Alan Turing died 70 years ago(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Alan Turing died 70 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
125 comments
It is far from certain that he committed suicide:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092
IIRC part of the coroner's reasoning is that "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next."
So essentially they concluded it was suicide because something about Turing (gay? academic? gay academic?) was regarded as indicating instability. I very much doubt a coroner today would follow that reasoning!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092
IIRC part of the coroner's reasoning is that "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next."
So essentially they concluded it was suicide because something about Turing (gay? academic? gay academic?) was regarded as indicating instability. I very much doubt a coroner today would follow that reasoning!
From that article he died of cyanide poisoning and while he as doing an experiment with that it is likely "the experiment was a ruse to disguise suicide, a scenario Turing had apparently mentioned to a friend in the past."
Bear in mind he was given hormones. As I'm from that half of the population who experiences hormone fluctuations but it's part of what women expect so we know about this and plan for it and support each other, I'd not be surprised if he was unaware of how his emotional state might be affected.
Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data?
Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data?
And those hormones where specifically intended as chemical castration, reducing or removing libido (or the possibility of acting upon it). I assume this is more likely to have depression as a side effect than the concoctions we use for birth control in early/mid life and treating the effects of menopause later, as it is explicitly damping physical feelings. We also understand the effects of such treatments much better today than we did back then (still not well enough, it could be argued, but definitely better) and many things prescribed back then wound be considered dangerous now, so he may have had a relatively rough ride. This is speculation of course, though with a better foundation IMO than some of the other comments in this thread…
I'll only say this due to anonymity, but: mistakenly thinking I was trans, I once took testosterone blockers and estrogen for about a month (having bought them online probably illegally).
After a week, I was on the verge of tears pretty much 24/7, and I did cry whenever I was alone in my room. It's crazy how much I cried; I had never cried so much before in my life. My mood was much worse, obviously, since I was crying so much; I was crying due to sadness.
I'm pretty sure women aren't on the verge of tears 24/7 when they're menstruating or pregnant. So from my anecdotal experience, I'm convinced that the same hormone levels affect men and women differently.
I have read anecdotes from detransitioned FtMtFs that they had abnormally short tempers while taking testosterone. So, it may go the other way, too.
After a week, I was on the verge of tears pretty much 24/7, and I did cry whenever I was alone in my room. It's crazy how much I cried; I had never cried so much before in my life. My mood was much worse, obviously, since I was crying so much; I was crying due to sadness.
I'm pretty sure women aren't on the verge of tears 24/7 when they're menstruating or pregnant. So from my anecdotal experience, I'm convinced that the same hormone levels affect men and women differently.
I have read anecdotes from detransitioned FtMtFs that they had abnormally short tempers while taking testosterone. So, it may go the other way, too.
To some extent, their body might be more "used" to it?
I wouldn't whink a month would be enough for the body to actually get used to having a major hormone blocked and replaced with a diferent one
Natural female hormones are only high a few days a month, yes. And we're so used to it, we get prepared and tell our partners we'll cry and be angry for no reason, and get ice-cream and chocolate in the house and maybe even take time of work if lucky enough. But it's not for very long, and there is a theory that you only get sad and angry if you have something sad or angry to be about, which I partially agree with. But the physical low is real, regardless of what emotions are going on.
You may be right that the body could adapt and eventually I might have just stopped feeling that way. I just decided to stop after a month because I thought I wasn't really trans and because I didn't want to feel so sad anymore.
But, I posted it because it may be that Turing also felt depressed, because they blocked his testosterone and gave him estrogen. Maybe the drugs put him in a suicidal state that he wouldn't have otherwise been in.
But, I posted it because it may be that Turing also felt depressed, because they blocked his testosterone and gave him estrogen. Maybe the drugs put him in a suicidal state that he wouldn't have otherwise been in.
> Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data?
According to subreddits that the MtFs use, it's mostly sexual arousal. "Euphoria boners" and suchlike.
According to subreddits that the MtFs use, it's mostly sexual arousal. "Euphoria boners" and suchlike.
Yeah but that's because "trans" is nothing more than a sexual fetish to these men. They objectify women and get off on it, using their own bodies to construct the erotic target.
It's possible he was considered a security risk. Turing must have been very upset to keep quiet about precedence in terms of discoveries. I wonder if Shannon got under his skin ..
Not simply convicted
>His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido, known as "chemical castration".
>His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido, known as "chemical castration".
Yea apparently it was so important to the government of Britain to dictate which consenting adults can fuck each other that they would force hormones and essentially permanent probation on a literal world-changing scientist and undeniable war hero over it
I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants
I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants
>insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy
If there is zero government you get gang rape etc so it's more a question of where you draw the line.
If there is zero government you get gang rape etc so it's more a question of where you draw the line.
Seems reading comprehension isn't your strong suit. By definition, rape of any kind fails the "consenting adults" criterion pretty trivially. I draw the line exactly where I said I do, and the whole "the worst crimes I can think of justify the whole project of authoritarianism because it's simply a matter of degrees" line of reasoning is as puerile as it is unoriginal
whao talk about gaslighting
that's not what gp said
> it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world
He said the subset of governments for which it is true they uphold full bodily autonomy is the empty set.
He did not state anything about a country not having a government
that's not what gp said
> it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world
He said the subset of governments for which it is true they uphold full bodily autonomy is the empty set.
He did not state anything about a country not having a government
Maybe I phrased it badly but I don't think it's insane that there are no governments that do that because there are obvious problems if they did. I guess you could go for full autonomy as long as the other people involved are not pissed off.
> I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults
Its almost like that's what they said
Its almost like that's what they said
Ideally, governments just enforce the collective will of the public. What can override that? For example, you cite this “principle of full bodily autonomy.” Is that a thing that exists? What’s your proof for it. It sounds like some religious concept, except for libertarians.
Proof? So you're telling me you don't understand what a "principle" is basically. I define autonomy exactly how I said it. Adults should be able to do with their own bodies as they see fit, including consenting to any and every act done with another consenting adult. I say adults here because I do believe carving out some small exceptions for people who aren't fully able to take care of themselves is necessary, but I also think minors should have way more rights than most governments give them, just not all of those we afford adults
The entire concept of "human rights" is premised on the idea that there are some principles that should override "the will of the people", which without any kind of protections of rights amounts to simple mob rule. I don't think you should get to lynch someone because the whole village doesn't like them, and I don't think the government should get to tell you what to do in the bedroom or what drugs you can take, regardless of what you can get a howling mob to think. I swear they don't teach people basic ethics these days. Or maybe it's just tech people? No wonder this industry's a garbage fire right now
The entire concept of "human rights" is premised on the idea that there are some principles that should override "the will of the people", which without any kind of protections of rights amounts to simple mob rule. I don't think you should get to lynch someone because the whole village doesn't like them, and I don't think the government should get to tell you what to do in the bedroom or what drugs you can take, regardless of what you can get a howling mob to think. I swear they don't teach people basic ethics these days. Or maybe it's just tech people? No wonder this industry's a garbage fire right now
But who cares about your principles? Why should your non-falsifiable, non-scientific, non-empirical assertions about the nature of reality matter more than those of the mob?
You're just articulating a quasi-religious belief, and appointing ourself as the clergy of this quasi-religion, without admitting that's what you're doing.
You're just articulating a quasi-religious belief, and appointing ourself as the clergy of this quasi-religion, without admitting that's what you're doing.
Cool analogy didja learn it in middle school english?
