Ridiculous
Exactly, it is like saying we forgive you for being...
Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
91–100 of 163 posts
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sexual intercourse of any kind spreads disease. AIDS didn't become an epidemic because of anal intercourse. It's pretty clear that AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases spread just as well from almost any kind sexual activity, and many of them -- including AIDS -- spread from any transfer of bodily fluids at all. Going further, I'd wager that any form of interpersonal contact, even non-sexual, is as likely to…
I grew up around the time teens were force-fed sex education regarding AIDS, and the message was loud and clear and consistent: Ordinary sex is a great way to contract HIV. This, in fact, was always a lie--and a coordinated lie--and the scientists knew about it. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/895/what-are-the-od... the odds of a heterosexual becoming infected with AIDS after one episode of penile-vaginal in…
The risk of being infected with hiv by someone who doesn't carry the virus is obviously very small. Very few people have hiv, so you probably won't be infected if you have sex. That's how I read that quote, anyway. Are you saying that advocating never having sex with the same partner more than once would have been better advice for reducing the spread of STDs?
The unique thing about hiv is the high moortality rate (and cost of treatment). It makes perfect sense to reduce transmission before it becomes a true global epidemic.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#93First step to knighthood?
You can't be posthumously knighted. Furthermore, the title of Knight is revoked upon death - For example, when Sir Paul McCartney dies he will lose his title.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much this. It drives me nuts that the narrative on this issue always seems to boil down to the idea that Turing somehow earned not being persecuted for being gay through his efforts in the war and the injustice was that the government didn't live up to its end of the bargain, not the fact that he and many others were driven to suicide or horrible lives by this terrible law.
It's symbolic. The pardon does absolutely zero for Turing himself - he's long gone. It's symbolic that society is progressing and saying "we don't agree with this thing we used to do".
I agree that this is the intent, but it doesn't take much reading (on this comment page or nearly any press article about it) to see that it's extremely common for people to think that the injustice was particularly strong in Turing's case because he was brilliant.
My issue is less with the intent of the pardon and more with how it's presented in the media and how people think about it.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#95This is politically motivated nonsense. At right wing government trying to prove its not homophobic. Yes the Queen issued the pardon, but it wont have been done without the government being consulted. Pardoning one person like this when thousands suffered is an insult. They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significanc…
> They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significance is creating a two tier justice system.
Does that actually work, though? I gave this some thought today, and I wondered what the ramifications were for having to unpick 100s of years of perhaps other law and cases and convictions, including those where maybe a prior conviction under the act led to X led to Y... and then there is all the conjoined case law. This naive guy suspects it is not as simple as it sounds.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#96Should this not have been an "apology" instead of a "pardon"?
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If it was my tax pound I'd support this." Well that's easy to say when it isn't. It is my tax pound and I don't. I don't support the posthumous pardon at all, and those calling for the posthumous knighthood are getting ridiculous. Everyone recognises the value of Turing's input to both the war effort and greater modern life, but sadly the man took his own life. Arguing over whose fault it was it pointless. Pardoning…
Are there abused or disenfranchised groups you do support payments being made to as a form of compensation? Paying out clearly does nothing for Turing, I mean that payment to those still alive could be helpful. For example, the New Zealand government has paid out groups that suffered due to government action like land unfairly taken. I fully support this.
Sorry, I don't, because where does it end? IMHO, it's nothing more than a token gesture. Financial compensation won't change the wrong that has been done. It's superficial and ever so slightly patronising. It's symptomatic of the vile litigious happy culture that we find ourselves in.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#98Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If it was my tax pound I'd support this." Well that's easy to say when it isn't. It is my tax pound and I don't. I don't support the posthumous pardon at all, and those calling for the posthumous knighthood are getting ridiculous. Everyone recognises the value of Turing's input to both the war effort and greater modern life, but sadly the man took his own life. Arguing over whose fault it was it pointless. Pardoning…
Are there abused or disenfranchised groups you do support payments being made to as a form of compensation? Paying out clearly does nothing for Turing, I mean that payment to those still alive could be helpful. For example, the New Zealand government has paid out groups that suffered due to government action like land unfairly taken. I fully support this.
A recent example of where the UK was, in my opinion, quite right in paying out to victims was to people who had been tortured by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau revolt in the 1950s:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22790037
I would also support compensation for anyone who was a victim of extraordinary rendition through the UK and criminal prosecution of anyone who aided this ghastly practice.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#100This is politically motivated nonsense. At right wing government trying to prove its not homophobic. Yes the Queen issued the pardon, but it wont have been done without the government being consulted. Pardoning one person like this when thousands suffered is an insult. They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significanc…
Turing often seems to get most of the credit for ending the war early (probably due to the injustice he suffered), but we shouldn't forget others suffered in different ways.
Tommy Flowers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers), who arguably created the first electronic computer to decrypt the Lorenz cypher was just as important and his work was not acknowledged until the 1970s.
Flowers wanted to create a computer after the war but the Bank of England wouldn't lend him the money because they didn't believe it was possible and he couldn't disclose he'd already done it due to official secrets act.