
I knew virtually nothing about Turing until reading Neal Stephenson's
'Cryptonomicon' around 15 years ago. I wonder how many people actually learned
about him (and some aspects of his life, despite the novel being
alternate/historical fiction) for the first time in this way.

~~~
justincormack
No, Hodges biography for me. But now perhaps all the younger people will be
introduced via the new film.

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StandardFuture
What's really nice to consider is the fact that Graham-Cumming is an avid
Hacker News user. :P [0] Can't even imagine how awesome it would have been if
Turing was able to be so as well(although he would have died long before
Hacker News ever existed).

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jgrahamc](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jgrahamc)

------
jacorreia
I'm sure may of you are aware of Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde's prosecution for
gross indecency (and if you're not you most definitely should!), but you
should all also learn about the similar prosecution against Roger Casement. He
was the father of human-rights investigations and made a huge impact with his
investigations of human-rights abuses in Peru and the Congo. Mario Vargas
Llosa (Nobel prize-winner for Literature) wrote a book detailing his life
called The Dream of the Celts. Highly recommended.

~~~
jgrahamc
They are rather different cases.

Casement was tried and convicted of treason for trying, during World War I, to
get Germany to support an uprising in Ireland against Great Britain. It's true
that his alleged homosexuality didn't help his case.

~~~
jacorreia
Oh of course, there's little doubt he committed treason, but the fact that his
homosexuality was used to ensure that a fair trial was impossible is what I
was trying to get at.

Are there any other similar cases to Turing/Wilde/Casement that I don't know
about?

~~~
barking
The treason part of it was pretty cut and tried. The blackening of his
character was necessary for political reasons, not to ensure a guilty verdict.

------
NoMoreNicksLeft
I'm not sure that a government can meaningfully apologize for anything when
all the actual participants are dead, including (but especially) the victim.

It's the half-assed, social justice warrior version of a government agreeing
that things done in the past are awful. Why stop with Turing? 30,000 years ago
one of your ancestors murdered a woman's children, held her captive, and raped
her repeatedly. Why not apologize for that? Or for some Babylonian genocide
that's 5000 years old?

It's fucking pointless.

------
bootload
_"... After 55 years of shameful silence, this gentle geek made Britain
apologize for Turing’s death ..."_

That he did, here's an image of the PM's apology, broadcast on twitter ~
[https://twitter.com/peterrenshaw/status/533509433414795265](https://twitter.com/peterrenshaw/status/533509433414795265)

------
lifeisstillgood
This is a great post putting some human interest onto a story about how slowly
Britain is coming to terms with it's place in the world. I am glad jgrahmnc
put his effort into this and that so many supported him.

But really the responses here are appalling - this was a small victory in a
war for a better world - and unless we take our victories and celebrate them
the defeats will cripple us.

Well done jgrahmnc, well done even Gordon Brown (this being I think the only
thing he did right as premier) - now we have all got work to do to make a
better world. And we can't afford to keep killing off the geniuses.

------
Sorgam
This is absolutely not an apology. Anyone can apologize when their culture
tells them some action was wrong. Whether it's persecuting homosexuals, jews,
blacks, or whatever. But the fact is British law still persecutes minorities,
for example incest is still illegal and people are in prison today for
committing that offense. Of course most people agree that it's "wrong" or
"immoral" or "sick" \- just like they did with homosexuality 50 years ago. So
until those other similar persecutions are stopped, this isn't an apology.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I assume we're talking about incest between consenting adults here. I still
think it's pretty fucked up, generally speaking (I really don't think you can
have an equal power relationship between a parent and a child, even if the
child is an adult), but I have to grudgingly admit that it probably shouldn't
be criminal.

(I'm going to regret saying anything here, aren't I?)

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jepper
Congratulations jgrahamc ! Thank you for your persistence! Truly horrible what
happened to somebody who did a lot for Britain, computer science and the
world.

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bane
A job well done. Thank you jgrahamc for your hard work on this issue. I know
it's not a general apology to everybody who suffered under such a world, but
it's a big step towards everybody learning how to treat each other decently.

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mseepgood
I've read his name before, but I don't know where.

Edit: ah, he's a gopher

~~~
danieldk
More than that, he is one of the more prolific commenters/submitters here :).

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dctoedt
Bravo!

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Artemis2
Great work! Loved you talk at dotGo too.