Seems everyone and their grandma wants to hold the torch of "rationality" and declare anyone who has an actual belief about something "dogmatic." It's intellectually facile and morally bankrupt
But no, fool, the principle of autonomy, or in this context that "the state shouldn't make decisions about what individuals can do to and using their own bodies" is not an arbitrary moral position, it's a meta-norm that has deep mechanism design implications in a functioning cosmopolitan society, ones that the balance of evidence suggest make that society work better for everyone except for the very lucky tiny percent of authoritarian busybodies that win the inevitable holy wars that come of structuring society around the premise that a state should be able to micromanage your individual life. I say that we have not achieved a state that truly doesn't meddle in this way (and one that are closest have in some senses backslid in the last century or so), but every move in that direction has produced both stability and prosperity
The very mindset you're espousing, that no one person's morals should determine the law, is a derived principle of enlightenment liberality. It's exactly why populism can't create a stable functioning human society
Liberality and consensual autonomy isn't a charter for total nihilist moral relativism and it doesn't call for every decision to be made by pure mob rule, it calls for government to act as a superstructure to allow democracy without lynchings and pogroms against political dissenters and laws against sex you don't like. It's a technology, not a religion
Moral nihilism doesn't imply that you're wise, it implies that you're spineless
Seems everyone and their grandma wants to hold the torch of "rationality" and declare anyone who has an actual belief about something "dogmatic." It's intellectually facile and morally bankrupt
But no, fool, the principle of autonomy, or in this context that "the state shouldn't make decisions about what individuals can do to and using their own bodies" is not an arbitrary moral position, it's a meta-norm that has deep mechanism design implications in a functioning cosmopolitan society, ones that the balance of evidence suggest make that society work better for everyone except for the very lucky tiny percent of authoritarian busybodies that win the inevitable holy wars that come of structuring society around the premise that a state should be able to micromanage your individual life. I say that we have not achieved a state that truly doesn't meddle in this way (and one that are closest have in some senses backslid in the last century or so), but every move in that direction has produced both stability and prosperity
The very mindset you're espousing, that no one person's morals should determine the law, is a derived principle of enlightenment liberality. It's exactly why populism can't create a stable functioning human society
Liberality and consensual autonomy isn't a charter for total nihilist moral relativism and it doesn't call for every decision to be made by pure mob rule, it calls for government to act as a superstructure to allow democracy without lynchings and pogroms against political dissenters and laws against sex you don't like. It's a technology, not a religion
Moral nihilism doesn't imply that you're wise, it implies that you're spineless
> every move in that direction has produced both stability and prosperity
Theatrics aside, it seems like you’re saying that the basis of your “principle” is empirical effectiveness. That is of course a reasonable secular basis for lawmaking. But that confronts two problems:
1) That still doesn’t give you a justification for overriding the democratic will. Empirical effectiveness is evidence that you might submit to the public about what policies would be beneficial. That doesn’t transform it into some “meta-norm” that by its own force overrides democratic law.
We have tremendous evidence that market economies are better than planned economies. But only kooky right-wingers think that makes capitalism a “meta-norm” that must override the popular will!
2) Your historical analysis falls short. China’s rise shows you can become rich and prosperous without embracing bodily autonomy as a principle. Even moral regulation of individuals in the west was quite stringent during the period when the west was getting rich—moreso than societies that were less regimented but didn’t get rich. Victorian England, for example, was a high water mark.
Moreover, the societies that have gone the furthest in embracing notions of bodily autonomy are uniformly on the path to extinction. Western Europe is slowly being replaced by Muslims from cultures that reject such notions.
Theatrics aside, it seems like you’re saying that the basis of your “principle” is empirical effectiveness. That is of course a reasonable secular basis for lawmaking. But that confronts two problems:
1) That still doesn’t give you a justification for overriding the democratic will. Empirical effectiveness is evidence that you might submit to the public about what policies would be beneficial. That doesn’t transform it into some “meta-norm” that by its own force overrides democratic law.
We have tremendous evidence that market economies are better than planned economies. But only kooky right-wingers think that makes capitalism a “meta-norm” that must override the popular will!
2) Your historical analysis falls short. China’s rise shows you can become rich and prosperous without embracing bodily autonomy as a principle. Even moral regulation of individuals in the west was quite stringent during the period when the west was getting rich—moreso than societies that were less regimented but didn’t get rich. Victorian England, for example, was a high water mark.
Moreover, the societies that have gone the furthest in embracing notions of bodily autonomy are uniformly on the path to extinction. Western Europe is slowly being replaced by Muslims from cultures that reject such notions.
I mean actually nearly any resistance to an extremely oligarchy-friendly neoliberal idea of "free markets" is considered a fringe extremist position in at least the US and the UK, both in terms of the attitude of the culture at large and the levers of power available to anyone, so you must be in quite the left-wing bubble to believe that this is viewed as "kooky" by society at large. I agree with you that for most purposes meta-norms that create free markets (Which in many cases flows completely logically from a meta-norm of autonomy) are better for human flourishing than planned economies, including both cartel-planned ones and government-planned ones, with a few exceptions for things considered infrastructure where the incentives of a market are an ill fit to create guarantees of stability over long timescales. If you live in a western democracy, the vast overwhelming majority of people agree with that. I point out cartel-driven cronyism specifically because I would argue that most rich economies are not operating as free markets, but are essentially using the government as an enforcement arm of the power of incumbent players in many industries. I think that as compared to when this was less true, many of the societies underlying those economies are going into a bit of a tailspin, and that moving more toward free markets would actually do quite a bit to stop the bleeding and maybe turn it around. However, in term of pathos, "free trade" is still so popular that the kleptocrats who benefit from the capture of governmental institutions by industry constantly claim that is what they are doing to anyone who will listen, and the extant fringe of support for communism seeing a very slight uptick in recent years can be mostly explained as a backlash to these obvious lies told by those in power. Often backlashes are quite reactionary, and also water is wet
This absolutely delusional view of popular opinion and government priorities - along with the Great Replacement conspiracy nonsense - has led me to conclude that your preoccupation with the accusation that "people who merely believe in free markets" are right wing kooks might have more to do with your own being objectively and obviously a right-wing kook living in a fantasy world than it has to do with any reality about the general public's attitudes and beliefs in aggregate. Of course if you're one step from joining the next great wave of populist fascisms you think everyone's a tankie. Anyway, I think it's pointless to try to talk sense into someone who believes that anything remotely resembling "muslims taking over" is a serious existential threat to like, all of NATO? or whatever counts as "Western" this week, (Or for that matter, somehow an existential threat to white people as a whole worldwide, which seems to be what you lot tend to actually mean by that euphemism). There is a real war going on in Europe that has nothing to do with muslims, and you idiots worry about a slight uptick in brown people immigrating because some charismatic suits told you to. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. I'll leave you to your frothing madness
This absolutely delusional view of popular opinion and government priorities - along with the Great Replacement conspiracy nonsense - has led me to conclude that your preoccupation with the accusation that "people who merely believe in free markets" are right wing kooks might have more to do with your own being objectively and obviously a right-wing kook living in a fantasy world than it has to do with any reality about the general public's attitudes and beliefs in aggregate. Of course if you're one step from joining the next great wave of populist fascisms you think everyone's a tankie. Anyway, I think it's pointless to try to talk sense into someone who believes that anything remotely resembling "muslims taking over" is a serious existential threat to like, all of NATO? or whatever counts as "Western" this week, (Or for that matter, somehow an existential threat to white people as a whole worldwide, which seems to be what you lot tend to actually mean by that euphemism). There is a real war going on in Europe that has nothing to do with muslims, and you idiots worry about a slight uptick in brown people immigrating because some charismatic suits told you to. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. I'll leave you to your frothing madness
Dude, can you turn down the edge-lord a bit? I’m just trying to have a conversation. We don’t have perfectly free markets in the west precisely because most of the public, including in the US, and UK, believes in some sort of regulated neoliberalism. But that’s a policy choice—it doesn’t support your notion that an empirically-based principle can override democratic will. Many european countries in fact experimented with greater degrees of socialism in the 1960s and 1970s, and moved back towards market economies. But all that happened democratically. Capitalism is a policy tool subject to the popular will, not a religious mandate (like how you treat the principle of bodily autonomy).
As to Muslim migration to Europe: I’m not invoking any “Great Replacement conspiracy.” Quite the opposite. I’m from a Muslim country, and I've come to believe that our rejection of individual autonomy is empirically superior to European embrace of that concept (at least to the extreme it has been taken in post-Christian Europe). The notion of individual autonomy has made their societies literally unsustainable. Those countries must resort to importing population from Muslim countries in order to just to continue existing.
So to recap: “full bodily autonomy” is just a principle (frankly, it’s a cultural precept of European culture). And its empirical results are mixed. So why should such a principle override the popular will?
As to Muslim migration to Europe: I’m not invoking any “Great Replacement conspiracy.” Quite the opposite. I’m from a Muslim country, and I've come to believe that our rejection of individual autonomy is empirically superior to European embrace of that concept (at least to the extreme it has been taken in post-Christian Europe). The notion of individual autonomy has made their societies literally unsustainable. Those countries must resort to importing population from Muslim countries in order to just to continue existing.
So to recap: “full bodily autonomy” is just a principle (frankly, it’s a cultural precept of European culture). And its empirical results are mixed. So why should such a principle override the popular will?
