Alan Turing's Body

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/alan-turings-body/282641/



On Christmas Eve, Queen Elizabeth II pardoned the computer scientist Alan Mathison Turing.

Nearly all of the modern world is constructed on Turing’s accomplishments. He helped crack Germany’s “Enigma” code in World War II, contributed two important proofs to mathematics, and established foundational concepts in computer science and artificial intelligence. Without him, the Allies might not have won the war, and you might not have a machine which can display this article.

Turing also had consensual sexual relations with other men, and, for them, was convicted for “gross indecency” under an 1885 criminal law. The queen pardoned him for these on Tuesday.

The pardon is written in a high royal celebratory register, which doesn’t match the somber tone which the events seem to deserve. I was surprised when, in the text of the pardon, I found something that almost constituted recursion, a building block of programming.

[shenmue]

1. I love that man

Pardon should have happened much sooner. And as someone said a couple days ago, it should be extended to every victim of the crappy anti-gay laws of old.

[Jesus Malverde]

2. you might consider reposting this in good reads...

First thing I wondered to myself is why didn't they posthumously apply this law to all convicted of it, including Turing.

According to Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson, 75,000 men were convicted under the same law as Turing, some 26,000 of whom are still alive. (The law was repealed in 1967.) We might start by pardoning, or apologizing to, all those other men.

What they did to turing was barbaric and UNFORGIVABLE.

The info about

Its theorists did so explicitly: “For the King has in him two Bodies, namely a Body natural, and a Body politic,” writes the jurist Edmund Plowden in 1571.

Very interesting concepts and institutions..

Thank you for posting this...

[xchrom]

3. mostly because i am unconcerned about straight peoples opinions regarding the lives and culture of

LGBTIQ folk.

if you want to post in good reads -- please do so.

[Jesus Malverde]

4. Good point...

Thanks for all your great posts..

[spin]

5. It is quite possible had not Turing lived I would be typing this post in German. ...

The shame is that had he not been criminally prosecuted for his sexual orientation he might have contributed to many more technological advances which would have benefited our society. How much have we lost through the centuries because we viewed certain common sexual activities as sinful?