GeorgeCostabaplaps
44185
1410
19
Hero
Genius
A reason to never let it happen again
Mar 7, 2025 10:10 PM
GeorgeCostabaplaps
44185
1410
19
Hero
Genius
A reason to never let it happen again
vincentsl
Today? He was persecuted as he was doing the heroing!
4vie
.... Who else was a big name in breaking the enigma machine? Yes, Turing was a key player and what they did to him was barbaric. Nothing can change that. But Turing wasn't alone in breaking the algorithm, the mathematics that was the Enigma machine. Who else was a big name?
Type17
Although no one can turn back the clock and apologise to him in person, the UK government did issue a formal apology to him in 2009 (and later on, to other gay men and women convicted under those laws), and Turing is featured on today's stg£50 note https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/polymer-50-pound-note.
FreedVentureStein
He wouldn't have been persecuted today... In fact he would have enjoyed much more protection in the USA today (and most definitely in the UK today) than in his own time.
In 1952 he was charged with "gross indecency" and was given the choice of prison or probation and chemical castration. He chose the latter and he was stripped of his security clearance.
He would die only two years later from cyanide poisoning in 1954.
Celebrate what we have now. Fight like hell to keep it!
heteroscedastic
What if I texted you and I was perfectly indistinguishable from a woman. Am I a woman?
-- The most important thought experiment in computer science.
GeofrontTmP
There were a bunch of fair dinkum Polish blokes who made this possible https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Enigm">e">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Enigma_double
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski
kInADress
I'm happy that both Turing and our Polish bros get the recognition these days!
brainwipe
I think you might have chosen a poor title!
IDontCareAtAllButIShould
He was persecuted then.
GeorgeCostabaplaps
Not wrong. Not at all. My point is that if he was persecuted now, he would be fired by Trump. People like this will be the heroes of the future.
RadonGaming
In the UK, where he's from and is literally on our fucking money, he would not be persecuted today. He was pardoned (not enough). My government has never apologised for the atrocities they commited. That man deserved far much more, he deserved a chance at happiness.
YippeeKayakOB
The real heroes are not always celebrated as heroes. I am glad he is finally being celebrated as a hero after being depicted in the Imitation Game by the great actor Budapest Lumberjack.
Dannoboyo
One of the reasons Germany lost WW2 was because so many great minds left. One of the reasons the Republicans won was because so many people chose to stand by and watch it happen.
mizzamir
It should also be noted that he was considered by just about anyone who knew him to be immensely kind, compassionate, and genial. He was a nice person. This is important to note because of that stupid fucking movie Benedict Cumberbatch made about him where he played him like every other character that Bendledick Crumblybitch plays: A total fucking asshole.
HumanCats
I've heard he's on a British banknote. I've only heard because it's the fifty quid note and I'm so poor I've never actually seen one.
BreakfastWithCountChocula
"Thanks for greatly helping us winning WW2, now here's a chemical castration for your troubles."
userfriendly19777
He commited suicide by biting an apple injected with cyanid in 1954.
SinisterSlaw
This story makes me angry every time I read it. Guy was a f-ing hero.
SLCtechie
Another thing to point out, he did so much more than just breaking the Enigma machine. He is regarded as the father of computing. Every computer we use today is equivalent to a Turing Machine (with the exception of finite memory).
dorpjorp
It was Turing, Gordon Welchman, and the men and women at Bletchly Park that broke the Enigma machine. Geniuses beyond genius.
Doubleplusgood documentary here: https://youtu.be/OncDBQNmq2U
AntiTrollPatrol
I live a mile away from Bletchley park and go there regularly
dorpjorp
I'd love to go there one day.
AntiTrollPatrol
It’s wonderful to see everything that they were never allowed to talk about. Walking in their actual footsteps is mesmerizing. They have recording of people who work there and it’s fascinating to hear their stories in their own words. It’s well worth the visit
dorpjorp
That sounds amazing. I just got a copy of the book The Ultra Secret by F.W. Winterbotham. Looking forward to diving in.
AngelicalDaemon
persecuting a hero - this is treason!
NomadUniverse
The Polish cracked Enigma first btw.
XSurvivor
Not true. They proved mathematically that it could be cracked . The actual work of deciphering actual messages in a reasonable time was done by his team.
NomadUniverse
uhhhh yeah, I didnt say it wasnt, nor does that make what I said not true.
Zuegma197777
>a reason to never let it happen again.
Can it?
WhiskyTraveler
The current US government blocked pictures of the plane Enola Gay, just because it has the word gay in the name. There are people who want it to happen again.
mikenco
Turin would have been celebrated today. Trump is dragging the US back 50 years. The World will be a better place when that orange sack of shit shuffles off the mortal coil.
mesmartudum
Turing rules.
IJustWantToMakeAComment
I was telling an adult trombone student that in WWII the army employed musicians as code breakers since they’re great at seeking and recognizing patterns. Later, my student talked about the new movie about Turing and he said that with the musicians factoid and what we know about Turing creating code breaking computers and being an out gay man, he would love if his life story was made into a musical.
GeorgeCostabaplaps
❤️
ImgurIsOutOfUsernames
Persecuted today? Hell, he was persecuted then!