I looked back on that and yeah, I went in a little hard there and made some assumptions. I think I'm on edge because I've been dealing with some family members who are getting taken in pretty deep by this conspiracy stuff, and it's been difficult, both because it tends to turn them against anyone who isn't in it, and because it really is for them a gateway into some pretty life-ruining scams I can't help them avoid because they think I'm an enemy agent or something
Paranoia and edginess begets more paranoia and edginess it seems. I projected stuff onto you that wasn't fair. I sincerely apologize for that
With that said, you're still dead wrong on universal rights. I evoked outcomes because my claims of better outcomes are in vogue as an epistemic path currently, but it's far from the only one that favors it. As I said before no government has existed that fully respects human autonomy (And this isn't that surprising honestly. A government is at the end of the day fundamentally the winner of a contest to see who has power over people, and people who want power tend to want to use it), but as we have asymptotically approached these perhaps unachievable ideals from numerous directions, we can study the trends empirically and say that freer societies on balance tend to do better over time. Sure, there's no single definition of "better" in the world, but quite a few correlated ones. If you permit degrees in your model, the information landscape's structure becomes a lot more apparent. Periods of more freedom for individuals (whether in life, love, commerce, whatever) produce better outcomes across numerous dimensions (more active economies, more great art is made, more scientific discoveries, more people who want to fuck off and have a simple life with people they care about can have it without as much fear of being targeted by powermad states as their will becomes more predictable - predicated on strong meta-principles - and less arbitrary and based essentially their taste, as you have tried to claim all morality is). Obviously there are points in every tradeoff space where other factors may outweigh this correlation. But for individual autonomy this is pretty rare. Feel free to cite a counterexample if you think it's so apparent they're there.
But there are lots of tools for examining complex systems instead of just resorting to the solipsism of "Well some people disagree so there's clearly no way to know." Game theory is an attempt from the realm of logical models rather than empirical ones, and the equilibria of oppression always tend toward cycles of dystopian contraction and bloody revolution, not just because that's littered throughout history, but because when we purport that we can better society by intruding in people's ability to self-determine, there will always be a subset of people for whom rebellion and if possible destruction of the order imposing tyranny will be the only viable course of action. And killing or jailing all those people is already getting pretty dicey for this whole "This world is better for everyone on balance" propositon, but doing that is also a feedback loop. It's pretty apparent why seeing the atrocities of power, even from a wholly selfish perspective, the "what if I'm next someday, or someone I care about is, etc" could lead many to become opposition themselves.
Every time people say "Well my tyranny will make society better", they always mean "For me and mine", an in-group, which may be as small as close friends and family, and may be as large as "people who don't get ground to dust by the tyranny directly and will fall in line instead of rebel". Like the American neotraditionalists point to some (usually at least partially imaginary) time in the distant past when no, really, everyone was a christian, and everyone was super happy and prosperous! Nonsense. Even if my rose colored glasses come from the fact that my ancestor I'm thinking of was literally the king of a christian nation, and thus are probably pretty correct in saying that guy had it quite good back in the day, every king has the blood of the conquered on his hands, and every tyranny made life worse for a lot of people. Anti-semitic pogroms pervaded medieval Europe. Lots of women who didn't accept the life of a second-class citizen were and still are directly harmed by the mechanisms that enforce that choice on them in societies where we do not have equal rights. And to be clear, this does permit degrees and improvement in equality is good even if it's not perfect. Degrees matter everywhere.
So let's say you're renaissance Britain or, hell, modern Iran or Uganda, and you put your gays to death. Those gays hella didn't have a better life, and by saying "well we consider it immoral so it's justified", you just said "Those are bad people anyway, because I said so. Their happiness and prosperity doesn't count." Same for people who worship a different god or do the wrong dances about it or whatever. It's circular reasoning.
You have said that my position that human rights are of value is an arbitrary dogma, but I think the kids these days have it right when they say the thing about accusations and confessions. When our crimes as a society have victims, we can straightforwardly say "No, it's good we lock up the murderers, the harm they do to others outweighs the harm we do them by not allowing that behavior, and sometimes even preventing it by harming them directly, by quite a lot". Your principles may be arbitrary preferences, but that does not mean it's impossible to have principles that aren't
When you can have crimes with no victims, you have to invoke either literal imaginary beings or deeply complicated abstractions ("Monocultures are good because something something social cohesion so it's totally a net good to kill the heathens, trust") to make the morality make sense. I can tell utilitarianism is in vogue because of how often these people grasp at some complicated sociological theory when trying to justify their weird vendettas. Maybe in the giant pile of bullshit that every super complicated economic or sociological model there's One Neat Trick Free People Hate that will Be Good Tyranny Actually, or maybe one of these unfalsifiable literal angry demiurges will end up being real, but I doubt it, and it doesn't seem worth trying every charlatan's rationalization to let them oppress people they hold responsible for some nebulous harm like "social decay" that you supposedly need three advanced degrees to even talk about to find out
The project of modern democracies has always been trying to find the way to grasp the dove's wings and be responsive to the will of the people without just going and burning a witch every time someone popular and charismatic enough drums up a big enough mob. The fact that this is falling apart in an age of unprecedented wealth disparity and unprecedented power to disseminate propaganda is not uncorrelated with the fact that people feel worse off and angrier. Occam's razor likes the argument that that's what's happening a lot better than my aunt's argument that the rainbow rays that come off her gay landscaper neighbors are somehow doing this. When the argument that pagans or queers or weirdos of some other kind aren't objectively batshit, they sound more like arguments that not having to deal with people they don't like would optimize the last sharp corners of the world for people who are already not really suffering, not like this urgent and existential threat they tend to sell it as when trying to open a can of "will of the people" on some people they basically just don't like the aesthetics of
Paranoia and edginess begets more paranoia and edginess it seems. I projected stuff onto you that wasn't fair. I sincerely apologize for that
With that said, you're still dead wrong on universal rights. I evoked outcomes because my claims of better outcomes are in vogue as an epistemic path currently, but it's far from the only one that favors it. As I said before no government has existed that fully respects human autonomy (And this isn't that surprising honestly. A government is at the end of the day fundamentally the winner of a contest to see who has power over people, and people who want power tend to want to use it), but as we have asymptotically approached these perhaps unachievable ideals from numerous directions, we can study the trends empirically and say that freer societies on balance tend to do better over time. Sure, there's no single definition of "better" in the world, but quite a few correlated ones. If you permit degrees in your model, the information landscape's structure becomes a lot more apparent. Periods of more freedom for individuals (whether in life, love, commerce, whatever) produce better outcomes across numerous dimensions (more active economies, more great art is made, more scientific discoveries, more people who want to fuck off and have a simple life with people they care about can have it without as much fear of being targeted by powermad states as their will becomes more predictable - predicated on strong meta-principles - and less arbitrary and based essentially their taste, as you have tried to claim all morality is). Obviously there are points in every tradeoff space where other factors may outweigh this correlation. But for individual autonomy this is pretty rare. Feel free to cite a counterexample if you think it's so apparent they're there.
But there are lots of tools for examining complex systems instead of just resorting to the solipsism of "Well some people disagree so there's clearly no way to know." Game theory is an attempt from the realm of logical models rather than empirical ones, and the equilibria of oppression always tend toward cycles of dystopian contraction and bloody revolution, not just because that's littered throughout history, but because when we purport that we can better society by intruding in people's ability to self-determine, there will always be a subset of people for whom rebellion and if possible destruction of the order imposing tyranny will be the only viable course of action. And killing or jailing all those people is already getting pretty dicey for this whole "This world is better for everyone on balance" propositon, but doing that is also a feedback loop. It's pretty apparent why seeing the atrocities of power, even from a wholly selfish perspective, the "what if I'm next someday, or someone I care about is, etc" could lead many to become opposition themselves.
Every time people say "Well my tyranny will make society better", they always mean "For me and mine", an in-group, which may be as small as close friends and family, and may be as large as "people who don't get ground to dust by the tyranny directly and will fall in line instead of rebel". Like the American neotraditionalists point to some (usually at least partially imaginary) time in the distant past when no, really, everyone was a christian, and everyone was super happy and prosperous! Nonsense. Even if my rose colored glasses come from the fact that my ancestor I'm thinking of was literally the king of a christian nation, and thus are probably pretty correct in saying that guy had it quite good back in the day, every king has the blood of the conquered on his hands, and every tyranny made life worse for a lot of people. Anti-semitic pogroms pervaded medieval Europe. Lots of women who didn't accept the life of a second-class citizen were and still are directly harmed by the mechanisms that enforce that choice on them in societies where we do not have equal rights. And to be clear, this does permit degrees and improvement in equality is good even if it's not perfect. Degrees matter everywhere.
So let's say you're renaissance Britain or, hell, modern Iran or Uganda, and you put your gays to death. Those gays hella didn't have a better life, and by saying "well we consider it immoral so it's justified", you just said "Those are bad people anyway, because I said so. Their happiness and prosperity doesn't count." Same for people who worship a different god or do the wrong dances about it or whatever. It's circular reasoning.
