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Interesting to note that the Justice Minister Lord McNally didn't consider a pardon appropriate, but the Queen eventually pardoned Turing after an outpouring of

Interesting to note that the Justice Minister Lord McNally didn't consider a pardon appropriate, but the Queen eventually pardoned Turing after an outpouring of public support (and with the advice of the Government) [0]. (Turing was convicted for committing homosexual acts. Based on my cursory reading it seems like it was one of the reasons why he likely committed suicide. It's a tragic story of a great man, whom we all owe our gratitude.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Government_apology_and_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Government_apology...

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
It's a classic example of where legality and morality aren't aligned
- croes 2y ago
  Back then it was perfectly aligned. Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.
  - TotalCrackpot 2y ago
    Countless humans got their lives destroyed because of this perfectly normal variation of human sexuality, that's atrocious and so we should never forget what happened to Alan Turing because of essentially religious fundamentalism.
    - hackerlight 2y ago
      As a moral realist and liberal humanist, I agree, but the post highlights something important. Evil acts are often motivated by sincere moral systems. These people are mostly not sociopaths acting independent of a moral system. The feelings of moral disgust you feel towards their views are probably no different neurobiologically to the feelings of moral disgust they felt. This is important for us to recognize. Feelings of moral disgust should not be automatically given credence or respect just because they exist. We should also be careful and introspective of strongly held moral feelings that arise in ourselves.
      - graemep 2y ago
        I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on? We should be introspective, and it helps, but it is far from being a solution. It is very difficult to get away from personal feels, or from you culture.
        freedomben 2y ago
        > I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on? I've thought about this way more than I probably should. While I don't have any answers, I do think two very famous attempts are particularly worth studying (and IMHO, blending). Immanuel Kant's exploration, particularly his categorical imperative, and Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. IMHO though, it's a very difficult task because we humans tend to base our moral judgments on our emotional reactions to things, and our reactions (such as disgust) are a complex combination of instinct from past evolution, and culture we are raised in. If the outcome from some system/principle disagrees with our emotional reaction, we tend to discard the system rather than examine and question our reactions. I actually find Robert Sapolsky's work (and others in that area) to be just as interesting/illuminating because while they don't provide answers themselves, they do a remarkable job helping us see the challenges involved with trusting our gut.
  - newswasboring 2y ago
    I think OP was talking about real morality, not perceived.
    - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
      There's no such thing. All actions have consequences for other people, so any system of morality includes trade-offs where someone is disadvantaged for the sake of someone else.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - croes 2y ago
      What is real morality? How do you distinguish it from perceived morality? There is no ultimate right or wrong, it's all perception.
      - newswasboring 2y ago
        I have written and deleted a few responses to this. Mostly because all of them turned out rageful, these kind of statements are in themselves harmful. If you only assign value to things which have inherent value then what's the point of society or civilization. Some things don't have to be laws of nature for us to treat them as such. If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works.
        croes 2y ago
        >If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works. Moral and value are both subjective. I doubt there is a single value that all people share across the world and time. So it's always about perceived morality at a certain place and time.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    > Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye. Possibly, but the law was criminalising what happened in private. There's a big difference between prudish laws that ban public displays and intrusive laws that govern what consenting adults do in private.
    - jl6 2y ago
      We now recognize this of course, but I think the point being made above is that society at the time did not, and they thought they were acting morally. Perhaps the lesson is that actions done out of a sense of moral righteousness should not be immune from challenge. Much evil is committed in the name of good.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        Reminds me somewhat of this great C.S. Lewis observation: > “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
        kcplate 2y ago
        This is exactly why I see virtually no difference between the desired tyrannies of the “woke” types today as compared to the religious right of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s the same shit with a slightly different script. That inherent desire to criminalize opinions and behaviors that might offend their chosen moralities whether or not it actually affects them individually or even others.
    - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
      We're not on the good side of some clear morality dividing line. Plenty of consensual private actions are illegal today. The most obviously similar one is incest. But there's also consensual violence and euthanasia, as well as all the things you're not allowed to have on your computer, even if you created them yourself in some western countries. People seem to thing us moderns are more moral but we're not really, we just changed our morals so other cultures look immoral in comparison - and we look immoral in comparison to them too.
- notRobot 2y ago
  It's more a case of mainstream morality not aligning with ethics.
  - hazn 2y ago
    i’d like to add a counter point to your classification, respectfully: i felt like the comment implies that morality can be subjective (mainstream), but ethics is objective. my point would be ethics is also subjective, and thus morality and ethics can be used interchangeably. in german, they are! (Ethik und Moral/Moralität)
    - notRobot 2y ago
      My subjective definition of ethics is that they're objective :) Of course if you define both words to be the same thing to the point where they're interchangeable then the meanings change, but that's not what those words mean to me. I don't define ethics to be a socially held belief. What do words even mean? Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing with you, I have no strongly held belief and don't care about this at all.
