The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.” | Hacker News Reader

The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing.”

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222 pointsjgrahamc53 comments

"I'm sorry for what we did to Turing". On the other hand, if you don't happen to be a genius, tough! The countless, ordinary blokes in the street who happened to be homosexuals and were prosecuted in the 1950s and earlier can go hang as with the millions of others who with hindsight suffered unfairly at the hands of various laws of the land in past centuries.

However it seems to me that for people alive today to apologize for laws made by people now dead is a cheap, meaningless (reform laws on gay sex were passed long ago - that's an 'apology' that means something) gesture. I'm all for memorials and public honourings of people like Turing (I read the Hodges biography a long time ago and was greatly moved) but I wish people would stop cheapening the word 'apology'.

Of course it is and it assumes that we are also superior to those that came before us and had different morals.

Well, that's only because non-bigots are superior to bigots, all other things being equal.

I remember following your campaign when it happened on HN. I was impressed that someone took a stand for Turing.

Congratulations jgrahamc and thank you!

I always liked the speculation that the original Apple logo (the rainbow one) was a reference to Turing. He (allegedly) killed himself by taking a single bite out of a cyanide-laced apple, and the rainbow stripes are a reference to his homosexuality.

As far as I can tell, the idea is almost entirely without merit - but it's a nice idea.

The real story of the design is pretty interesting though http://creativebits.org/interview/interview_rob_janoff_desig...

> Stephen Fry recalls asking Steve Jobs (they were friends) if the rumours were true. Jobs replied, “It isn't true, but God we wish it were!”

http://universal-machine.blogspot.ca/2012/06/turing-and-appl...

I knew virtually nothing about Turing until reading Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' around 15 years ago. I wonder how many people actually learned about him (and some aspects of his life, despite the novel being alternate/historical fiction) for the first time in this way.

No, Hodges biography for me. But now perhaps all the younger people will be introduced via the new film.

i did. they never taught it at the computing history unit I took in University though.... hmmm

I'm sure may of you are aware of Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde's prosecution for gross indecency (and if you're not you most definitely should!), but you should all also learn about the similar prosecution against Roger Casement. He was the father of human-rights investigations and made a huge impact with his investigations of human-rights abuses in Peru and the Congo. Mario Vargas Llosa (Nobel prize-winner for Literature) wrote a book detailing his life called The Dream of the Celts. Highly recommended.

They are rather different cases.

Casement was tried and convicted of treason for trying, during World War I, to get Germany to support an uprising in Ireland against Great Britain. It's true that his alleged homosexuality didn't help his case.

Oh of course, there's little doubt he committed treason, but the fact that his homosexuality was used to ensure that a fair trial was impossible is what I was trying to get at.

Are there any other similar cases to Turing/Wilde/Casement that I don't know about?

The treason part of it was pretty cut and tried. The blackening of his character was necessary for political reasons, not to ensure a guilty verdict.

Tens of thousands of people were convicted under the same law. But they weren't famous. Only little people.

Considering Ireland (except Northern Ireland) is now widely accepted to be independent of Britain, doesn't that mean any "treason" supporting that should also seen as acceptable, and Casement should be pardoned from his treason conviction? To maintain it, implies that Ireland really shouldn't be independent, and that anyone still supporting it is also guilty.

It's only treason until you live long enough to see your side win.

It sounds silly, but that's how it really is. Treason is often a crime with the harshest punishments, yet also one that's most unclear if it's very bad or very good. Somehow it doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves as immoral law.

Casement's so-called 'Black diaries' were used during his prosecution for treason in an attempt to discredit him as much as possible.

These were condemned at the time by irish nationalists as forgeries.

I believe that they are now generally regarded as genuine.

They included references to homosexual acts which was sufficient to incur public condemnation back then.

Consequently the fact that many of Casement's and also Wilde's sexual acts involved juveniles has never been given much consideration.

I'm not sure that a government can meaningfully apologize for anything when all the actual participants are dead, including (but especially) the victim.

It's the half-assed, social justice warrior version of a government agreeing that things done in the past are awful. Why stop with Turing? 30,000 years ago one of your ancestors murdered a woman's children, held her captive, and raped her repeatedly. Why not apologize for that? Or for some Babylonian genocide that's 5000 years old?

It's fucking pointless.

"... After 55 years of shameful silence, this gentle geek made Britain apologize for Turing’s death ..."

