The actual pardon: http://cryptome.org/2013/12/turing-pardon.pdf
Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
111–120 of 163 posts
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#112Instead of pardoning bullshit get him a chapter in elementary school history books. Chapter about a man, who greatly contributed to modern science and the war effort and was prosecuted by bigoted fanatics running the country. Then warn about similar attitudes displayed today and teach the children to recognize them along with their gloomy consequences.
That would do some actual good instead of insignificant PR gesture of pardoning.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#113Wait. Someone who has a title and shitloads of money just because they were born is pardoning one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, as an act of kindness? How does such an undeserving leftover of the middle ages even have a say in this?
You're misunderstanding the power that the Queen has. Just because it's a 'Royal pardon', it doesn't mean that she actually pushed for it. The opposite is true, in fact (the Queen is a symbolic head of state, and does not interfere politically - anything you hear the Queen doing is almost certainly at the request of the UK government).
Granted. But still, symbolically, that's how it sounds, so maybe there's a problem with this system?
What I mean is that even if it's done at the request of the government, that's only a description of the political backstage, but in public it is expressed as the monarchy's doing ("royal" pardon).
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#11475,000 men were convicted under the same law, of whom 26,000 are still alive. [1] Only Turing has been "pardoned". My understanding [2] is that the "pardon" implies there was nothing wrong with the law as such, just that Turing is forgiven for having broken it. So while I guess this is better than nothing, I don't know if it's really the way to go about it. [1] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhans…
I don't know what the legal definition is, but the popular usage definitely implies guilt. EG, when the President pardons a crony, everyone knows he's totally guilt of whatever he was convicted of and more. Is there a word which means a government acknowledges their laws were wrong and the people prosecuted under them were guiltless victims? If not, we could really use one. There's a lot of that going around, and it'…
> Is there a word which means a government acknowledges their laws were wrong and the people prosecuted under them were guiltless victims?
It's called an apology, admission of guilt, and usually some reparations are involved.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#115Have we ruled out the possibility that the UK government is more desperate to legitimize code breaking than to exonerate a mistreated war hero?
I don't think that's the case, but these days it's getting harder to be sure.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's mostly because human beings feel more sympathy for a single victim who they know a lot about. I think the term is "Identifiable Victim Effect".
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#117How ironic, coming the same week as LGBT education sites are blocked by British "porn" filters. The best pardon to someone who is dead would be to stop doing similar misdeeds to those who are living.
Can we please stop calling them "porn filters"? It's not what they are, it's "censorship filters". The label matters.
It's the same thing as in middle ages, when jesuits were burning books.
First, it's child pornography. Then it's porn. That means, we now have info on anyone and their masturbation preferences. Then we have enough info to extort 90% of male population, with realtime location capabilities and unlimited history.
Forever.
Than what? We all know how imaginative those folks can be. I'm sleeping feeling perfectly safe, knowing that highly competent, intelligent and sensible persons are guarding our little planet.
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#118Anyone know a good movie/book on his life?
Re: Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
#11975,000 men were convicted under the same law, of whom 26,000 are still alive. [1] Only Turing has been "pardoned". My understanding [2] is that the "pardon" implies there was nothing wrong with the law as such, just that Turing is forgiven for having broken it. So while I guess this is better than nothing, I don't know if it's really the way to go about it. [1] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhans…
The British government has taken steps to address teh 26,000 that are still alive [1]. While this should be automatic it is still a step towards progress.
[1] " rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/sep/02/home-office-gay-s...