croes 2y ago
Not simply convicted >His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido, known as "chemical castration".
- advael 2y ago
  Yea apparently it was so important to the government of Britain to dictate which consenting adults can fuck each other that they would force hormones and essentially permanent probation on a literal world-changing scientist and undeniable war hero over it I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants
  - billyjobob 2y ago
    Turing's boyfriend was 19, therefore not an adult under UK law at the time.
    - foldr 2y ago
      The age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16 at the time. As gay sex was illegal, there was no corresponding age of consent for it, but it’s misleading to suggest that 19 was not considered a sufficient age for sexual consent in general.
  - tim333 2y ago
    >insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy If there is zero government you get gang rape etc so it's more a question of where you draw the line.
    - chx 2y ago
      whao talk about gaslighting that's not what gp said > it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world He said the subset of governments for which it is true they uphold full bodily autonomy is the empty set. He did not state anything about a country not having a government
qsort 2y ago
The reasoning is interesting though. I don't necessarily agree with it but it's not "lmao gay". A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence that now seems both cruel and absurd—particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.[0] --- [0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text/120202w0001.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text...
- defrost 2y ago
  > He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. That specific bit of reasoning is very likely wrong. The circumstances of Turings investigation and arrest started with Turing going to the police to report that had been robbed by a person considered to be a rent boy. If he had the slightest notion of how homosexual behaviour was dealt with by the regular police and that he would be the main subject of interest rather than the robber he would not have reported the theft. Turing very much came from a class isolated from common consequences, he spent his youth at an elite school and then university, later at Bletchley Park, all places where lads with an odd bent were not at all uncommon, largely tolerated although often teased, and very rarely, if ever, arrested.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    « Et tous les bourgeois du 16ème / Se demandent pourquoi je t'aime » What's the (north african?)-set movie to which Mika refers in this tube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY While I find my eyes and ear (même les américaines comprennent) caught by Mme Mac, and I wouldn't have the foggiest in what context "molly with a Dilly" might usually occur, the video and text make one suspect that MM. Doriand and Mika tended to foreground the other characters (do long guns imply rough trade?). [come to think of it, an odd bent would probably have been a career advantage at Bletchley, in that one might have been already habituated to picking up on metadata during traffic analysis?]
allsummer 2y ago
His death was consistent with both suicide and accident. He left no note, so the reasons for why he likely committed suicide are not clear. His nephew suggests it was "boyfriend trouble" and his friend said he had underwent the "treatment" in good spirits. Turing, on the advice of his lawyer, plead guilty and opted for chemical castration himself. Of all the men in history charged with "gross indecency", Turing was the only one to receive a pardon. He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.
- foldr 2y ago
  > He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. His chemical castration was a condition of his probation following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
  - allsummer 2y ago
    I'm fine with Turing being a hero or a role model. But people are now writing that Turing was castrated for being gay. > following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance. It had nothing directly to do with his being gay. You can be gay without starting relationships with homeless boys and getting your house broken into, exposing yourself to blackmail or coercion.
    - foldr 2y ago
      He was not charged with being burgled (which is obviously not a crime!) or for exposing himself to blackmail (which is also not a crime). He was charged for having sex with another man, and his punishment was a result of that conviction. So his conviction and punishment were absolutely directly to do with his being gay. The very fact that chemical castration was considered as a 'treatment' shows that everyone involved regarded the problem as being 'gay sex', not 'exposing oneself to blackmail'.
graemep 2y ago
It is far from certain that he committed suicide: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 IIRC part of the coroner's reasoning is that "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." So essentially they concluded it was suicide because something about Turing (gay? academic? gay academic?) was regarded as indicating instability. I very much doubt a coroner today would follow that reasoning!
- telesilla 2y ago
  Bear in mind he was given hormones. As I'm from that half of the population who experiences hormone fluctuations but it's part of what women expect so we know about this and plan for it and support each other, I'd not be surprised if he was unaware of how his emotional state might be affected. Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data?
  - ciiu 2y ago
    > Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data? According to subreddits that the MtFs use, it's mostly sexual arousal. "Euphoria boners" and suchlike.
    - pwdisswordfishc 2y ago
      Yeah but that's because "trans" is nothing more than a sexual fetish to these men. They objectify women and get off on it, using their own bodies to construct the erotic target.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    And those hormones where specifically intended as chemical castration, reducing or removing libido (or the possibility of acting upon it). I assume this is more likely to have depression as a side effect than the concoctions we use for birth control in early/mid life and treating the effects of menopause later, as it is explicitly damping physical feelings. We also understand the effects of such treatments much better today than we did back then (still not well enough, it could be argued, but definitely better) and many things prescribed back then wound be considered dangerous now, so he may have had a relatively rough ride. This is speculation of course, though with a better foundation IMO than some of the other comments in this thread…
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

