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ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
71–80 of 85 posts
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#72It's evident from some of the comments that many HN readers have misunderstood ESR's points about Alan Turing. What ESR is saying is that "a homosexual who committed suicide because of anti-gay oppression" has become a key part of the Turing narrative, not because of the facts of the matter, but because it serves the political agenda of those who propagate the myth. This dynamic manifests itself both in the co-opting…
So essentially ESR is butthurt that Turing is remembered for being gay. This somehow diminishes him. And Turing most definitely wasn't persecuted for being gay. It's just that he was prosecuted and forcibly treated with female hormones. In ESRs head, that's not persecution because he had the chance to get out of it, most likely by denying who he is, ie a gay man:
Rather than confront Turing’s homosexuality, the British authorities
from the arresting constable on up tried to look the other way and
gave every easy out they could; Turing, through some combination of
carelessness and self-destructiveness, took none of them.
Silly queers should stay in the closet.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#73It's evident from some of the comments that many HN readers have misunderstood ESR's points about Alan Turing. What ESR is saying is that "a homosexual who committed suicide because of anti-gay oppression" has become a key part of the Turing narrative, not because of the facts of the matter, but because it serves the political agenda of those who propagate the myth. This dynamic manifests itself both in the co-opting…
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Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#74I must be missing something. Is there anyone who actually thinks Turing wouldn't be worth remembering if he hadn't been mistreated for being gay?
Church (arguably) contributed as much or more to computer science, but is not idolised in the same way as Turing.
I'd say that Turing's accomplishments as a whole were somewhat more notable, though of course Church is also a giant of the field.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#75Here's a somewhat parallel effort by esr, where he attacks anti-torture activists because they don't adhere to some arbitry rules that he pulled out of his ass. The real evildoers, by the time he is done, are not the torture advocates and implementors in the Bush administration, but the people who opposed them. http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1742 Now with Turing, rather than condemn the people who hounded him to death, he…
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Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#76It's evident from some of the comments that many HN readers have misunderstood ESR's points about Alan Turing. What ESR is saying is that "a homosexual who committed suicide because of anti-gay oppression" has become a key part of the Turing narrative, not because of the facts of the matter, but because it serves the political agenda of those who propagate the myth. This dynamic manifests itself both in the co-opting…
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Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Turing's castigation was a preventable result of his homosexuality he should have predicted and avoided. "Just stay in the closet and shut your mouth." Given the results of coming out, what should Turing have done?
Turing did exactly what he should have done in a fair and just society. He told the police the truth of the situation. It was the governments actions, not his, that should be condemned.
OK, that doesn't seem like the most pragmatic answer from an individual perspective, though.
To be clear: Morally, I agree with you fully. Pragmatically, fighting the war only works if you go into it knowing you're going to fight and prepared for the fight. Gandhi was more-or-less nutty in many ways, but he was prepared for the fight. Turing apparently just wanted to continue to live his life, the way most people in the world do.
So, pragmatically, being right is usually secondary to being able to continue living a reasonable life. Unless you think devoting your life to a war is reasonable, as Gandhi did.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that police complaint worthy?
If I thought they meant it. But I actually think it's just an aggressive thrashing about on having their sacred beliefs threatened. The closed epistemic system of that crowd shows defense signs similar to those of Christianity.
It sounds like someone who hasn't matured since middle school.
But maybe I'm just stuck in the statist mindset, where the government has a monopoly on the use of force. Perhaps they're merely advancing the anarcho-capitalist idea that private entities ought to be contracted to the various roles that have been usurped by the state. So, like private police, presumably there's a market for private jackbooted thugs to oppress dissenting ideas. There's no doubt some heavy ratiocinations I'm missing which make this morally acceptable, rather than the doing of violence to another that it seems on the surface.
Long live the market!*
*sorry
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#79Yes of course Eric, it's all just liberal propaganda. We should all hate gays just like you since a bullshit article claims Turing was pretty happy. Certainly people who advocate for basic human rights are just "partisans".
Who would you have decide which rights are "basic human rights"? I'm guessing it's people like you, i.e., progressives. If that's not partisan, I don't know what is. I also fear you've misunderstood ESR. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4158468 for a clarification.
>I'm guessing it's people like you, i.e., progressives. If that's not partisan, I don't know what is.
Who is "progressives"? And who says I am one? You have a very warped view if you think basic human rights is partisan. The US may well have a fringe group of lunatics who feel that human rights are bad, but in the rest of the free world human rights is not a "depends on your political affiliation" deal.
>I also fear you've misunderstood ESR.
I fear you have no idea who Eric is. He is a bigot, hates gays, liberals, blacks, hispanics, and basically anyone who isn't part of his fringe group of lunatics. You are interpreting his nonsense in the least offensive way possible, but that doesn't mean it is the most accurate way.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, exactly what I was going to say. There's a certain mindset that delights in anything that goes against conventional wisdom. Sometimes this is really useful, but the thing is that conventional wisdom is actually right most of the time. A knee-jerk reaction to believe anything that goes against conventional wisdom is no better than a knee-jerk reaction to disbelieve it. A lot of people have this tendency, even ver…
Personally, I disregarded the story once it claimed that Turing being outwardly happy was evidence he was not suicidal. I thought it was well-known that someone may be suicidal and hide it from everyone. Once I realized the author didn't understand that, I had no trust in everything else he said. Anyway, that's a good explanation of a phenomenon I have observed as well.
That got me as well, but it took some time to really take effect for some reason. I guess the rest of it was written well enough that I dismissed that one failing for a while.