Being a geek, one of my heroes is Alan Turing. He said the basic test of intelligence is whether you can have a conversation. This Turing Test has become the gold standard of artificial intelligence. He laid the philosophical foundations of modern computing in the 30s. To quote Time “The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine.” He also cracked the Nazi Engima code, basically saving our collective asses. However, in 1952 he was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated and killed himself two years later.
This is, I think obviously, a damn shame. First that anyone is persecuted for being gay, but also that such an awesome genius was attacked, crippled and taken away from the world. Who knows how much more Mr. Turing could have contributed. Britain at least owed him their gratitude for, say, modern computing and helping thrash the Nazis.
I bring this up because there’s a petition going around the UK to formally apologize to Mr. Turing and award him a posthumous knighthood. I certainly think he deserves it. Alan Turing is one of my heroes and one of the coolest geeks to ever walk the face of the earth. He at least deserves an apology.
Photo by Garretc (cc license)
It’s so sad that people are discriminated like this cos they’re gay…..let them be what they like! :)
Indeed Turing’s brilliance was lost to the world as a result – it was just last night, reading ENIGMA that I was contemplating the fact that he was indeed the father of the computer. Sadly I don’t think the world has come very far in tolerating peoples differences… will be signing that petition for sure
Apparently I cant after all – its limited to British Citizens or residents only – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/
Isn’t it too late in the day? The damage was done, the genius was taken from the world. It’s way too late to make any difference to him to whom any retraction/apology and knighthood should have been bestowed while he lived. Sorry for the pessimism.
It’s not Alan Turing that needs to be redeemed but the British government. Although homosexual acts were illegal at the time and he was prosecuted according to the law, it is the paranoia surrounding homosexuals and how they might be recurited as spies by the Soviets (very much like how the British did themselves) that probably led to his awful mistreatment.
@Chamira I agree that it’s the UK government that needs to be redeemed.
you r a geek !!! I would have never guessed . oh !! the horror !!
I thought the following article was good reading:
A Gay Tragedy
Occasionally someone, usually a young man but sometimes a young women or an older man or women, will approach me and after a few minuets of hesitation or beating around the bush, ask me what the Buddhist position on homosexuality is. When they do I tell then that intentional actions (kamma) modify consciousness and that our kamma conditions our future. Positive intentional acts have positive effects (vipaka) and negative intentional acts have a negative effect. Sexual acts motivated by the usual intentions, feelings and emotions which exist between two people who love each other, would have a positive effect and would not infringe the third Precept, whether they be homosexual or heterosexual. I underline this point by saying that Buddhist ethics about sex are primarily concerned with the motives behind out sexual behavior, rather than the gender of our partner. This being so, if two people of the same gender express their love for each other physically there is no good reason why the kamma this creates should be any different from when two people of the opposite gender do the same. Having said this I then try to change the subject, not because I am embarrassed talking about homosexuality, but because I do not like the ‘single issue’ approach to Dhamma. However, a few years ago I had an encounter which made me realize that inquiries about homosexuality, whether from gays themselves or their families, should be given my whole attention. However theoretical or marginal this issue may be to me it is likely to be of considerable import to the people who ask such questions.
A young man named Julian rung me asking if he could come and talk to me about Buddhism. I said he could and on the appointed day and time he came. Julian turned out to be about 20 old, of slight build and with pleasant features. He was well groomed and neatly dressed. He started by asking me a few questions about some aspects of Buddhism but I sensed that these were not really what he was interested in. Finally the question came, “Venerable, can a gay person be a good Buddhist?”
http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2008/05/gay-tragedy.html