It's a classic example of where legality and morality aren't aligned

croes 2y ago
Back then it was perfectly aligned. Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye.
- TotalCrackpot 2y ago
  Countless humans got their lives destroyed because of this perfectly normal variation of human sexuality, that's atrocious and so we should never forget what happened to Alan Turing because of essentially religious fundamentalism.
  - hackerlight 2y ago
    As a moral realist and liberal humanist, I agree, but the post highlights something important. Evil acts are often motivated by sincere moral systems. These people are mostly not sociopaths acting independent of a moral system. The feelings of moral disgust you feel towards their views are probably no different neurobiologically to the feelings of moral disgust they felt. This is important for us to recognize. Feelings of moral disgust should not be automatically given credence or respect just because they exist. We should also be careful and introspective of strongly held moral feelings that arise in ourselves.
    - graemep 2y ago
      I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on? We should be introspective, and it helps, but it is far from being a solution. It is very difficult to get away from personal feels, or from you culture.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        > I agree, but then what do you base a moral system on? I've thought about this way more than I probably should. While I don't have any answers, I do think two very famous attempts are particularly worth studying (and IMHO, blending). Immanuel Kant's exploration, particularly his categorical imperative, and Jon Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. IMHO though, it's a very difficult task because we humans tend to base our moral judgments on our emotional reactions to things, and our reactions (such as disgust) are a complex combination of instinct from past evolution, and culture we are raised in. If the outcome from some system/principle disagrees with our emotional reaction, we tend to discard the system rather than examine and question our reactions. I actually find Robert Sapolsky's work (and others in that area) to be just as interesting/illuminating because while they don't provide answers themselves, they do a remarkable job helping us see the challenges involved with trusting our gut.
- newswasboring 2y ago
  I think OP was talking about real morality, not perceived.
  - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
    There's no such thing. All actions have consequences for other people, so any system of morality includes trade-offs where someone is disadvantaged for the sake of someone else.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - croes 2y ago
    What is real morality? How do you distinguish it from perceived morality? There is no ultimate right or wrong, it's all perception.
    - newswasboring 2y ago
      I have written and deleted a few responses to this. Mostly because all of them turned out rageful, these kind of statements are in themselves harmful. If you only assign value to things which have inherent value then what's the point of society or civilization. Some things don't have to be laws of nature for us to treat them as such. If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works.
      - croes 2y ago
        >If the only thing you recognize as valuable are things which are inherently valuable then none of any society works. Moral and value are both subjective. I doubt there is a single value that all people share across the world and time. So it's always about perceived morality at a certain place and time.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  > Homosexuality was seen as a perversion in the public eye. Possibly, but the law was criminalising what happened in private. There's a big difference between prudish laws that ban public displays and intrusive laws that govern what consenting adults do in private.
  - jl6 2y ago