You have said that my position that human rights are of value is an arbitrary dogma, but I think the kids these days have it right when they say the thing about accusations and confessions. When our crimes as a society have victims, we can straightforwardly say "No, it's good we lock up the murderers, the harm they do to others outweighs the harm we do them by not allowing that behavior, and sometimes even preventing it by harming them directly, by quite a lot". Your principles may be arbitrary preferences, but that does not mean it's impossible to have principles that aren't
When you can have crimes with no victims, you have to invoke either literal imaginary beings or deeply complicated abstractions ("Monocultures are good because something something social cohesion so it's totally a net good to kill the heathens, trust") to make the morality make sense. I can tell utilitarianism is in vogue because of how often these people grasp at some complicated sociological theory when trying to justify their weird vendettas. Maybe in the giant pile of bullshit that every super complicated economic or sociological model there's One Neat Trick Free People Hate that will Be Good Tyranny Actually, or maybe one of these unfalsifiable literal angry demiurges will end up being real, but I doubt it, and it doesn't seem worth trying every charlatan's rationalization to let them oppress people they hold responsible for some nebulous harm like "social decay" that you supposedly need three advanced degrees to even talk about to find out
The project of modern democracies has always been trying to find the way to grasp the dove's wings and be responsive to the will of the people without just going and burning a witch every time someone popular and charismatic enough drums up a big enough mob. The fact that this is falling apart in an age of unprecedented wealth disparity and unprecedented power to disseminate propaganda is not uncorrelated with the fact that people feel worse off and angrier. Occam's razor likes the argument that that's what's happening a lot better than my aunt's argument that the rainbow rays that come off her gay landscaper neighbors are somehow doing this. When the argument that pagans or queers or weirdos of some other kind aren't objectively batshit, they sound more like arguments that not having to deal with people they don't like would optimize the last sharp corners of the world for people who are already not really suffering, not like this urgent and existential threat they tend to sell it as when trying to open a can of "will of the people" on some people they basically just don't like the aesthetics of
> Ideally, governments just enforce the collective will of the public.
That rank populism is what Franklin warned us against and sounds suspiciously like a Leni Riefenstahl movie, except to libertarians.
That rank populism is what Franklin warned us against and sounds suspiciously like a Leni Riefenstahl movie, except to libertarians.
Franklin was religious and believed man was created by God and had an “immortal soul,” and that God created morality as well. https://www.americanheritage.com/benjamin-franklin-his-relig... (“I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his other Children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this.”). It follows from that thinking that there are limits on what the government can do to a God-created individual. God’s law trumps man’s law.
But what’s the argument that doesn’t resort to the supernatural? There’s a logical, utilitarian basis for saying that governments are created by societies to effectuate the popular will. There’s no God-favored king or clergy, and biology doesn’t anoint some humans to rule over others, as with say bees, so the popular will should be carried out. Insofar as the people have committed to things like constitutions and laws, of course, that can provide a principled basis for limiting what the government can do to individuals.
But OP was talking about some “principle of full bodily autonomy” that apparently transcends any specific constitution or law. Where does that come from? If the people don’t believe in any notion of “bodily autonomy”—or impose particular limits on that concept—what higher law can possibly override that?
But what’s the argument that doesn’t resort to the supernatural? There’s a logical, utilitarian basis for saying that governments are created by societies to effectuate the popular will. There’s no God-favored king or clergy, and biology doesn’t anoint some humans to rule over others, as with say bees, so the popular will should be carried out. Insofar as the people have committed to things like constitutions and laws, of course, that can provide a principled basis for limiting what the government can do to individuals.
But OP was talking about some “principle of full bodily autonomy” that apparently transcends any specific constitution or law. Where does that come from? If the people don’t believe in any notion of “bodily autonomy”—or impose particular limits on that concept—what higher law can possibly override that?
From Franklin's letter, more towards the end: "I have ever let others enjoy their religious Sentiments".
The more relevant portion is this: “As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.”
You invoked Franklin’s statements about “populism.” But Franklin thought that humans were made by God and that God-created law was a real thing that existed. Under that world view, it makes sense that a democratic society couldn’t decide to say legalize the murder of rich people, because God’s law was higher than man’s law. But presumably we are not having a theological discussion here. If we don’t accept the notion of divine law, how can there be limits on what democratic governments can do with the consent of the people? The people’s law should be the highest law, right?
You invoked Franklin’s statements about “populism.” But Franklin thought that humans were made by God and that God-created law was a real thing that existed. Under that world view, it makes sense that a democratic society couldn’t decide to say legalize the murder of rich people, because God’s law was higher than man’s law. But presumably we are not having a theological discussion here. If we don’t accept the notion of divine law, how can there be limits on what democratic governments can do with the consent of the people? The people’s law should be the highest law, right?
No, the relevant portion of the letter was when Franklin eloquently added that he didn't want to apply his private religiosity to others. Nor as a Framer, did he.
I do not accept your divine law drivel nor do I accept your people's law either/or. Instead, I would counsel you to re-read and meditate on the Preamble to the Constitution, especially that part where it says in Order to form a more perfect Union. That part, the Enlightenment part.
I do not accept your divine law drivel nor do I accept your people's law either/or. Instead, I would counsel you to re-read and meditate on the Preamble to the Constitution, especially that part where it says in Order to form a more perfect Union. That part, the Enlightenment part.
> I do not accept your divine law drivel
But that's exactly my argument! Franklin's beliefs about "populism" are based on "divine law drivel"--God's law imposes limits on democratic law. If we reject that--which is exactly what I'm trying to do here--what basis do you have for saying that the people can't make whatever laws they want?
You're the one invoking supernatural concepts--this supernatural notion of "bodily autonomy"--not me.
But that's exactly my argument! Franklin's beliefs about "populism" are based on "divine law drivel"--God's law imposes limits on democratic law. If we reject that--which is exactly what I'm trying to do here--what basis do you have for saying that the people can't make whatever laws they want?
You're the one invoking supernatural concepts--this supernatural notion of "bodily autonomy"--not me.
Turing's boyfriend was 19, therefore not an adult under UK law at the time.
The age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16 at the time. As gay sex was illegal, there was no corresponding age of consent for it, but it’s misleading to suggest that 19 was not considered a sufficient age for sexual consent in general.
It's a classic example of where legality and morality aren't aligned
Back then it was perfectly aligned.
Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.
Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.
I think OP was talking about real morality, not perceived.
What is real morality? How do you distinguish it from perceived morality?
There is no ultimate right or wrong, it's all perception.
There is no ultimate right or wrong, it's all perception.
I have written and deleted a few responses to this. Mostly because all of them turned out rageful, these kind of statements are in themselves harmful. If you only assign value to things which have inherent value then what's the point of society or civilization. Some things don't have to be laws of nature for us to treat them as such. If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works.
>If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works.
Moral and value are both subjective. I doubt there is a single value that all people share across the world and time. So it's always about perceived morality at a certain place and time.
Moral and value are both subjective. I doubt there is a single value that all people share across the world and time. So it's always about perceived morality at a certain place and time.
There's no such thing. All actions have consequences for other people, so any system of morality includes trade-offs where someone is disadvantaged for the sake of someone else.
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> Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.
Possibly, but the law was criminalising what happened in private. There's a big difference between prudish laws that ban public displays and intrusive laws that govern what consenting adults do in private.
Possibly, but the law was criminalising what happened in private. There's a big difference between prudish laws that ban public displays and intrusive laws that govern what consenting adults do in private.
That’s arguably a fairly modern idea. Many western European countries had laws against homosexuality (generally ~dormant) until the 80s. Until 2003, 14 US states effectively criminalised male homosexuality; see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
Lest you think this is totally confined to the past:
> In his concurring opinion [on Dobbs], Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote, "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. […]”
Those would be the court cases which legalised contraception, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage across the US. It would be a mistake to think of this sort of intrusive law as purely a thing of the past; the far-right will bring them back, given half a chance.
Lest you think this is totally confined to the past:
> In his concurring opinion [on Dobbs], Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote, "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. […]”
Those would be the court cases which legalised contraception, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage across the US. It would be a mistake to think of this sort of intrusive law as purely a thing of the past; the far-right will bring them back, given half a chance.
We now recognize this of course, but I think the point being made above is that society at the time did not, and they thought they were acting morally.
Perhaps the lesson is that actions done out of a sense of moral righteousness should not be immune from challenge. Much evil is committed in the name of good.
Perhaps the lesson is that actions done out of a sense of moral righteousness should not be immune from challenge. Much evil is committed in the name of good.
Reminds me somewhat of this great C.S. Lewis observation:
> “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
> “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
This is exactly why I see virtually no difference between the desired tyrannies of the “woke” types today as compared to the religious right of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s the same shit with a slightly different script. That inherent desire to criminalize opinions and behaviors that might offend their chosen moralities whether or not it actually affects them individually or even others.
