Alan Turing was a mathematician & cryptographer who was a leading code-breaker in the team that decrypted Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine during WWII. He inspired modern computing & what became AI.
Instead of being hailed as a genius & hero, Turing was convicted as a homosexual & forced to endure chemical castration. He died by suicide at 41 in 1954.
The British government didn’t apologize until 2009 & Queen Elizabeth II finally pardoned him in 2013. #history #science #HistoryRemix
He saved us from the German Nazis but died at the hands of british fascism. The British are in major denial, even today, about their society. Protest or even the intention to protest is illegal. They still cage people for herbal remedies. Assange.. etc.
I know most aware folk in the UK know this but it's one of those things that one needs to keep repeating. Especially in these days of the ostrich! Ta muchly xxP
The disturbing thing is that QE11 was an adult when this man was saving the country of which she became head. She could have stepped in and stopped his persecution; she was monarch in 1953, but she did nothing and he died a year later.
The ‘pardon’ is I guess a quasi-judicial term. But its everyday meaning is of forgiveness. That in turn implies fault, wrongdoing. The State was wrong. Its laws were wrong, immoral, inhumane. It’s whether we should ‘pardon’ the State.
Far more people should be taught about this hero in schools and such and should also be taught about what we did to him and how this kind of thing should never be repeated or anything close to it.
I had read Turing’s biography and I knew his story, sad as it is. But when I saw The Imitation Game in a theatre with friends I was *sobbing* at the end. Totally overcome with grief, I couldn’t pull myself together for several minutes. The factoids they posted about how many lives he’d saved and so on…I couldn’t bear the sadness of it all.
MeNoTroll
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Evey
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Carolannie
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Lewis
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Protest or even the intention to protest is illegal.
They still cage people for herbal remedies.
Assange..
etc.
EPK
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •I bet he was thrilled.
David Palk #FBPE #RejoinEU
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Accidental Tourist
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Ralph Brooker
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Kerr9000
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •fridgebuzz
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •