Alan Turing
(June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954)
Turing’s work for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, England, was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma and Lorenz cypher machines during World War II. Enigma was used to encrypt military messages to the field, and to ships and submarines of the German navy; Lorenz was used to encrypt messages among the German high command.
Turing’s work on cracking the Lorenz machine eventually led to the construction of Colossus, the world’s first functioning programmable electronic digital computer. Completed before the end of the war, it was fast enough to crack messages in real time using statistical cryptanalysis techniques. Some people estimate that the intelligence this work produced shortened the war by 2-4 years. For all we know, it may have made the difference between winning and losing.
Touring also framed his famous test to provide a working definition of artificial intelligence. He developed much of the conceptual framework that is still used in developing digital information technologies to this day. He also became interested in biology, and developed mathematical computer modeling of biochemical processes.
In 1952, Turing pled guilty to charges of “gross indecency” for homosexual acts, and agreed to chemical castration by estrogen injection in lieu of prison. He was stripped of his security clearance, sacked as a cryptographic consultant to the British Signals Intelligence Agency, marginalized, and essentially put out to pasture. Two years later, he died of cyanide poisoning. An inquest ruled it suicide, but there seems to be some evidence it was accidental.
Alan Turing has become a hero (and something of a martyr) in the Gay Pride activist movement.
As a result of increasing public pressure, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology in 2009 on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way [Alan Turing] was treated.” In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon.
Isn’t that lovely? Just think how the world might look now if he’d been prosecuted before Bletchley Park?
Comments
Cracked
That woman protesting is a cracked as her sign
It's called...
... irony!
Dr. Seuss on Irony
Do what you want and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
And, ever since,
people have been talking about mind over matter.
Considerable evidence, according to many...
Turing was an inveterate tinkerer, and had been using a cyanide compound for electroplating spoons, and was also famous (amongst his friends) for a lack of discipline and tidyness during his "experiments." His own mother was convinced that it was an accident, as were most of his friends, because he was in very good humour at the time, and found the official hysteria about his homosexuality more than slightly risable. Alleged assertions of remorse and despondency were circulated primarily by those who didn't actually know him, probably attributing false mental states to fulfill current social expectations.
On the other hand, there's a fairly good reason that homosexual men have most often been characterised as "gay."
It takes something a sense of humour to live in a world so well-supplied with jerks, and one notes that many of the most hateful comments are made by those who will sooner or later be found in awkward positions sharing a stall in the men's room.
When one thinks about that, one really has to laugh.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Bringing Up Baby
And I thought the term "gay" was invented by Cary Grant to describe cross-dressing in a woman's negligee.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Unfortunately...
Turing was also a bit of a misogynist and thief. Many of the things he "came up with" were equally if not more substantially contributed by those of the fairer gender who "assisted" him in his work. I suppose "product of his times" applies quite well here though. If you look for it you'll also find quite a few rather rude comments regarding the capabilities of women. He might have preferred the intimate company of men, but it seems he didn't have much respect for women in any capacity, though he was more than willing to use them and then not fairly credit them.
Abigail Drew.
Mysogeny and Misandry
Sadly, those things sometimes go with being gay, lesbian, or even TG. Intolerance is not solely the purview of cisgendered heteros. Sometimes when people experience enough intolerance for being who they are, they in turn become intolerant of other people. It’s not uncommon for people to dismiss some segment of humanity, and some people give up on all of it.
But, as you point out, this does not prevent the very same people from stealing from those they despise. It just means there is enough of this muck to go around for everyone—no one group of people are getting singled out for it.
“Maybe this world is some other planet’s hell.”
—Aldous Huxley
Gay Rights in the 70's.
Look at how some Gay men were dismissive of Lesbian issues. Bloody disgusting it is. As Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Also, I want to know if you're being treated badly so I can have your back and I just want to make sure things are better for everyone.
Additionally, I would add I think some of this intolerance stems from the privilege of being a White man. Yeah, sure you're Gay but you're White, just keep it to yourself. They soon found out that Black people weren't making things up about being treated badly by the police.
While I'm sure...
A lot of this is true we as part of the "GLBT" community still see things ever so slightly different because of circumstances. Sure some of it is the brain but the other part of being forced to being different than the rest but looking at how to conform. This may lead to a greater sense of abstract/creative thinking.
So while women(even non-Transwomen, being of the persecuted round peg type vs. Patriarchy) likely contributed a great deal it is unfair to think that Alan Turing's being Gay didn't help him contribute a great deal as well.
As I mentioned in terms of White male privilege, this likely influences history to give him greater credit and may especially part of his Misogyny. I refer of course to the massive ego-stroking men like him must have constantly received for being quite brilliant but especially being White and a man in this regards. As part of this he probably drank the koolaid parsed out about women.