We're not on the good side of some clear morality dividing line. Plenty of consensual private actions are illegal today. The most obviously similar one is incest. But there's also consensual violence and euthanasia, as well as all the things you're not allowed to have on your computer, even if you created them yourself in some western countries.
People seem to thing us moderns are more moral but we're not really, we just changed our morals so other cultures look immoral in comparison - and we look immoral in comparison to them too.
People seem to thing us moderns are more moral but we're not really, we just changed our morals so other cultures look immoral in comparison - and we look immoral in comparison to them too.
Indeed. One of the most criminalized things today is taking any sort of drug (besides alcohol, and now cannabis in many places) even in the privacy of your own home where nobody else even has to know.
Countless humans got their lives destroyed because of this perfectly normal variation of human sexuality, that's atrocious and so we should never forget what happened to Alan Turing because of essentially religious fundamentalism.
As a moral realist and liberal humanist, I agree, but the post highlights something important. Evil acts are often motivated by sincere moral systems. These people are mostly not sociopaths acting independent of a moral system. The feelings of moral disgust you feel towards their views are probably no different neurobiologically to the feelings of moral disgust they felt. This is important for us to recognize. Feelings of moral disgust should not be automatically given credence or respect just because they exist. We should also be careful and introspective of strongly held moral feelings that arise in ourselves.
I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on?
We should be introspective, and it helps, but it is far from being a solution. It is very difficult to get away from personal feels, or from you culture.
We should be introspective, and it helps, but it is far from being a solution. It is very difficult to get away from personal feels, or from you culture.
> I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on?
I've thought about this way more than I probably should. While I don't have any answers, I do think two very famous attempts are particularly worth studying (and IMHO, blending). Immanuel Kant's exploration, particularly his categorical imperative, and Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism.
IMHO though, it's a very difficult task because we humans tend to base our moral judgments on our emotional reactions to things, and our reactions (such as disgust) are a complex combination of instinct from past evolution, and culture we are raised in. If the outcome from some system/principle disagrees with our emotional reaction, we tend to discard the system rather than examine and question our reactions. I actually find Robert Sapolsky's work (and others in that area) to be just as interesting/illuminating because while they don't provide answers themselves, they do a remarkable job helping us see the challenges involved with trusting our gut.
I've thought about this way more than I probably should. While I don't have any answers, I do think two very famous attempts are particularly worth studying (and IMHO, blending). Immanuel Kant's exploration, particularly his categorical imperative, and Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism.
IMHO though, it's a very difficult task because we humans tend to base our moral judgments on our emotional reactions to things, and our reactions (such as disgust) are a complex combination of instinct from past evolution, and culture we are raised in. If the outcome from some system/principle disagrees with our emotional reaction, we tend to discard the system rather than examine and question our reactions. I actually find Robert Sapolsky's work (and others in that area) to be just as interesting/illuminating because while they don't provide answers themselves, they do a remarkable job helping us see the challenges involved with trusting our gut.
It's more a case of mainstream morality not aligning with ethics.
i’d like to add a counter point to your classification, respectfully: i felt like the comment implies that morality can be subjective (mainstream), but ethics is objective.
my point would be ethics is also subjective, and thus morality and ethics can be used interchangeably. in german, they are! (Ethik und Moral/Moralität)
my point would be ethics is also subjective, and thus morality and ethics can be used interchangeably. in german, they are! (Ethik und Moral/Moralität)
My subjective definition of ethics is that they're objective :)
Of course if you define both words to be the same thing to the point where they're interchangeable then the meanings change, but that's not what those words mean to me. I don't define ethics to be a socially held belief.
What do words even mean?
Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing with you, I have no strongly held belief and don't care about this at all.
Of course if you define both words to be the same thing to the point where they're interchangeable then the meanings change, but that's not what those words mean to me. I don't define ethics to be a socially held belief.
What do words even mean?
Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing with you, I have no strongly held belief and don't care about this at all.
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His death was consistent with both suicide and accident. He left no note, so the reasons for why he likely committed suicide are not clear. His nephew suggests it was "boyfriend trouble" and his friend said he had underwent the "treatment" in good spirits. Turing, on the advice of his lawyer, plead guilty and opted for chemical castration himself.
Of all the men in history charged with "gross indecency", Turing was the only one to receive a pardon. He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.
Of all the men in history charged with "gross indecency", Turing was the only one to receive a pardon. He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.
> He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. His chemical castration was a condition of his probation following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. His chemical castration was a condition of his probation following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
I'm fine with Turing being a hero or a role model. But people are now writing that Turing was castrated for being gay.
> following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
It had nothing directly to do with his being gay. You can be gay without starting relationships with homeless boys and getting your house broken into, exposing yourself to blackmail or coercion.
> following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
It had nothing directly to do with his being gay. You can be gay without starting relationships with homeless boys and getting your house broken into, exposing yourself to blackmail or coercion.
> It had nothing directly to do with his being gay.
Do you really (personally) believe that? You don't think his gayness was a factor at all?
Seeing the way he was treated by law enforcement, particularly after the facts started coming to light, I can't believe it wasn't a factor. His final charge may have been more for the classified info risk as you say (I honestly don't know enough about the details to have an opinion there), but many parts of the process I think would have gone a lot more differently had he not been gay. Without a doubt in my mind, they would not have treated him so disrespectfully and cavalierly.
Do you really (personally) believe that? You don't think his gayness was a factor at all?
Seeing the way he was treated by law enforcement, particularly after the facts started coming to light, I can't believe it wasn't a factor. His final charge may have been more for the classified info risk as you say (I honestly don't know enough about the details to have an opinion there), but many parts of the process I think would have gone a lot more differently had he not been gay. Without a doubt in my mind, they would not have treated him so disrespectfully and cavalierly.
> You don't think his gayness was a factor at all?
It was a factor, but not directly. I believe Turing's gayness is being pink washed. The way I see it, the UK was not castrating people for being gay, but gave this option after breaking indecency laws and being convicted for it.
> particularly after the facts started coming to light
Turing went to police to file a report and casually (perhaps ignorantly or haughtily) admitted to breaking a law.
It was a factor, but not directly. I believe Turing's gayness is being pink washed. The way I see it, the UK was not castrating people for being gay, but gave this option after breaking indecency laws and being convicted for it.
> particularly after the facts started coming to light
Turing went to police to file a report and casually (perhaps ignorantly or haughtily) admitted to breaking a law.
> Turing went to police to file a report and casually (perhaps ignorantly or haughtily) admitted to breaking a law.
Yes I agree, but (and I'm honestly asking because I don't know) was it one of those laws that nobody really took seriously or that was still on the books even though it was never enforced? Or was it a crime that was enforced at the time?
Edit: Unrelated to above, but from parent comment, I hadn't heard of "pink washing" before so just dropping a link for others who might not have heard of it either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT)
Yes I agree, but (and I'm honestly asking because I don't know) was it one of those laws that nobody really took seriously or that was still on the books even though it was never enforced? Or was it a crime that was enforced at the time?
Edit: Unrelated to above, but from parent comment, I hadn't heard of "pink washing" before so just dropping a link for others who might not have heard of it either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkwashing_(LGBT)
The law was enforced, but it seems Turing did not take it seriously. He was openly gay since university, complained the law was stupid, was unapologetic in court, and sought out "sex vacations" after his conviction.
You say (correctly) that there was a law against gay sex, and that this law was enforced, but also that Turing's prosecution and punishment under this law (after admitting to a police officer that he'd had gay sex) somehow had nothing directly to do with his being gay. I'm not quite sure how you square that circle.
There are laws against rape. Someone prosecuted and punished for rape has nothing directly to do with them being male or a sadist.
Being married is a hard prerequisite for being able to commit marital rape. You don't have to be gay to have gay sex that the authorities learn about.
Being married is a hard prerequisite for being able to commit marital rape. You don't have to be gay to have gay sex that the authorities learn about.
But Turing was gay, and that’s why he had gay sex. You yourself described him as “openly gay”.
He was not charged with being burgled (which is obviously not a crime!) or for exposing himself to blackmail (which is also not a crime). He was charged for having sex with another man, and his punishment was a result of that conviction. So his conviction and punishment were absolutely directly to do with his being gay. The very fact that chemical castration was considered as a 'treatment' shows that everyone involved regarded the problem as being 'gay sex', not 'exposing oneself to blackmail'.
Al Capone was also charged with tax evasion to the fullest extent of the law, even though the gov was rarely if ever that aggressive with tax evaders. Prosecutors/law enforcement go for the charge that stands the best chance of conviction, not necessarily the one that is most accurate.
Personally given how society was at that point in time, I think his gayness was a big factor in how he was treated, but there are better arguments than pointing to what he was charged with as that is easily refuted.
