One theory is that he staged it to look like an accident to spare his mother the grief of his suicide. I may have read that in Hodge's book, but I can't remember.
ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
81–85 of 85 posts
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> ESR should be ashamed. For saying that Turing should be remembered for his accomplishments rather than for the circumstances of his death?
That Anne Frank was a great writer wasn't she? What ever happened to her?
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#83"A figure of little consequence in [his] own time..." I thought of Raymond himself. Who decided that this guy deserved to be one of the lucky few with canonical hacker initials?
The main reason people know his initials is because he was one of the more influential people behind the "Open Source" concept and branding, as a distinct thing from the Free Software movement. He also wrote some fairly well-known books. His fame has declined since then, but his membership in the Three Initials Club has remained intact. Here endeth the history lesson. Incidentally, you could have googled this if you…
I'm well aware of the history. I was ironically posing the question in a probably slightly mean-spirited attempt to poke fun at him for not having written any notable software. I suppose he deserves credit for the philosophical contributions. The whole initials thing is ultimately pretty stupid. Maybe I was trying to get at why it's even become a convention. Why there is so much ego in the field in general.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#84Earlier 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.
>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 have a very warped view if you think basic human rights is partisan.
That's not what I wrote. I asked who gets to decide what constitutes a "basic human right". Notions about "basic human rights" differ; many are near-universal, such as a "right to life", but a large number of them divide along tribal lines. For example, including "men have a right to marry other men" in the list is very much a recent progressive addition. Other additions, such as "rights" to housing and health care, might sound nice, but to many observers they look suspiciously like rationalizations for political patronage.
Gay marriage is an excellent example. Righteous, progressive crusaders from a hundred years ago would be astonished (and probably horrified) to find gay marriage on the list of "basic human rights". That doesn't mean gay marriage is wrong, but it's disingenuous to claim that gay marriage is obviously a basic human right and that anyone who opposes it is a bigot. Those who insist on its inclusion do so as members of a particular political tribe.
Incidentally, my own views are distinct from what I wrote above. Any attempts to infer my exact views from this discussion will undoubtedly be in error. I do intend to discuss these issues at length at some point, but this isn't the right forum for it.
I fear you have no idea who Eric is. He is a bigot, hates gays, liberals, blacks, hispanics...
I actually know a lot about ESR. In fact, I offer a prize of $100 to anyone who can find even one example establishing that ESR hates gays, blacks, or Hispanics. (He may well hate liberals—at least, some of them—and the feeling is probably mutual.)
Note: The bar for establishing "hate" and claiming the prize is very high. Among other things, making claims that might be true doesn't count as "hate". For example, suppose someone makes the claim "the scientific evidence indicates that people descended from central European Jews are, on average, more intelligent than those descended from non-Jewish Europeans." This doesn't mean the claimant "hates" non-Jewish Europeans, even if the claim turns out to be false.
Re: ESR: Abusing Alan Turing
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 have a very warped view if you think basic human rights is partisan. That's not what I wrote. I asked who gets to decide what constitutes a "basic human right". Notions about "basic human rights" differ; many are near-universal, such as a "right to life", but a large number of them divide along tribal lines. For example, including "men have a right to marry other men" in the list is very much a recent progressive…
Ignoring the point doesn't refute it. The idea that gay people are in fact people, and have the same rights as anyone else is not a partisan issue in modern, civilized nations. And saying "if I invent a definition of hate that excludes hatred, then by that definition Eric doesn't hate gays" is not a productive line of discourse.