That he did, here's an image of the PM's apology, broadcast on twitter ~ https://twitter.com/peterrenshaw/status/533509433414795265

(Disclaimer: I'm an openly gay man working in technology).

A part of me dislikes how Alan Turing was given a pardon and apology. It's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis.

What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law? Why do they not get a pardon/apology? Do we have to help stop evil genocidal dictators before we get the same respect?

As a Scot born in the late 70s (I mention my vintage as the early 80s probably seems ridiculously long ago to younger people here), I was somewhat shocked to discover that whilst male homosexual acts were decriminalised (to an extent) in 1967 in England and Wales, this did not occur in Scotland until 1980 or in Northern Ireland until 1982.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_1967

Northern Ireland is a special case with many of these laws. Even now, abortion is very illegal in Northern Ireland.

This is the reason JGC doesn't support the idea of a pardon for just Turing. If a pardon is to happen, it has to be applied to all gays persecuted during that time period.

I agree, but Turing was pardoned and it was not universally applied: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315

I think it's worth looking at the other way; obviously this kind of treatment is wrong when you apply it to anyone, but it is even worse when you apply it to one of the 5-10 most important and accomplished people your nation ever has and probably ever will produce.

Initially I agreed with what you say here.

After some thought, one aspect came up that I'd be interested in your views about:

It's like they said it was wrong to persecute a gay man for being gay, but only if you help invent the computer and help defeat the Nazis. What about all the other gay men persecuted under the same law?

What you say here is so obviously right that is is difficult to argue with. Maybe pardoning Turing is a necessary first step to see that everyone deserves similar treatment?

(Non-gay, white male. Not sure it matters in this response.)

> Maybe pardoning Turing is a necessary first step to see that everyone deserves similar treatment?

Perhaps. But I haven't seen any moves to pardon all the other people as well. And the cynic in me things it won't happen.

My suspicion is that pardons don't miraculously happen. I suspect it happens because of the hard work and passion of people who want to make a difference.

The group of people who would campaign for pardons largely overlaps with the group of people campaigning for equal treatment under today's laws. (Same age of consent was law in England & Wales in 2001; 2009! for Northern Ireland; protections for discrimination - partial since 2003, full since 2010; gay marriage since 2014, civil partnership since 2005).

There's only so much you can campaign on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingd...

One of the reasons the apology and pardon were delayed for so long is because some of those very many gay men are still alive and the government didn't want to open themselves to compensation claims.

As time goes by, and those men die, the pressure for an apology drops but the possibility increases. I hope campaigners do keep the pressure on.

This is a great post putting some human interest onto a story about how slowly Britain is coming to terms with it's place in the world. I am glad jgrahmnc put his effort into this and that so many supported him.

But really the responses here are appalling - this was a small victory in a war for a better world - and unless we take our victories and celebrate them the defeats will cripple us.

Well done jgrahmnc, well done even Gordon Brown (this being I think the only thing he did right as premier) - now we have all got work to do to make a better world. And we can't afford to keep killing off the geniuses.

This is absolutely not an apology. Anyone can apologize when their culture tells them some action was wrong. Whether it's persecuting homosexuals, jews, blacks, or whatever. But the fact is British law still persecutes minorities, for example incest is still illegal and people are in prison today for committing that offense. Of course most people agree that it's "wrong" or "immoral" or "sick" - just like they did with homosexuality 50 years ago. So until those other similar persecutions are stopped, this isn't an apology.

I assume we're talking about incest between consenting adults here. I still think it's pretty fucked up, generally speaking (I really don't think you can have an equal power relationship between a parent and a child, even if the child is an adult), but I have to grudgingly admit that it probably shouldn't be criminal.

(I'm going to regret saying anything here, aren't I?)

Congratulations jgrahamc ! Thank you for your persistence! Truly horrible what happened to somebody who did a lot for Britain, computer science and the world.

A job well done. Thank you jgrahamc for your hard work on this issue. I know it's not a general apology to everybody who suffered under such a world, but it's a big step towards everybody learning how to treat each other decently.

I've read his name before, but I don't know where.

Edit: ah, he's a gopher

More than that, he is one of the more prolific commenters/submitters here :).

Bravo!

Great work! Loved you talk at dotGo too.

What's really nice to consider is the fact that Graham-Cumming is an avid Hacker News user. :P [0] Can't even imagine how awesome it would have been if Turing was able to be so as well(although he would have died long before Hacker News ever existed).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jgrahamc

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