Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

esr.ibiblio.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#41

Post by mhartl »

mediacrisis wrote: post #38
mhartl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its "partisan" to think things like forced hormone therapy (and in some countries, not excluding our own: corrective rape and systematic abuse) is a bad thing, and dare we say, a violation of basic human rights? I'm sorry, I don't care who you are or what your politics are, thats messed up. Giving other people rights doesn't take them away from the people who already have them.

Nothing you have written contradicts what I wrote. "Partisan" doesn't mean "wrong". It simply means that those who insist on certain "basic human rights" mostly fall into the same party (metaphorically, if not literally—"tribe" might be more accurate). Replace "forced hormone therapy" with "abortion on demand" to make the party lines crystal clear. (For what it's worth, my own views mostly coincide with progressive orthodoxy on the subjects of homosexuality and abortion. But there are many other aspects of the orthodoxy I reject, so the party lines are easy to see.)

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#42

Post by filmgirlcw »

scott_s wrote: post #27
mhartl wrote: post #23

It'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…

I read through some of the comments. Raymond is clearly arguing that Turing was not the victim of oppression. The mental gymnastics he contorts through to arrive at this conclusion are baffling.

Exactly. The fact that he (and his equally obtuse commenters) are actually taking it that far is what truly disgusts me.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#43

Post by scott_s »

mhartl wrote: post #39
scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through some of the comments. Raymond is clearly arguing that Turing was not the victim of oppression. The mental gymnastics he contorts through to arrive at this conclusion are baffling.

English law punished homosexuality with chemical castration, but (according to ESR) Turing could easily have avoided this fate. Was Turing thus a "victim" of "oppression"? We're quibbling about words. Your notions of "victim" and "oppression" are simply different from ESR's. (Note: I'm confident that ESR isn't in favor of chemical castration for homosexuals.)

Apparently. I feel that if someone suffers due to a bigoted policy, then that person is the victim of oppression. He seems to think that it is not "oppression" if the person who suffers had an out. The mental gymnastics bit come in when he tries to gel that with what demonstrators suffered during the civil rights movement, which he does classify as oppression.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#44

Post by mikeash »

scott_s wrote: post #40
mhartl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of your comment is one of the main points disputed in ESR's essay, namely, the claim that Turing's death was related to his oppression as a homosexual. It's as if, despite Einstein not dying in the Holocaust, for political purposes people continued to speak as if he did.

And I think jgrahamc clearly countered Raymond's points there at the top of this thread.

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 very smart people. I'm sure I fall victim to it myself sometimes.

The "Turing didn't really commit suicide" article was perfect for that. It takes a classic story that's attained the status of modern (albeit relatively obscure) myth and turns it on its head. It's attractive for the same reason that articles about radiation being good for you, peak oil being a myth, and the civil rights movement being bad for minorities are attractive: they're intriguing ideas that make you feel smarter than the average joe, since they contradict what "everybody knows".

It's often pretty easy to pull off, too, because most people don't do much research into the things "everybody knows". "Everybody knows" Turing committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. But few people know the details. Thus, when an article says that the apple was never tested for cyanide, it's extremely convincing, because few people are aware that it was found in Turing's stomach. Likewise, the article discusses Turing's cheerful mood in his last days as evidence against suicide, even though it's actually at best neutral if not evidence for suicide. But most people don't know that elevated mood prior to suicide is common, and not having researched the "everybody knows" story, they'll take it as evidence of the alternative theory.

It's an interesting phenomenon. People will go their whole lives knowing the official story but not knowing any details. Then one single article comes out with a few details and suddenly they're convinced that what they knew their whole lives was wrong, even without doing any further research on their own. I must admit that I went through this exact process with this story, reverting to a sort of generic detail-free skepticism a little while after reading the Turing-didn't-commit-suicide story, and only realizing how silly it was after reading jgrahamc's comment here.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#45

Post by mikeash »

mhartl wrote: post #39
scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through some of the comments. Raymond is clearly arguing that Turing was not the victim of oppression. The mental gymnastics he contorts through to arrive at this conclusion are baffling.

English law punished homosexuality with chemical castration, but (according to ESR) Turing could easily have avoided this fate. Was Turing thus a "victim" of "oppression"? We're quibbling about words. Your notions of "victim" and "oppression" are simply different from ESR's. (Note: I'm confident that ESR isn't in favor of chemical castration for homosexuals.)

