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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 comm

by mhartl 14y ago

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 of genuine giants (Turing, Noether) and in the creation of false greats (Lovelace, Carver). Not that ESR is not contradicting any of the following: * Alan Turing lived in a society generally intolerant of homosexuals * Anti-gay oppression is bad * Triumph over adversity is laudable To see where ESR is coming from, imagine that people knew Einstein as "a physicist whose persevered in the face of antisemitism". ESR might say, "Yes, yes, antisemitism, etc., but the man helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics and discovered both special and general relativity. His triumph over antisemitism is at most a footnote to his story." To which the HN commentariat might reply, "OMG, I can't believe that guy hates Jews!" To ESR (and to many other non-progressives), this sort of politically motivated myth-making diminishes the object of the myth. When he writes "Yes, yes...", what he's saying is and it's just so damn tiresome.

mikeash 14y ago
If Einstein had been killed in the Holocaust I bet at least as much would be made of that as is made of Turing's homosexuality and the deadly consequences. It is important that the British government, at the end, cared more about who he wanted to have sex with than his great mental capabilities, and thus destroyed this intellect well before his time. Sure, it's not as important as Turing's important theoretical and practical work in computing. But that doesn't mean it's not important. It's a cautionary tale and one we should take to heart. How many potential geniuses are we stopping right now because of the unjust things in our society? What are we losing out on? It deserves some thought.
- mhartl 14y ago
  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.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    And I think jgrahamc clearly countered Raymond's points there at the top of this thread.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      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.
scott_s 14y ago
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.
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- mhartl 14y ago
  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.)
  - scott_s 14y ago
    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.
    - mhartl 14y ago
      Was Einstein the victim of oppression? How about Feynman? If "No", how does that jibe with your definition? If "Yes", is being a victim of oppression necessarily that big a deal? (Both Einstein and Feynman seemed to do OK for themselves.) (Note that nothing here excuses or condones the antisemitism that affected both Einstein and Feynman.)
      - scott_s 14y ago
        Einstein fled Europe because of it. That seems like "a big deal" to me. That he "did OK" for himself afterwards does not somehow make having to leave your home continent less of a big deal.
swa14 14y ago
Raymond, as is his wont, sets up a strawman and proceeds to set it on fire pitching himself as a champion of "the just side". It's a strawman, because in truth the only important part about Turing's life in view of his accomplishments is that it was cut short. i.e. his genius could no longer produce progress. Whether this would have been due to suicide, an accident, or murder is not relevant. It is not relevant because for the people under which his work was meant to be dissipated (people in the same field), the circumstances in which the results are produced are of no importance. Because of the progress he produced he became a people's hero to his country. People think about and tell tales about their heroes and their lives and circumstances. Irrespective of the direction these tales take, the accomplishments stand on their own among his peers, to wit, those who can actually understand the accomplishments. Whether people appropriate a part of a life of a hero to underline certain aspects of it, or deny parts of it to underline other aspects of it, matters not one iota. The facts of the matter are. "The work of Alan Turing was seminal to the entire field of computer science." The rest is history, and, as sometimes happens with history, can be rewritten by whomever needs the pageviews. "this sort of politically motivated myth-making diminishes the object of the myth" And any sort of tug of war between two sides who purport to propagate "the true story" is part of this myth. Pretending otherwise is just disingenuous.
mhartl 14y ago
Dammit, I thought I copyedited this comment pretty thoroughly, but a stupid typo still slipped through: s/Not that/Note that/
earl 14y ago
So essentially ESR is butthurt that Turing is remembered for being gay. This somehow diminishes him. And Turing most definitely wasn't persecuted for being gay. It's just that he was prosecuted and forcibly treated with female hormones. In ESRs head, that's not persecution because he had the chance to get out of it, most likely by denying who he is, ie a gay man: Rather than confront Turing’s homosexuality, the British authorities from the arresting constable on up tried to look the other way and gave every easy out they could; Turing, through some combination of carelessness and self-destructiveness, took none of them. Shorter esr: Silly queers should stay in the closet. Has esr gone full mens' rights / misogynist while I haven't been paying attention?
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by mhartl 14y ago

mikeash 14y ago

If Einstein had been killed in the Holocaust I bet at least as much would be made of that as is made of Turing's homosexuality and the deadly consequences. It is important that the British government, at the end, cared more about who he wanted to have sex with than his great mental capabilities, and thus destroyed this intellect well before his time. Sure, it's not as important as Turing's important theoretical and practical work in computing. But that doesn't mean it's not important. It's a cautionary tale and one we should take to heart. How many potential geniuses are we stopping right now because of the unjust things in our society? What are we losing out on? It deserves some thought.

mhartl 14y ago
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.
- scott_s 14y ago
  And I think jgrahamc clearly countered Raymond's points there at the top of this thread.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    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.

scott_s 14y ago

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.

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mhartl 14y ago
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.)
- scott_s 14y ago
  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.
  - mhartl 14y ago
    Was Einstein the victim of oppression? How about Feynman? If "No", how does that jibe with your definition? If "Yes", is being a victim of oppression necessarily that big a deal? (Both Einstein and Feynman seemed to do OK for themselves.) (Note that nothing here excuses or condones the antisemitism that affected both Einstein and Feynman.)
    - scott_s 14y ago
      Einstein fled Europe because of it. That seems like "a big deal" to me. That he "did OK" for himself afterwards does not somehow make having to leave your home continent less of a big deal.

swa14 14y ago

Raymond, as is his wont, sets up a strawman and proceeds to set it on fire pitching himself as a champion of "the just side". It's a strawman, because in truth the only important part about Turing's life in view of his accomplishments is that it was cut short. i.e. his genius could no longer produce progress. Whether this would have been due to suicide, an accident, or murder is not relevant. It is not relevant because for the people under which his work was meant to be dissipated (people in the same field), the circumstances in which the results are produced are of no importance. Because of the progress he produced he became a people's hero to his country. People think about and tell tales about their heroes and their lives and circumstances. Irrespective of the direction these tales take, the accomplishments stand on their own among his peers, to wit, those who can actually understand the accomplishments. Whether people appropriate a part of a life of a hero to underline certain aspects of it, or deny parts of it to underline other aspects of it, matters not one iota. The facts of the matter are. "The work of Alan Turing was seminal to the entire field of computer science." The rest is history, and, as sometimes happens with history, can be rewritten by whomever needs the pageviews. "this sort of politically motivated myth-making diminishes the object of the myth" And any sort of tug of war between two sides who purport to propagate "the true story" is part of this myth. Pretending otherwise is just disingenuous.

mhartl 14y ago

Dammit, I thought I copyedited this comment pretty thoroughly, but a stupid typo still slipped through: s/Not that/Note that/

earl 14y ago

So essentially ESR is butthurt that Turing is remembered for being gay. This somehow diminishes him. And Turing most definitely wasn't persecuted for being gay. It's just that he was prosecuted and forcibly treated with female hormones. In ESRs head, that's not persecution because he had the chance to get out of it, most likely by denying who he is, ie a gay man: Rather than confront Turing’s homosexuality, the British authorities from the arresting constable on up tried to look the other way and gave every easy out they could; Turing, through some combination of carelessness and self-destructiveness, took none of them. Shorter esr: Silly queers should stay in the closet. Has esr gone full mens' rights / misogynist while I haven't been paying attention?

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