Personally given how society was at that point in time, I think his gayness was a big factor in how he was treated, but there are better arguments than pointing to what he was charged with as that is easily refuted.
But this is nonsense in the case of Turing. He was simply charged because he admitted to the police officer investigating the burglary that he'd had gay sex. His treatment was in line with that of other gay men of the time who were charged with similar offences (perhaps more 'lenient' if anything). What evidence do you have that there was more to the case than this? I have seen no indication that security concerns entered into the prosecution or sentencing.
Beware that OP's post is full of random nonsense, such as the claim that the younger man in question was 'Eastern European'. (His name was Arnold Murray and he was born in the UK, as far as anyone has been able to ascertain.)
Beware that OP's post is full of random nonsense, such as the claim that the younger man in question was 'Eastern European'. (His name was Arnold Murray and he was born in the UK, as far as anyone has been able to ascertain.)
I don't have "evidence" at all, other than that when the subject comes up most people say that it was kind of a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of thing. I.e. if you were doing it in public there could be issues, but there was a pretty good gay community where it was kind of an open secret[1]. If you don't believe that to be accurate, please let me know!
> His treatment was in line with that of other gay men of the time who were charged with similar offences (perhaps more 'lenient' if anything).
Not challenging you, but do you or anybody have some numbers on how often this was prosecuted? It's probably impossible to say since by definition much of the activity was underground, but that doesn't match my current understanding of the environment.
[1]: as is always a risk when stating facts, there's a risk of is/ought fallacy here with people interpreting my statement of facts with what I think should be the case. I'm not saying it ought to be this way, merely that it was. I think we've made great progress in this area and I'm glad for it.
> His treatment was in line with that of other gay men of the time who were charged with similar offences (perhaps more 'lenient' if anything).
Not challenging you, but do you or anybody have some numbers on how often this was prosecuted? It's probably impossible to say since by definition much of the activity was underground, but that doesn't match my current understanding of the environment.
[1]: as is always a risk when stating facts, there's a risk of is/ought fallacy here with people interpreting my statement of facts with what I think should be the case. I'm not saying it ought to be this way, merely that it was. I think we've made great progress in this area and I'm glad for it.
It’s so easy to find information about this by googling. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38814338.amp
There’s nothing complicated about the Turing case. It was a crime at the time to have gay sex. He admitted to a police office that he’d had gay sex. This led to him being prosecuted.
I’d urge you to spend more time looking at the facts of the case and less time questioning the universally accepted narrative on the basis of what you admit is no evidence.
There’s nothing complicated about the Turing case. It was a crime at the time to have gay sex. He admitted to a police office that he’d had gay sex. This led to him being prosecuted.
I’d urge you to spend more time looking at the facts of the case and less time questioning the universally accepted narrative on the basis of what you admit is no evidence.
You seem insistent that there's no nuance whatsoever involved in this, yet I find this hard to accept.
Just in the article you linked to, it says that 49,000 gay men were pardoned. It also says the law against "gross indecency with a man" was passed in 1885 and was only repealed in 1967. The law against "buggery" was first used in 1533 and was in place until the 19th century!
If we assume that 100 million people lived through those times, and that the conservative estimate of approximately 3% gay population held, then there would have been 3,000,000 gay people during that time. That means that 1.6% of gay people ended up prosecuted. If we only consider men, then 3.2% ended up prosecuted. This seems to me to be a little more nuanced than you are suggesting, otherwise there wouldn't be such a huge inconsistency in enforcement.
Since we're urging each other now, I’d urge you to spend more time thinking about how perception can differ from reality, what the pitfalls are of binary thinking and blind acceptance, and why Socrates encouraged people to have humility about what they think they know.
Just in the article you linked to, it says that 49,000 gay men were pardoned. It also says the law against "gross indecency with a man" was passed in 1885 and was only repealed in 1967. The law against "buggery" was first used in 1533 and was in place until the 19th century!
If we assume that 100 million people lived through those times, and that the conservative estimate of approximately 3% gay population held, then there would have been 3,000,000 gay people during that time. That means that 1.6% of gay people ended up prosecuted. If we only consider men, then 3.2% ended up prosecuted. This seems to me to be a little more nuanced than you are suggesting, otherwise there wouldn't be such a huge inconsistency in enforcement.
Since we're urging each other now, I’d urge you to spend more time thinking about how perception can differ from reality, what the pitfalls are of binary thinking and blind acceptance, and why Socrates encouraged people to have humility about what they think they know.
Most people didn’t tell a policeman that they were having gay sex. Turing did, so he was prosecuted. The police officer who initially arrested Turing would have had no idea about his security clearance or role in the war effort (which did not begin to be declassified until the 1970s). So what exactly is this “nuance” that you think needs to be added here? Could you at least be specific?
I’d also add that your hypothetical conviction rate of 3.2% is pretty high, considering that people generally have sex in private. As a point of comparison drawn at random, the current conviction rate for car thefts in England and Wales is 2.12%.
I’d also add that your hypothetical conviction rate of 3.2% is pretty high, considering that people generally have sex in private. As a point of comparison drawn at random, the current conviction rate for car thefts in England and Wales is 2.12%.
> He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.
Assuming this is true (I don't know), would a heterosexual man have received the same punishment? In any case, it seems pretty cruel and unusual to me.
Assuming this is true (I don't know), would a heterosexual man have received the same punishment? In any case, it seems pretty cruel and unusual to me.
A heterosexual 40-year-old man with top-level security clearance, access to sensitive information, and the skill set of Turing, getting involved with Eastern European strays, at the start of the Cold War, possibly compromising himself, would not have received the same punishment, but likely would not have been spared jail time.
Cruel? From the lens of modern times, certainly. But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
Cruel? From the lens of modern times, certainly. But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
> A heterosexual ... would not have received the same punishment, but likely would not have been spared jail time.
I don't know if we can make the assumption that it was his being gay that spared him the jail time, or if other considerations were at play; and if another man benefiting from the same considerations but with different preferences would have been treated (edit: clarifying) more leniently, i.e. no chemical castration, as you say. And together with the following:
> But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
This goes back to the view back then of homosexuality as sexual (and criminal?) deviance. I feel like we're pretty much back at the point of his sexuality being the reason for the chemical castration.
I don't know if we can make the assumption that it was his being gay that spared him the jail time, or if other considerations were at play; and if another man benefiting from the same considerations but with different preferences would have been treated (edit: clarifying) more leniently, i.e. no chemical castration, as you say. And together with the following:
> But don't we still chemically castrate certain sex offenders?
This goes back to the view back then of homosexuality as sexual (and criminal?) deviance. I feel like we're pretty much back at the point of his sexuality being the reason for the chemical castration.
If they are behaving in a iffy manner but have not actually leaked secrets they would probably just be fired or transfered.
The reasoning is interesting though. I don't necessarily agree with it but it's not "lmao gay".
A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence that now seems both cruel and absurd—particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.[0]
--- [0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text...
A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence that now seems both cruel and absurd—particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.[0]
--- [0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text...
> He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.
That specific bit of reasoning is very likely wrong.
The circumstances of Turings investigation and arrest started with Turing going to the police to report that had been robbed by a person considered to be a rent boy.
If he had the slightest notion of how homosexual behaviour was dealt with by the regular police and that he would be the main subject of interest rather than the robber he would not have reported the theft.
Turing very much came from a class isolated from common consequences, he spent his youth at an elite school and then university, later at Bletchley Park, all places where lads with an odd bent were not at all uncommon, largely tolerated although often teased, and very rarely, if ever, arrested.
That specific bit of reasoning is very likely wrong.
The circumstances of Turings investigation and arrest started with Turing going to the police to report that had been robbed by a person considered to be a rent boy.
If he had the slightest notion of how homosexual behaviour was dealt with by the regular police and that he would be the main subject of interest rather than the robber he would not have reported the theft.
Turing very much came from a class isolated from common consequences, he spent his youth at an elite school and then university, later at Bletchley Park, all places where lads with an odd bent were not at all uncommon, largely tolerated although often teased, and very rarely, if ever, arrested.
« Et tous les bourgeois du 16ème / Se demandent pourquoi je t'aime »
What's the (north african?)-set movie to which Mika refers in this tube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY
While I find my eyes and ear (même les américaines comprennent) caught by Mme Mac, and I wouldn't have the foggiest in what context "molly with a Dilly" might usually occur, the video and text make one suspect that MM. Doriand and Mika tended to foreground the other characters (do long guns imply rough trade?).
[come to think of it, an odd bent would probably have been a career advantage at Bletchley, in that one might have been already habituated to picking up on metadata during traffic analysis?]
