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Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

bankofengland.co.uk

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Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#191

Post by pavelrub »

leggomylibro wrote: post #166
PorterDuff wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Being persecuted' strikes me as a crummy reason to put someone on currency, it's more a sign of the times than a sign of gravitas.

Turing was persecuted, but he was also instrumental to the Allies' victory in WWII. Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. It seems more like an acknowledgement that his past persecution shouldn't have any bearing on our perception of his myriad accomplishments. FTA: >Alan Turing provided the t…

> Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today.

That's an unnecessary exaggeration. ULTRA was incredibly helpful to the Allies, but there is little reason to believe that without it the world "would probably look very different today". In all likelihood the worst scenario is that the war would've ended a bit later, and with somewhat more favourable conditions for the USSR in terms of their positions in Europe.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#193

Post by michaelmrose »

boring_twenties wrote: post #174
beatgammit wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but crypto currency in some form could see widespread use at some point. Perhaps it won't be Bitcoin, but the underlying technology. Turing's machines weren't directly used, but the principles he came up with impact us today.

I'm quite sure that his Enigma-like machines were used heavily and most enthusiastically. edit: Specifically, this machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

The enigma machines were typewriter like devices of nazi manufacture designed to allow users to type clear text and produce cypher text that could be typed into devices that shared a secret to produce the original clear text.

Alan Turing is known for

- Being a primary figure in the effort to break the enigma machine code so that messages could be decoded without stealing the secret keys used. This was tactically valuable.

- Creating one of 2 mathematically equivalent logical models of computation eventually shown to be equivalent.

He is thus of pivotal importance in the development of modern computers, the defeat of the nazis, and codebreaking.

If you haven't heard of any of this it behooves you to read up a bit.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#194

Post by _puk »

jen729w wrote: post #152
astura wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vinyl is niche but pretty much everyone I know uses paper books/newspapers/magazines and occasionally radio. I'm listening to radio right now.

We bought an old FM radio - a beautiful NAD [0] from the 80s for $40, as it happens - because we like having music on in the background and the iPad/wireless combo just isn’t anywhere near as good as “the wireless”. You know what the NAD has never done? Just stopped playing for no reason. Stopped playing because someone called. Stopped playing because a video played on a website. Stopped playing because the battery r…

> .. Stopped playing because my wifi did whatever. And so on, so forth.

> We listen to vinyl for the same reason.

Agree with your points entirely, except, you can't even get a whole album play through on vinyl without interaction.. modern information density is much improved.

HD vinyl [0] should be interesting, if just for that reason alone. Old tech, modern twist.

0: https://hdvinyl.org/

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#195

Post by headmelted »

michaelmrose wrote: post #158
headmelted wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what one has to do with the other. It's the year 2400 and recent developments in technology mean that a person (let's say John) can choose to live for 500 years, in favour of a chain of offspring. John makes this choice. John's father Harry would have made that choice had the technology been available, and would have enjoyed a longer life in favour of fathering John. The only reason John exists is because…

This is a remarkable chain of bad logic. We start with a real Harry a real person with real rights at point A and then proceed to discuss 2 different hypothetical points B and C where Harry did or didn't have a kid. To discuss Johns hypothetical rights when he came into existence at point B makes sense. At point C he never did so its meaningless to discuss his rights. At A its possible to discuss B in context of B bu…

I have done. I could give several more reasons than you've listed above to support your own argument.

That's not the point, though.

John's kids are hypothetical. But so is John. As is Harry.

As is a 500 year old Aubrey de Grey.

Rights are what people decide they and others should or shouldn't be entitled to based on a consensus of what most of us consider to be, you know, morally right.

If there was consensus on the rights of people yet to live (who may or may not ultimately be born) there wouldn't be differing views on pro-life/pro-choice - and the terms would likely not exist.

To come back to the crux of your argument, though - I don't believe our John is any more responsible for a single potential offspring that doesn't come to pass than a father is for every sperm that doesn't fertilize an egg. That would be, as you've said, absurd.

My point was that suspending the natural cycle of life in a way that prevents pro-creation is, in my view, morally wrong. Something I imagine we disagree on.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#196

Post by onei »

pavelrub wrote: post #191
leggomylibro wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turing was persecuted, but he was also instrumental to the Allies' victory in WWII. Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. It seems more like an acknowledgement that his past persecution shouldn't have any bearing on our perception of his myriad accomplishments. FTA: >Alan Turing provided the t…

> Without Bletchley Park and the massive advances in electromechanical computing that Turing helped to spearhead, the world would probably look very different today. That's an unnecessary exaggeration. ULTRA was incredibly helpful to the Allies, but there is little reason to believe that without it the world "would probably look very different today". In all likelihood the worst scenario is that the war would've ende…

If I recall, ULTRA played a non-trivial part in the Dunkirk landings by checking what the Nazis actually knew. Without that intelligence, it may not have succeeded and things could indeed look very different today.