He could have easily avoided this fate? How? As far as I know, Turing's choices were either 1) chemical castration 2) prison 3) stop having sex with people he was attracted to. Which of those alternatives qualifies as "not oppression"?

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#46

Post by zbuc »

fusiongyro wrote: post #30
zbuc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Isn't it even more disheartening to know that such a thing could happen in an "enlightened" society to someone who had such great accomplishments? It was a complete lack of respect of basic human dignity, and people shouldn't forget that, especially presently when the issue(of gay rights) is finally entering the mass public eye. People should be aware of the results of oppression, it makes them more compassionat…

The problem is that the assertion that Turing killed himself because of oppression is not founded on facts. We'll never know why he killed himself--we may not even be sure he did kill himself. I believe gay rights are an important issue, and certainly evil things were done to Turing. No truths need to be bent to support this cause--and no cause benefits from illusory bolstering by half-truths and semi-lies. People sh…

> The problem is that the assertion that Turing killed himself because of oppression is not founded on facts. We'll never know why he killed himself--we may not even be sure he did kill himself. I believe gay rights are an important issue, and certainly evil things were done to Turing. No truths need to be bent to support this cause--and no cause benefits from illusory bolstering by half-truths and semi-lies.

You admitted that terrible things were done to him -- which is enough. It doesn't really matter whether he killed himself over the oppression or not, the argument isn't predicated on that, but whether or not awful things were done to him, which they were, and which are undeniably documented.

But, yeah, I agree that if it's not known whether or not he killed himself specifically over that it shouldn't be brought up -- but there is plenty of substance in what we do know happened to bring up.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#47

Post by zorked »

zbuc wrote: post #4
jgrahamc wrote: post #2

"The centennial of Alan Turing’s birth brings us the news that Alan Turing probably did not commit suicide by eating a poisoned apple, was not depressed at the time of his death, and that the hormone treatments intended to suppress his homosexual urges had been discontinued a year before he died." Raymond is referring to this BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092 It was (distastefully IM…

> 4. The article also likes to try to downplay everything negative. For example, "It is often repeated that the chemicals caused him to grow breasts, though Turing is only known to have mentioned this once." The second clause seems to be the most important. Well, thank goodness, maybe he didn't actually grow breasts. Must not have actually have been that bad being forced to take hormones for no good reason. There's a…

Frankly, this article scores low on the list of things ESR should be ashamed of writing.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#48

Post by mhartl »

mikeash wrote: post #45
mhartl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English law punished homosexuality with chemical castration, but (according to ESR) Turing could easily have avoided this fate. Was Turing thus a "victim" of "oppression"? We're quibbling about words. Your notions of "victim" and "oppression" are simply different from ESR's. (Note: I'm confident that ESR isn't in favor of chemical castration for homosexuals.)

He could have easily avoided this fate? How? As far as I know, Turing's choices were either 1) chemical castration 2) prison 3) stop having sex with people he was attracted to. Which of those alternatives qualifies as "not oppression"?

You're arguing with ESR, not with me. ESR implies that there was another alternative. My role in this is to explain ESR's position and to defend its correctness assuming his premises are true. My role is not to defend his premises, which in fact I am unqualified to do.

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#49

Post by [deleted] »

scott_s wrote: post #40
mhartl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of your comment is one of the main points disputed in ESR's essay, namely, the claim that Turing's death was related to his oppression as a homosexual. It's as if, despite Einstein not dying in the Holocaust, for political purposes people continued to speak as if he did.

And I think jgrahamc clearly countered Raymond's points there at the top of this thread.

[deleted]

Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing

#50

Post by mhartl »

scott_s wrote: post #40
mhartl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of your comment is one of the main points disputed in ESR's essay, namely, the claim that Turing's death was related to his oppression as a homosexual. It's as if, despite Einstein not dying in the Holocaust, for political purposes people continued to speak as if he did.

And I think jgrahamc clearly countered Raymond's points there at the top of this thread.

You're arguing with ESR, not with me. My role in this is to explain ESR's position and to defend its correctness assuming his premises are true. My role is not to defend his premises, which in fact I am unqualified to do.
Post reply on HN