What's the (north african?)-set movie to which Mika refers in this tube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY
While I find my eyes and ear (même les américaines comprennent) caught by Mme Mac, and I wouldn't have the foggiest in what context "molly with a Dilly" might usually occur, the video and text make one suspect that MM. Doriand and Mika tended to foreground the other characters (do long guns imply rough trade?).
[come to think of it, an odd bent would probably have been a career advantage at Bletchley, in that one might have been already habituated to picking up on metadata during traffic analysis?]
Hell of a tangent, near non contact but, FWiW I pretty sure it's a Sergio Leone film, many of which had sequences shot in Spain and some in North Africa (IIRC) - the blanket toss back is such a trope.
The following piano man bars just prior to the singing are, to my ear, a definite riff on Moby's Extreme Ways that was repurposed for the Jason Bourne films.
So bouncy .. does no one call back to Arthur Rimbaud anymore? https://genius.com/Paul-kelly-and-the-messengers-the-executi...
Everyone loves long guns, how else can you reach the gate from the house? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE
The following piano man bars just prior to the singing are, to my ear, a definite riff on Moby's Extreme Ways that was repurposed for the Jason Bourne films.
So bouncy .. does no one call back to Arthur Rimbaud anymore? https://genius.com/Paul-kelly-and-the-messengers-the-executi...
Everyone loves long guns, how else can you reach the gate from the house? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owwTz7Z0OE
Viktor Tsoi (XX):
Солнце моё, взгляни на меня
(my sun[shine], look at me)
Mark and Sam (XXI): Солнце моё, взгляни за меня (my sun[shine], spot for me)
Mark and Sam (XXI): Солнце моё, взгляни за меня (my sun[shine], spot for me)
> Hell of a tangent, near non contact
All transverse geometries are alike, each non-transverse geometry fails to be so in its singular manner.
All transverse geometries are alike, each non-transverse geometry fails to be so in its singular manner.
Lawrence of Arabia
Otherwise, it's Sierra Leone alright ("movie-set")
(Or Maltese Falcon for a very loose def of "set" or "N Africa")
[0] fr wikipedia for the song
Otherwise, it's Sierra Leone alright ("movie-set")
(Or Maltese Falcon for a very loose def of "set" or "N Africa")
[0] fr wikipedia for the song
> Lawrence of Arabia
They claim that, but I don't see how it could possibly be true, based on the cast listing at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/fullcredits : apart from an uncredited nurse (Barbara Cole) it seems like a screenplay calculated to make Ms Bechdel sad.
They claim that, but I don't see how it could possibly be true, based on the cast listing at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/fullcredits : apart from an uncredited nurse (Barbara Cole) it seems like a screenplay calculated to make Ms Bechdel sad.
But not the (biologically male) gay counterpart of Ms Bechdel?
(Consider the period)
(Consider the period)
True — I ought to have considered that, for I know the book Seven Pillars of Wisdom has in supertext some passages that (if they made it at all) are probably only referred to in the movie as subtext. mea culpa
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP4k3PLr4LQ ("Following the debut of this film, Sagan moved to England.")
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP4k3PLr4LQ ("Following the debut of this film, Sagan moved to England.")
Comme je suis bête ! In my defence I saw that one in a 747, so low cabin pressure may not have done my long term memory formation much good. (EDIT: looks like whatever I was remembering as LoA wasn't even that?)
The multivalued functions are a relief — should the sparks/stars lit in my noggin by a comment align in a different direction from intended, it's not that I'm running riot in a deterministic world, but merely finding myself perhaps at the same coordinates, but on a different sheet, in a nondeterministic one?
The Maugham story in which bumble-puppy appears (if slightly later in the decade than in Huxley) is worth reading, especially with the background that WSM worked for MI6 and had (orientation as well as valuation?) reasons to make use of glueings along branch cuts in his personal, as well as his professional, life.
> In a place like the sanatorium where there was little to occupy the mind it was inevitable that soon everyone should know that George Templeton was in love with Evie Bishop. But it was not so easy to tell what her feelings were. It was plain that she liked his company, but she did not seek it, and indeed it looked as though she took pains not to be alone with him. One or two of the middle-aged ladies tried to trap her into some compromising admission, but ingenuous as she was, she was easily a match for them. She ignored their hints and met their straight questions with incredulous laughter. She succeeded in exasperating them.
Being partway through Conflict, War and Revolution(2022)*, I think something may be coming together modelling all your options: Kaczynski and Galois may have been too idealistically violent (the one having done what he could unto others, the other having suffered what he must?) and Grothendieck too idealistically nonviolent (which obviously leads to minimising one's dot product with the world) but Kolmogorov found a nonviolent quadrant inside Machiavelli's pragmatic lead: Fortune provides a martingale process, and virtu consists of minimaxing one's expected interests with respect to her whim.
On a planet like earth it is inevitable that men should seek the favour of Fortune, but it is rarely easy to tell what her feelings are. (or, for that manner, if they even be iid)
* https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.cwr/
The multivalued functions are a relief — should the sparks/stars lit in my noggin by a comment align in a different direction from intended, it's not that I'm running riot in a deterministic world, but merely finding myself perhaps at the same coordinates, but on a different sheet, in a nondeterministic one?
The Maugham story in which bumble-puppy appears (if slightly later in the decade than in Huxley) is worth reading, especially with the background that WSM worked for MI6 and had (orientation as well as valuation?) reasons to make use of glueings along branch cuts in his personal, as well as his professional, life.
> In a place like the sanatorium where there was little to occupy the mind it was inevitable that soon everyone should know that George Templeton was in love with Evie Bishop. But it was not so easy to tell what her feelings were. It was plain that she liked his company, but she did not seek it, and indeed it looked as though she took pains not to be alone with him. One or two of the middle-aged ladies tried to trap her into some compromising admission, but ingenuous as she was, she was easily a match for them. She ignored their hints and met their straight questions with incredulous laughter. She succeeded in exasperating them.
Being partway through Conflict, War and Revolution(2022)*, I think something may be coming together modelling all your options: Kaczynski and Galois may have been too idealistically violent (the one having done what he could unto others, the other having suffered what he must?) and Grothendieck too idealistically nonviolent (which obviously leads to minimising one's dot product with the world) but Kolmogorov found a nonviolent quadrant inside Machiavelli's pragmatic lead: Fortune provides a martingale process, and virtu consists of minimaxing one's expected interests with respect to her whim.
On a planet like earth it is inevitable that men should seek the favour of Fortune, but it is rarely easy to tell what her feelings are. (or, for that manner, if they even be iid)
* https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.cwr/
s/virtu/epsilon of licentiousness/ ?
EDIT: not "viti"
Going to flip through your recommendations (at least) with an eye (3rd) towards ergodicity (or even Hurwitz spaces)
EDIT: don't worry too much about Galois -- you make me wonder if I had not read his letters (esp the fine print in his last testament) too carelessly.
EDIT: not "viti"
Going to flip through your recommendations (at least) with an eye (3rd) towards ergodicity (or even Hurwitz spaces)
EDIT: don't worry too much about Galois -- you make me wonder if I had not read his letters (esp the fine print in his last testament) too carelessly.
For every epsilon of licentiousness, there exists a delta of venus, such that...? (as an algebraist, it seems analysts spend an awful lot of time chasing tails!)
I have been brought up in a culture where seduction follows a sequence ("running the bases"); are there cultures where that does not suffice, and seduction requires more sophistication: a net*, say, or even a filter?
* in line with the genre fiction cover kind of net, someone once won a competition we had at uni for "best line to get a member of the appropriate sex into your room" with 75 pound test, eg https://fr.aliexpress.com/i/839412765.html
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK9nx7e9IGM (Scholes, Meriwether, and Merton would've done well to listen more to this one?)
I have been brought up in a culture where seduction follows a sequence ("running the bases"); are there cultures where that does not suffice, and seduction requires more sophistication: a net*, say, or even a filter?
* in line with the genre fiction cover kind of net, someone once won a competition we had at uni for "best line to get a member of the appropriate sex into your room" with 75 pound test, eg https://fr.aliexpress.com/i/839412765.html
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK9nx7e9IGM (Scholes, Meriwether, and Merton would've done well to listen more to this one?)
The epsilon of tail-chasing beats the delta of (phallic) symbol pushing!
Re: uni- Cantabrigian?
Yes, for "better" seduction technik, you should restrict your search to uni culture.
Re: uni- Cantabrigian?
Yes, for "better" seduction technik, you should restrict your search to uni culture.
No, although I do have a fair amount of shelf space devoted to a CS book series (published by that breakaway technical college somewhere in the fens) all of which are in shades of what I would've called green, but a cantab colleague informed me was in fact blue.
If either of us had had any irish gaelic, maybe we would've agreed upon glas? see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_lang...
If either of us had had any irish gaelic, maybe we would've agreed upon glas? see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_lang...
