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The Man Who Made the UK Say “I’m Sorry for What We Did to Turing” (2014)

157 points by jgrahamc 10y ago

jgrahamc 10y ago
I realize that this is an old story, but I posted it because Steven Levy is the best interviewer to have ever spoken to me about the Turing apology and this article the most accurate, and because someone reminded me of it today.
- alnitak 10y ago
  Thank you for bringing some positivity to my day!
- packetized 10y ago
  I'm sure there are those who would shout cries of 'self-aggrandizement!' about you submitting this, but instead I'd like to offer my sincere thanks for doing so, and even deeper thanks for taking this on as a cause years ago. Bravo.
  - jgrahamc 10y ago
    Don't thank me. I think the takeaway is go do something amazing because it's possible to do so!
- lutusp 10y ago
  I'm sure I speak for many when I say thank you for fighting the good fight, in particular one that puts both individual choice and governmental responsiveness in a positive light.
  - bradknowles 10y ago
    I regret that I have only one upvote to give to this comment.
- gnode 10y ago
  Posting old content is fine, but the title should be marked with: (2014)
gigatexal 10y ago
Regardless of who was the true father of computing, Von Neumann or Turing, or any of that: what the UK government did to a patriot who was instrumental in helping win the war was atrocious in its own right gay or not. And I honestly believe the government got off easy in only issuing an apology. I don't know what a commensurate action would have been but an apology just seems fleeting and a lot like a cop-out.
- 7952 10y ago
  Britain still had homophobic laws until early 2000 (section 28). The lack of contrition among the bad actors involved is pretty striking. The government's past behaviour should be treated as abhorrent and criminal.
- aanm1988 10y ago
  > what the UK government did to a patriot who was instrumental in helping win the war was atrocious in its own right gay or not What he did in the war has absolutely nothing to do with how awful what they did was. edit: I remember reading about the apology, and at first thought it was great. Then I read that a homosexual group wasn't in support, and the reasoning was that the UK prosecuted thousands under these laws. That made a lot of sense to me. Turing shouldn't be a special case just because he did such great things. He should be celebrated for what he did. He should be given an apology along with everyone else who was ever tried under these evil laws.
- jm__87 10y ago
  I mean, it is likely that no one in the UK government in 2009 even knew Turing or had anything to do with his persecution. The UK decriminalized homosexual acts between men in 1967 and added further legislation in 1994 and 2000. More likely some of the people in government in 2009 had helped draft the most recent legislation and had no problem with Turing being a homosexual...
  - dwaltrip 10y ago
    I think making the statement is powerful and meaningful in and of itself, even if no one is still around from when it happened.
Animats 10y ago
Until Turing became a poster child for the gay movement, few people outside computability theory or cryptanalysis had heard of him. The big name in early computer architecture was Von Neumann, who laid out the basic architecture of the stored-program binary digital computer, which is what we use today. (Read the report on the EDVAC; it's a classic on computer architecture. The one thing he missed was the need for index registers.) The reality of early computing was that electronic arithmetic was worked out well before WWII. James W. Bryce of IBM was working on an electronic multiplier in 1934, and it came out as an IBM product, the IBM 603 Electronic Multiplier, in 1946. (The war got in the way.) Arithmetic wasn't the problem. Nor was sequential programming. The Harvard Mark I was a huge programmable electromechanical digital computer built by IBM, started in 1937 and running in 1944. The theory was understood. The big obstacle to a stored-program computer in the early days was memory to store the program. This was a recognized problem. Shannon once wrote a paper on the minimal memory an electronic telephone switch would require. Memory devices tried included plugboards, relays, rotating drums of capacitors, paper tape, mechanical counters, and large numbers of vacuum tubes. The first memory device that sort of worked and had some real capacity was the mercury delay line, which was a spinoff from radar technology. That got digital computers going. None of the Bletchley Park gear had much memory. The bombes and Colossus were key-testers, like a Bitcoin ASIC, hard-wired to try crypto keys and stop on a match. They were not stored-program digital computers. They're really the ancestors of today's Bitcoin mines.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  And Aiken (who made the Harvard Mark I) stated that he got "his education in computers" from Charles Babbage.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Hell, they even tried mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory#Mercury_delay_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory#Mercury_dela...
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Back then they used mercury for everything. It's kind of scary.
peterwwillis 10y ago
I think the takeaway is "Lead online social justice movements when it is politically and socially convenient to do so," but, sure.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  Sure. Although I think you underestimate the opposition and abuse I took for this.
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    I'm saying you could have taken much more, and it would have been that much less likely to succeed, in different circumstances. I think that's an important detail to note before taking up a fight that could get you hurt, or even killed.
    - packetized 10y ago
      I'm not quite sure what your motivation in stating this is, so I'll ask plainly: What are you trying to imply with this statement? That it would have been of greater value had he taken up this cause in the Thatcher years?
      - peterwwillis 10y ago
        Re-read my reply.
        packetized 10y ago
        I have, several times. It still doesn't answer my sincere question, nor does it make your apparent criticism look any less venal.
        peterwwillis 10y ago
        > I have, several times. It still doesn't answer my sincere question, nor does it make your apparent criticism look any less venal. Your 'sincere question' is followed by saying I am criticizing his statement and that I am apparently doing it as part of a bribe or in exchange for some influence. If you can't understand my statement, or my clarification of my statement, based on the biased tone of your questioning, it is clear no further explanation I could give would satisfy you, unless it was admitting some form of deceit or untoward hidden agenda. But, instead of answering your question, I can at least correct your disingenuous accusation. I wasn't implying anything at all. I stated directly, twice, exactly what I meant. There was no hidden meaning or insinuation. And i'd appreciate it if in the future you could prevent yourself from attempting to derail someone's point of view with your own false assumptions.