Moving on from that, one of the people behind ULTRA went on to develop what we would recognise today as the cloud. In terms of cryptography, ULTRA was classified for decades after as the techniques developed were still in use.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#197

Post by Throw_Away_5382 »

jacquesm wrote: post #117
Throw_Away_5382 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that Alan Turing was persecuted for what he was, not for what he did . No, he was prosecuted for having sex with other men. That is something he did. Being homosexual was never illegal.

What a crap comment, I can see why you chose to use a throwaway account. That's about the same as saying that a law against breathing would make all of us illegals because it is something that we did, rather than that breathing is a direct result of being alive as a mammal. Sex is a natural thing. If you outlaw sex then you are by definition creating criminals, and you might as well name it for what it is: a law agai…

> What a crap comment, I can see why you chose to use a throwaway account.

I always use throw away accounts. I also don't understand why people are so sensitive to this. I have once been permanently banned from r/de for making a similar point (although I could reverse it with the help of another Redditor).

> That's about the same as saying that a law against breathing would make all of us illegals because it is something that we did, rather than that breathing is a direct result of being alive as a mammal. Sex is a natural thing. If you outlaw sex then you are by definition creating criminals

What about laws against incest or sex with animals? Although admittedly, if one wants to have sex with a relative, one is usually still attracted to other people. Also, one could say that it does indeed criminalize the existence of zoophiles, but that this is worth it.

(I better don't talk about more controversial examples to not derail the conversation.)

Also, some American states make it illegal for minors to have sex. Does that mean they can be persecuted for being minors?

> you might as well name it for what it is: a law against certain groups of people. The act itself is merely the stick used to hit them with in a legal way.

Are you sure that they didn't just find gay sex disgusting, but would find "non-offending" homosexuals tolerable?

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#198

Post by manfredo »

avar wrote: post #185
manfredo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Founded on the enslavement of black people" is at best a misrepresentation of reality, and at worst a counterfactual statement. The bulk of the Northern states abolished slavery by 1810. The founding principles were at odds with slavery, to the point that many southerners objected to the Declaration of Independence's claim that all men are created equal. Some parts of the US did tolerate the contradiction between it…

Reading "all men are created equal" like that is ahistorical. The Declaration of Independence asserted that at the same time as those northern states kept slaves (and would for decades to come), and natives being driven from their lands like cattle. Clearly "all men" was less inclusive than it's thought of today. And just how long does it take to found a country? In 1789 there were around 4 million people in the US,…

The principles of universal equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence were indeed interpreted by many as delegitimizing slavery. For example, the Massachusetts constitution included similar language, and this was subsequently used to ban slavery.

34 years is a heartbeat in the overall span of history. Furthermore some states, including some of the most populous ones like Massachusetts abolished slavery less than 5 years after the founding of the United States, and many did so before 1800. Many of the authors of the Declaration of Independence intended slavery to be phased out, and Jefferson banned the importation of slaves during his presidency. It's difficult to claim that the US was founded on slavery when states started to ban slavery almost immediately after its founding and key founding figures took steps to curb slavery.

To say that slavery was a "founding principle" of the United States does not have much justification beyond the fact that slavery existed at the time of the United States' founding. By that metric, effectively all countries founded during the New World revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th century were founded on slavery.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#199

Post by manfredo »

justin66 wrote: post #181
manfredo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Founded on the enslavement of black people" is at best a misrepresentation of reality, and at worst a counterfactual statement. The bulk of the Northern states abolished slavery by 1810. The founding principles were at odds with slavery, to the point that many southerners objected to the Declaration of Independence's claim that all men are created equal. Some parts of the US did tolerate the contradiction between it…

Nothing in your lengthy comment contradicts the point you seem to think you're contradicting.

Elaborate? I point out the fact that:

* The principles expressed in founding documents contradict slavery.

* Some States banned slavery less than a decade after the country's founding, and within forty years the majority of the country by population had banned slavery.

* The contradiction between the founding principles and slavery ultimately led to a Civil War where the former emerged victorious.

* The United States' did not take an abnormal amount of time to ban slavery at a national level. And in fact, some States in the US were the first governments to ban slavery in the entire New World.

I'm pretty much at a loss as to how someone can come away with this comment thinking that nothing in my comment is refuting the claim that the US was founded on slavery.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#200

Post by jacquesm »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #187
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a crap comment, I can see why you chose to use a throwaway account. That's about the same as saying that a law against breathing would make all of us illegals because it is something that we did, rather than that breathing is a direct result of being alive as a mammal. Sex is a natural thing. If you outlaw sex then you are by definition creating criminals, and you might as well name it for what it is: a law agai…

Well, morally speaking having sex with a man went against the “morals of the time”. We changed our collective opinion since then. Now what Ross Ulbricht did is amoral today - but are you so sure we will not change our opinion about this act in a few decades? If people didn’t continue with their “amoral homosexuality” we could have never accepted it to be he norm. They are the heroes of their times. In many ways, what…

I'm going to guess that you weren't aware of this:

https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-bos...

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