    We now recognize this of course, but I think the point being made above is that society at the time did not, and they thought they were acting morally. Perhaps the lesson is that actions done out of a sense of moral righteousness should not be immune from challenge. Much evil is committed in the name of good.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Reminds me somewhat of this great C.S. Lewis observation: > “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
      - kcplate 2y ago
        This is exactly why I see virtually no difference between the desired tyrannies of the “woke” types today as compared to the religious right of the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s the same shit with a slightly different script. That inherent desire to criminalize opinions and behaviors that might offend their chosen moralities whether or not it actually affects them individually or even others.
  - EnigmaFlare 2y ago
    We're not on the good side of some clear morality dividing line. Plenty of consensual private actions are illegal today. The most obviously similar one is incest. But there's also consensual violence and euthanasia, as well as all the things you're not allowed to have on your computer, even if you created them yourself in some western countries. People seem to thing us moderns are more moral but we're not really, we just changed our morals so other cultures look immoral in comparison - and we look immoral in comparison to them too.
notRobot 2y ago
It's more a case of mainstream morality not aligning with ethics.
- hazn 2y ago
  i’d like to add a counter point to your classification, respectfully: i felt like the comment implies that morality can be subjective (mainstream), but ethics is objective. my point would be ethics is also subjective, and thus morality and ethics can be used interchangeably. in german, they are! (Ethik und Moral/Moralität)
  - notRobot 2y ago
    My subjective definition of ethics is that they're objective :) Of course if you define both words to be the same thing to the point where they're interchangeable then the meanings change, but that's not what those words mean to me. I don't define ethics to be a socially held belief. What do words even mean? Edit: I don't know why I'm arguing with you, I have no strongly held belief and don't care about this at all.

croes 2y ago

Not simply convicted >His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce libido, known as "chemical castration".

advael 2y ago
Yea apparently it was so important to the government of Britain to dictate which consenting adults can fuck each other that they would force hormones and essentially permanent probation on a literal world-changing scientist and undeniable war hero over it I will never recognize a government's right to tell adults what they can do with their own bodies and other consenting adults, and it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy. Death to tyrants
- billyjobob 2y ago
  Turing's boyfriend was 19, therefore not an adult under UK law at the time.
  - foldr 2y ago
    The age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16 at the time. As gay sex was illegal, there was no corresponding age of consent for it, but it’s misleading to suggest that 19 was not considered a sufficient age for sexual consent in general.
- tim333 2y ago
  >insane that there are zero governments in the entire world that can uphold the basic principle of full bodily autonomy If there is zero government you get gang rape etc so it's more a question of where you draw the line.
  - chx 2y ago
    whao talk about gaslighting that's not what gp said > it's insane that there are zero governments in the entire world He said the subset of governments for which it is true they uphold full bodily autonomy is the empty set. He did not state anything about a country not having a government

qsort 2y ago

The reasoning is interesting though. I don't necessarily agree with it but it's not "lmao gay". A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence that now seems both cruel and absurd—particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.[0] --- [0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text/120202w0001.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text...

