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Alan Turing died 70 years ago

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Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#81

Post by trealira »

joseda-hg wrote: post #80
trealira wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cryi…

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

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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#82

Post by Detrytus »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #54
Detrytus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#83

Post by kcplate »

freedomben wrote: post #41
jl6 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 th…

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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#84

Post by freedomben »

foldr wrote: post #69
freedomben wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 basi…

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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#85

Post by CalChris »

rayiner wrote: post #73
advael wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

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.

> 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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#87

Post by newswasboring »

croes wrote: post #68
newswasboring wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#88

Post by foldr »

freedomben wrote: post #84
foldr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 basi…

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 live…

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%.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#89

Post by 082349872349872 »

defrost wrote: post #46
082349872349872 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« 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 Mik…

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?…

> Hell of a tangent, near non contact

All transverse geometries are alike, each non-transverse geometry fails to be so in its singular manner.

Re: Alan Turing died 70 years ago

#90

Post by foldr »

allsummer wrote: post #75
freedomben wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.
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