No iG but likewise my uni can be said to have Brythonic roots. (As opposed to merely Anglo-Saxon)
Tonnerre de Brest ! Swansea by any chance? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40013890
"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence"
That is what pardons are for. If he was not properly convicted then the conviction could have been overturned instead.
That is what pardons are for. If he was not properly convicted then the conviction could have been overturned instead.
I think the Justice Minister's reasoning is that if we pardon every crime in the past that we deem permissible today, it would legitimize people to break laws they find unjust today, stating that they (perpetrator) did it "because the future will see it as ok". It feels like weak reasoning from my part, but I can't get into the Justice Minister's head. It's just speculation.
With that said, and Turing having been pardoned by the Queen (posthumously), I wonder if pardons in the UK also carry the "imputation of guilt" that pardons in the US carry as defined by the SCOTUS [0]?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States
With that said, and Turing having been pardoned by the Queen (posthumously), I wonder if pardons in the UK also carry the "imputation of guilt" that pardons in the US carry as defined by the SCOTUS [0]?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States
I had never heard that he died on the 10th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
The code breakers at Bletchley Park, Alan prominently among them, are often credited with saving millions of lives. The reasoning is that their work make the D-Day invasion possible in 1944, and had they not cracked the codes it would have been delayed at least a year and would have cost millions move lives.
And presumably Alan would have been reminded and thought about the D-Day landings on the days before his suicide.
The code breakers at Bletchley Park, Alan prominently among them, are often credited with saving millions of lives. The reasoning is that their work make the D-Day invasion possible in 1944, and had they not cracked the codes it would have been delayed at least a year and would have cost millions move lives.
And presumably Alan would have been reminded and thought about the D-Day landings on the days before his suicide.
It seems there is no archive audio or old video from Alan Turing?
There was a series of lectures recorded by the BBC for radio broadcast.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-turing-himself-said-about-the...
Sadly, both were wiped - as was common for the time.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-turing-himself-said-about-the...
Sadly, both were wiped - as was common for the time.
I'm in London this week, seeing Bletchley park and the computer museum tomorrow! Super excited.
What would justice have looked like for Alan Turing for his war contributions? I'm tempted to say that we should have showered him with our highest honors, that Britain should have made him a duke and a billionaire out of gratitude, and he should have had drawers full of keys to the great cities of the world. But none of that could have meaured up against just leaving the poor guy alone to pursue his own thoughts and loves. And who knows what gifts to the whole world he could have returned from that.
What reward then for Bill Tutte who actually cold cracked a harder cipher than the one Turing supposedly cracked (He built upon earlier work by the Polish group who also made the first Bombes).
What reward for Tommy Flowers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers
I like Turing, I like his work, but he was by no means the only genius at Bletchley.
What reward for Tommy Flowers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers
I like Turing, I like his work, but he was by no means the only genius at Bletchley.
Celebrating the less well known code breakers, an incomplete list includes
Arne Beurling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling, a Swede who cracked the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_and_Halske_T52
Hugh Foss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Foss who first cracked the early commercial variants of Enigma back in 1927
Gordon Welchman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Welchman ... argh where to start? :D
Arne Beurling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Beurling, a Swede who cracked the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_and_Halske_T52
Hugh Foss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Foss who first cracked the early commercial variants of Enigma back in 1927
Gordon Welchman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Welchman ... argh where to start? :D
Not as widely remembered, but it sounds like those two did a bit better than Turing. They both died of old age after successful careers in their respective fields.
That makes it sound like a game. I don't think they would have viewed it that way?
I think you and the person I was replying to missed the second part of the other comment, which I believe to be the main point: "But none of that could have meaured up against just leaving the poor guy alone to pursue his own thoughts and loves. And who knows what gifts to the whole world he could have returned from that."
The reward they received is to live long lives without criminal prosecution and barbaric treatment at the hands of the law, I suppose. They also lived long enough to have their wartime work declassified and publicly recognized, which Turing never did.
Tommy Flowers was very badly treated: he was forced to destroy his work while others built on it.
If you want to activate even more dormant neurons: what about Konrad Zuse? Every CS course's history segment mentions Turing and (sometimes) Church while this man's only crime is having been on the wrong side of history and his reward being relegated to the margins of said history.
Agree with your main final point, but not the billionaire bit...
Why not give the billion to British immigrant Marian Rejewski and his Polish intelligence service peers and leaders who actually cracked Enigma, fled Poland, and gave their findings to the British (and French) as their home country was being taken over?
https://daily.jstor.org/polish-codebreakers/ https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/polish-mathematici...
Why not give the billion to British immigrant Marian Rejewski and his Polish intelligence service peers and leaders who actually cracked Enigma, fled Poland, and gave their findings to the British (and French) as their home country was being taken over?
https://daily.jstor.org/polish-codebreakers/ https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/polish-mathematici...
Exactly. There are few good reasons to call Alan Turing a genius, but breaking Enigma definitely isn't one of them.
There is no single “Enigma”. There were several variations of the Enigma with increasing amounts of complexity, and changing key management practices. Trying to hand credit for “the break” to one group is like trying to credit one chef for devising all gourmet cuisine.
Well, trying to credit Turing alone is what frustrates me the most.
To add some context:
1. In Rejewski's own words, all variations of the Enigma were "quantitive, not qualitive" - adding more rotors, changing them more frequently made the decryption more labor-intensive, but they did not change the main principle on which it worked, and Rejewski's team was able to figure those out pretty quickly, even before the war.
2. Rejewski, Zygalski, Rozycki they did not just disappear in September 1939, they continued their work, first in France, and then in Britain. Turing actually went to France in early 1940 to consult with them.
3. The main advantage that British "bomb" had over earlier Polish design came from improvement suggested not by Turing, but by Gordon Welchman.
To add some context:
1. In Rejewski's own words, all variations of the Enigma were "quantitive, not qualitive" - adding more rotors, changing them more frequently made the decryption more labor-intensive, but they did not change the main principle on which it worked, and Rejewski's team was able to figure those out pretty quickly, even before the war.
2. Rejewski, Zygalski, Rozycki they did not just disappear in September 1939, they continued their work, first in France, and then in Britain. Turing actually went to France in early 1940 to consult with them.
3. The main advantage that British "bomb" had over earlier Polish design came from improvement suggested not by Turing, but by Gordon Welchman.
1) “Quantity is its own quality” when it comes to ciphers. We can break many reduced-round ciphers easily but have no practical attack on the full version. This is not always true but it is close enough (even today) that nobody should mistake the impact of additional rotors as being “merely quantitative.”
2) Consider the fact that you felt the names Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki could be placed in an HN post without further explanation. Do people know who they are and what they did? Yes, they do. They’re not unknown or uncredited (though many others certainly are, as is the case with every other massive technical effort.)
3) I don’t think anyone has ever seriously suggested that Turing broke Enigma alone. And I don’t take Hollywood seriously: this is a medium that requires “the Enterprise bridge crew” of seven people to effectively solve every problem that comes up. But Turing’s contributions were very significant. And he never had a chance to brag about them: he maintained secrecy while many of his colleagues lived to see the work declassified.
2) Consider the fact that you felt the names Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki could be placed in an HN post without further explanation. Do people know who they are and what they did? Yes, they do. They’re not unknown or uncredited (though many others certainly are, as is the case with every other massive technical effort.)
3) I don’t think anyone has ever seriously suggested that Turing broke Enigma alone. And I don’t take Hollywood seriously: this is a medium that requires “the Enterprise bridge crew” of seven people to effectively solve every problem that comes up. But Turing’s contributions were very significant. And he never had a chance to brag about them: he maintained secrecy while many of his colleagues lived to see the work declassified.
You assume Alan Turing actually cares about what a bunch of British politicians think of him and the award they choose to give him.
You believe he cares about external validation and things like awards.
You believe he cares about being a billionaire.
You are more or less projecting your beliefs and ideas on what a successful life is on him.
Alan pursued truth throughout his life. Not external validations. He was a scientist not a politician or celebrity or a wannabe make world better startup founder.
Only truth could have set him free. And I hope he found his truth.
You believe he cares about external validation and things like awards.
You believe he cares about being a billionaire.
You are more or less projecting your beliefs and ideas on what a successful life is on him.
Alan pursued truth throughout his life. Not external validations. He was a scientist not a politician or celebrity or a wannabe make world better startup founder.
Only truth could have set him free. And I hope he found his truth.
it’s okay to idealize people, but don’t take away their humanity. Turing might not have been exactly like you, but he was human and not a robot. He wanted the same sort of things that you do.
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Still time to donate: https://equalitytime.github.io/FlowersForTuring/
Was murdered by his government 70 years ago*
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[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Government_apology...