defrost 2y ago
> He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. That specific bit of reasoning is very likely wrong. The circumstances of Turings investigation and arrest started with Turing going to the police to report that had been robbed by a person considered to be a rent boy. If he had the slightest notion of how homosexual behaviour was dealt with by the regular police and that he would be the main subject of interest rather than the robber he would not have reported the theft. Turing very much came from a class isolated from common consequences, he spent his youth at an elite school and then university, later at Bletchley Park, all places where lads with an odd bent were not at all uncommon, largely tolerated although often teased, and very rarely, if ever, arrested.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  « Et tous les bourgeois du 16ème / Se demandent pourquoi je t'aime » What's the (north african?)-set movie to which Mika refers in this tube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MPtXUeUznY While I find my eyes and ear (même les américaines comprennent) caught by Mme Mac, and I wouldn't have the foggiest in what context "molly with a Dilly" might usually occur, the video and text make one suspect that MM. Doriand and Mika tended to foreground the other characters (do long guns imply rough trade?). [come to think of it, an odd bent would probably have been a career advantage at Bletchley, in that one might have been already habituated to picking up on metadata during traffic analysis?]

allsummer 2y ago

His death was consistent with both suicide and accident. He left no note, so the reasons for why he likely committed suicide are not clear. His nephew suggests it was "boyfriend trouble" and his friend said he had underwent the "treatment" in good spirits. Turing, on the advice of his lawyer, plead guilty and opted for chemical castration himself. Of all the men in history charged with "gross indecency", Turing was the only one to receive a pardon. He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information.

foldr 2y ago
> He was not castrated for being gay, but for a relationship with an Eastern European 19-year old homeless man, and getting his house broken into, while having a security clearance and access to secret information. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here. His chemical castration was a condition of his probation following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance.
- allsummer 2y ago
  I'm fine with Turing being a hero or a role model. But people are now writing that Turing was castrated for being gay. > following his indecency conviction, and had nothing directly to do with his security clearance. It had nothing directly to do with his being gay. You can be gay without starting relationships with homeless boys and getting your house broken into, exposing yourself to blackmail or coercion.
  - foldr 2y ago
    He was not charged with being burgled (which is obviously not a crime!) or for exposing himself to blackmail (which is also not a crime). He was charged for having sex with another man, and his punishment was a result of that conviction. So his conviction and punishment were absolutely directly to do with his being gay. The very fact that chemical castration was considered as a 'treatment' shows that everyone involved regarded the problem as being 'gay sex', not 'exposing oneself to blackmail'.

graemep 2y ago

It is far from certain that he committed suicide: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 IIRC part of the coroner's reasoning is that "In a man of his type, one never knows what his mental processes are going to do next." So essentially they concluded it was suicide because something about Turing (gay? academic? gay academic?) was regarded as indicating instability. I very much doubt a coroner today would follow that reasoning!

telesilla 2y ago
Bear in mind he was given hormones. As I'm from that half of the population who experiences hormone fluctuations but it's part of what women expect so we know about this and plan for it and support each other, I'd not be surprised if he was unaware of how his emotional state might be affected. Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data?
- ciiu 2y ago
  > Having said that, I'd like to see research on emotional states in male to female transitions, we should have plenty of data? According to subreddits that the MtFs use, it's mostly sexual arousal. "Euphoria boners" and suchlike.
  - pwdisswordfishc 2y ago
    Yeah but that's because "trans" is nothing more than a sexual fetish to these men. They objectify women and get off on it, using their own bodies to construct the erotic target.
- dspillett 2y ago
  And those hormones where specifically intended as chemical castration, reducing or removing libido (or the possibility of acting upon it). I assume this is more likely to have depression as a side effect than the concoctions we use for birth control in early/mid life and treating the effects of menopause later, as it is explicitly damping physical feelings. We also understand the effects of such treatments much better today than we did back then (still not well enough, it could be argued, but definitely better) and many things prescribed back then wound be considered dangerous now, so he may have had a relatively rough ride. This is speculation of course, though with a better foundation IMO than some of the other comments in this thread…

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]