Glaive18
Why would he be persecuted today?
GeorgeCostabaplaps
Let's say he was hired by a department of energy for a computational project and they found out he was gay.
DEI hire. Fire him.
Glaive18
Best reply i could have asked for, and has me thinking about that. I feel like I would support firing a DEI that was hired -because- he was gay, but condemn someone being fired - because- they were gay. Not sure where that puts me...
GeorgeCostabaplaps
These are good questions to examine
Exyr
He was persecuted then and it cost him his life.
PolitiCat
* He was murdered. Not directly, but it was murder and should be considered like that from a legal standpoint.
nasukkin
No, he was murdered directly.
I have not met a single professional software engineer who believes that he committed suicide. He was assassinated by the British government. The notion that he killed himself in such a contrived way was invented by the Crown as a cover-up story.
PolitiCat
As a professional software engineer myself, we are not experts in psychology, especially not after effectively being tortured by the government one has saved.
If the crown would have wanted to cover this up, they wouldn't have forced everything on him before but just made him disappear.
Either way, the british government is fully responsible for his death and suffering.
nasukkin
Maybe. But between all the folks I've talked to over the course of my career, all the computer science professors at SFSU I spoke to, and even the two History professors I had the pleasure of earning GE credits at SFSU all have shared the believe that his death was not a suicide. Gonna stick with the knowledge I bought with my college funds.
YouMayFindThisMildlyInteresting
It's quite possible that he accidentally poisoned himself via his home chemistry lab https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092
Exyr
I mean its not wrong but I could rewrite the same article saying he was murdered and it was covered up by those same intricacies that he partook in.
Mr21782Man
Its extremely unlikely that it was an accident. The article is leaving out a lot of details. The article also relies entirely on Jack Copeland who isn't a medical doctor and has made some other outlandish claims to which he is equally unqualified. It commonly accepted that he committed suicide and that death by apple was a result of an obsession he had for years.
GeorgeCostabaplaps
Absolutely, don't let it happen again.
Leithoa
Bad news. It's happening again.
darthnerdus6236
It never stopped.
Leithoa
It did slow down for a couple minutes.
HubicPairs
Freyja33
If it helps at all there's a good possibility that his death was not a suicide. They stopped the forced hormone treatments so he was recovering, and although he was expelled from government and denied his achievements, he still had an academic career. Most of his family/friends said he was happy, but he had recently taken up a craft hobby (electroplating) that involved use of cyanide. No one will ever know for sure, but he may have just accidentally inhaled too many fumes from his craft work
SinisterSlaw
My brother in law was by all accounts perfectly happy and had plenty going for him. Still decided to kill himself. People are really good at hiding stuff like that once they make their minds up.
Freyja33
Very true, like I said, we can't really know for sure, and he may have wanted people to see it as an accident even if it wasn't. I would also say though that it's surprisingly common, even for really intelligent people with the right expertise, to die in home/hobby/work accidents because they didn't realize something was dangerous or because they just made an unfortunate mistake in the moment. Either way it's a tragedy that he died so young, and it's awful what was done to him.
SinisterSlaw
agreed
Freyja33
Either way though, he was a great man, and it is tragic that he was denied credit for his achievements and marginalized just for being gay. He was a groundbreaking scientist and engineer and it's important to make sure people know what he accomplished and how he was unjustly persecuted
CarlBassett
He was not "denied credit". He was awarded the OBE, one of the highest civilian honours in the UK. His work at Bletchley Park was kept secret but ALL work at BP was kept secret for decades. Tommy Flowers built the first proper electronic computer at BP but was banned by the secrets act from telling anyone about it. There were code breakers at BP whose own family didn't know what they did until decades later. Turing was not denied credit any differently from everyone else there.
diezl97
This story makes it sound like there's some kind of happy ending. Turing died by suicide as a direct result of the chemical castration: the British government murdered him. Don't sugarcoat history, everyone needs to know the shitty thing the British crown did to the hero who saved us all from Nazi conquest.
CarlBassett
See links above. Many, including family and friends, doubt it was suicide and say he was happy at the time. His treatment had actually been stopped.
diezl97
Then it still should say that he died under suspicious circumstances. The above sounds like a total whitewash.
CarlBassett
Only to people determined to believe the evil government killed him. Looked at dispassionately there is no evidence to support suicide (no note, no signs of depression) and plenty to support accident (was using cyanide for hobby, in the same room, friends say he was happy, had made plans for things to do etc) At that time he was totally unknown to the public. Why would the government care enough to bother with a whitewash?
diezl97
Given all the vicious, unethical, and illegal shit that's been directed at we the LGBTQ community by the government since the fall of the Roman Empire, yes, I'd say there's 100% a motive there. Your comment here is minimizing the fact that Turing was CHEMICALLY CASTRATED BY THE UK GOVERNMENT for having consensual sex with another adult.
CarlBassett
Yet according to his family and friends he was happy and getting on with his life and was not suicidal at all. You claimed a whitewash. What was the motive for the whitewash? As you say what he did was a crime. Why would they care if he killed himself because of that? At the time he was totally unknown. What motive would they have to hide his suicide?