157 points by jgrahamc 10y ago

I realize that this is an old story, but I posted it because Steven Levy is the best interviewer to have ever spoken to me about the Turing apology and this article the most accurate, and because someone reminded me of it today.

alnitak 10y ago
Thank you for bringing some positivity to my day!
packetized 10y ago
I'm sure there are those who would shout cries of 'self-aggrandizement!' about you submitting this, but instead I'd like to offer my sincere thanks for doing so, and even deeper thanks for taking this on as a cause years ago. Bravo.
- jgrahamc 10y ago
  Don't thank me. I think the takeaway is go do something amazing because it's possible to do so!
lutusp 10y ago
I'm sure I speak for many when I say thank you for fighting the good fight, in particular one that puts both individual choice and governmental responsiveness in a positive light.
- bradknowles 10y ago
  I regret that I have only one upvote to give to this comment.
gnode 10y ago
Posting old content is fine, but the title should be marked with: (2014)

gigatexal 10y ago

Regardless of who was the true father of computing, Von Neumann or Turing, or any of that: what the UK government did to a patriot who was instrumental in helping win the war was atrocious in its own right gay or not. And I honestly believe the government got off easy in only issuing an apology. I don't know what a commensurate action would have been but an apology just seems fleeting and a lot like a cop-out.

7952 10y ago
Britain still had homophobic laws until early 2000 (section 28). The lack of contrition among the bad actors involved is pretty striking. The government's past behaviour should be treated as abhorrent and criminal.
aanm1988 10y ago
> what the UK government did to a patriot who was instrumental in helping win the war was atrocious in its own right gay or not What he did in the war has absolutely nothing to do with how awful what they did was. edit: I remember reading about the apology, and at first thought it was great. Then I read that a homosexual group wasn't in support, and the reasoning was that the UK prosecuted thousands under these laws. That made a lot of sense to me. Turing shouldn't be a special case just because he did such great things. He should be celebrated for what he did. He should be given an apology along with everyone else who was ever tried under these evil laws.
jm__87 10y ago
I mean, it is likely that no one in the UK government in 2009 even knew Turing or had anything to do with his persecution. The UK decriminalized homosexual acts between men in 1967 and added further legislation in 1994 and 2000. More likely some of the people in government in 2009 had helped draft the most recent legislation and had no problem with Turing being a homosexual...
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  I think making the statement is powerful and meaningful in and of itself, even if no one is still around from when it happened.

Animats 10y ago

Until Turing became a poster child for the gay movement, few people outside computability theory or cryptanalysis had heard of him. The big name in early computer architecture was Von Neumann, who laid out the basic architecture of the stored-program binary digital computer, which is what we use today. (Read the report on the EDVAC; it's a classic on computer architecture. The one thing he missed was the need for index registers.) The reality of early computing was that electronic arithmetic was worked out well before WWII. James W. Bryce of IBM was working on an electronic multiplier in 1934, and it came out as an IBM product, the IBM 603 Electronic Multiplier, in 1946. (The war got in the way.) Arithmetic wasn't the problem. Nor was sequential programming. The Harvard Mark I was a huge programmable electromechanical digital computer built by IBM, started in 1937 and running in 1944. The theory was understood. The big obstacle to a stored-program computer in the early days was memory to store the program. This was a recognized problem. Shannon once wrote a paper on the minimal memory an electronic telephone switch would require. Memory devices tried included plugboards, relays, rotating drums of capacitors, paper tape, mechanical counters, and large numbers of vacuum tubes. The first memory device that sort of worked and had some real capacity was the mercury delay line, which was a spinoff from radar technology. That got digital computers going. None of the Bletchley Park gear had much memory. The bombes and Colossus were key-testers, like a Bitcoin ASIC, hard-wired to try crypto keys and stop on a match. They were not stored-program digital computers. They're really the ancestors of today's Bitcoin mines.

jgrahamc 10y ago
And Aiken (who made the Harvard Mark I) stated that he got "his education in computers" from Charles Babbage.
M_Grey 10y ago
Hell, they even tried mercury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory#Mercury_delay_lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory#Mercury_dela...
- astrodust 10y ago
  Back then they used mercury for everything. It's kind of scary.

peterwwillis 10y ago

I think the takeaway is "Lead online social justice movements when it is politically and socially convenient to do so," but, sure.

jgrahamc 10y ago
Sure. Although I think you underestimate the opposition and abuse I took for this.
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  I'm saying you could have taken much more, and it would have been that much less likely to succeed, in different circumstances. I think that's an important detail to note before taking up a fight that could get you hurt, or even killed.
  - packetized 10y ago
    I'm not quite sure what your motivation in stating this is, so I'll ask plainly: What are you trying to imply with this statement? That it would have been of greater value had he taken up this cause in the Thatcher years?
    - peterwwillis 10y ago
      Re-read my reply.
      - packetized 10y ago
        I have, several times. It still doesn't answer my sincere question, nor does it make your apparent criticism look any less venal.
        peterwwillis 10y ago
        > I have, several times. It still doesn't answer my sincere question, nor does it make your apparent criticism look any less venal. Your 'sincere question' is followed by saying I am criticizing his statement and that I am apparently doing it as part of a bribe or in exchange for some influence. If you can't understand my statement, or my clarification of my statement, based on the biased tone of your questioning, it is clear no further explanation I could give would satisfy you, unless it was admitting some form of deceit or untoward hidden agenda. But, instead of answering your question, I can at least correct your disingenuous accusation. I wasn't implying anything at all. I stated directly, twice, exactly what I meant. There was no hidden meaning or insinuation. And i'd appreciate it if in the future you could prevent yourself from attempting to derail someone's point of view with your own false assumptions.