Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25495315

by louthy • 13 years ago

569 154 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

davidgerard• 13 years ago

Even this, 61 years late and only applying to him, is only a sort-of pardon legally:

http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2013/07/puttin...

moxic• 13 years ago

He should get a Royal Apology as well, even if the PM already issued one.

ciderpunx• 13 years ago

Finally. Though it is the very least that the establishment could do given how Turing was treated.

wreegab2• 13 years ago

"Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death."

I don't understand, I thought what was needed was "royal apologies". WTH.

pcrh3• 13 years ago

Don't be too concerned by the "Royal" nature of the pardon. In the UK the legislative system is in theory dependent on the Royal prerogative (i.e all laws derive from the will of the head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II). In practice that is not so, as Her Majesty does not personally deliberate on legislative matters.

However, as a journalistic device, describing the decision as "Royal" conveys the journalists and editors feelings as to the importance and sincerity of the pardon.

Stratoscope2• 13 years ago

wreegab was not objecting to the "royal", but to it being a pardon instead of an apology.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

Somewhere between better than nothing and nothing.

nbody• 13 years ago

Ridiculous

louthy• 13 years ago

Would you like to expand upon that?

qwerta• 13 years ago

Exactly, it is like saying we forgive you for being...

sarreph• 13 years ago

The manner in which the document was written makes its authenticity strike me as highly surprising.

edw519• 13 years ago

How ironic, coming the same week as LGBT education sites are blocked by British "porn" filters.

The best pardon to someone who is dead would be to stop doing similar misdeeds to those who are living.

scarmig• 13 years ago

The "porn" filters are stupid and creeping totalitarianism, but it's irresponsible and disrespectful to compare them to what was done to Turing.

He was persecuted and prosecuted; publically humiliated; forced to receive hormonal injections that rendered him impotent; banned from traveling to the USA; essentially banned from any jobs involving cryptography or national security; and ultimately committed suicide in large part because of government sanctions.

World of difference between that and a porous filter.

pcrh3• 13 years ago

He was persecuted for his sexual orientation, and furthermore this was done despite his obvious contribution to the safety of the nation. This placed sexual mores as more important than national interest.

A default information filter is currently being introduced by several ISPs in the UK, it starts by filtering sexual content.

This is similar in concept to the attitudes that cause immense suffering to Turing, i.e. controlling the public expression and liberty of the sexual life is being considered as more important that protecting civil liberties such as freedom of information.

pbhjpbhj2• 13 years ago

forced to receive hormonal injections that rendered him impotent //

He wasn't forced to receive hormone injections he chose it in preference to serving a one year imprisonment. As an expert chemist he was no doubt aware of the implications of that choice.

My reading of this has always been that his apparent predilection for picking up teenagers made him a massive security risk. Surely had he done the same with teenage girls he too would have been banned from jobs involving high level security clearance. It also strikes me that maybe Turing didn't like that element of his life?

[I have a pop-psych theory on this all being related to a fixation on Morcom, his childhood friend who died. But 40-something men lusting for teenagers is common enough that the theory lacks support.]

golergka2• 13 years ago

Can we please stop calling them "porn filters"? It's not what they are, it's "censorship filters". The label matters.

soperj• 13 years ago

First step to knighthood?

codeoclock• 13 years ago

You can't be posthumously knighted. Furthermore, the title of Knight is revoked upon death - For example, when Sir Paul McCartney dies he will lose his title.

kirinan• 13 years ago

This falls under the category of too little too late. I get that traditions change throughout history, I get that some things that are acceptable now were unacceptable even 10 years ago, but this is a case where people should have looked the other way. Alan Turning is both a war hero and one of the greatest minds to ever live. To simply disregard someone like that because of their sexual orientation is both short sighted and a disgusting lack of humanity. Imagine how much further computing would be if he had lived longer? If he had been free to think and live without ridicule and the tests run on him?

tptacek• 13 years ago

Exactly false. People could have looked the other way, and Turing could have lived a longer, happier life, and we could all be that much less aware of the injustice done to hundreds of thousands of other LGBT people throughout the last century. The tragedy is the policy that cost Turing his life, not the fact that an exception wasn't made for him. It cost many more people than Turing.

icambron• 13 years ago

Yes, wow. To go further, there is something deeply troubling about the parent's line of reasoning: that the tip of its spear is that Turing could have helped computing more, and not that the law was heinous in its treatment of humanity. The priorities required to even think of a point like that baffle me.

scintill762• 13 years ago

Huh? Special people should be allowed to break laws the rest of us have to follow? Gays should not have been persecuted, but only if they were "war heroes" and had "great minds"?

No, an unjust law is unjust to everyone! This is not tragic because it was done to somebody special, but it was done to thousands of "boring" others who may not get a pardon. (To say nothing of the original injustice that can't be taken back, or the fact that a pardon is not an admission of injustice.)

StavrosK• 13 years ago

Wouldn't it be much more forceful if his conviction remained as a mahnmal? Something to point at and say "here's what we did to a brilliant man because we were too small-minded to think otherwise"?

All pardoning Turing does now is lead us to eventually forget the tragedy of his conviction.

badclient• 13 years ago

Pardon? For what? Thanks but no thanks.

a8da6b0c91d4• 13 years ago

Buggery. It's been illegal many places for a very long time because it spreads disease. The sodomy laws were effectively repealed and we got AIDS. It was not a coincidence.

lostlogin6• 13 years ago

Do you really think the law made that much difference? Why not just pass a law requiring condom use. Would that make you happy?

groovy2shoes• 13 years ago

Sexual intercourse of any kind spreads disease. AIDS didn't become an epidemic because of anal intercourse. It's pretty clear that AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases spread just as well from almost any kind sexual activity, and many of them -- including AIDS -- spread from any transfer of bodily fluids at all.

Going further, I'd wager that any form of interpersonal contact, even non-sexual, is as likely to spread some form of disease. Why not enact a law which requires any person to don a hazmat suit before venturing into public space? Or better yet, a law which forbids any person from entering public space?

fnbr• 13 years ago

I believe that the above comment is misguided on a number of levels, especially the (assumed) bigoted nature of the writer, but first, note that in New York, one of the major American centers of the HIV/AIDS crisis (with the other being San Francisco), sodomy laws were only repealed by court order in 1980 [1], while AIDS was first clinically observed in America in 1981 [2].

Second, it is widely considered that the spread of HIV (which causes AIDS) was a result of (heterosexual) prostitution. If you look at [2], we see that it was spread extensively by African prostitutes from rural Congo, an almost uniquely heterosexual phenomenon.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Onofre [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS#History

mydpy2• 13 years ago

Hate for the sake of hate? You've clearly got issues.

camus2• 13 years ago

One would hope in a place like HN one would not find people as bigoted as you are. You must be a very sad person. Lack of sexed allows spreading of HIV, not homosexuality.

rmc4• 13 years ago

Unprotected heterosexual sex is considerably more dangerous than male-male sex. It kills considerable more people. Pregnancy has historically been very dangerous, and even now is not without serious health risks.

wreegab2• 13 years ago

I wondered. The only way I read this "pardon" is:

"We pardon you of having forced us to persecute you."

tekkanphan2• 13 years ago

they should give an apology

oracuk• 13 years ago

The previous UK government under Gordon Brown already apologised for Alan Turing's treatment.

acheron• 13 years ago

75,000 men were convicted under the same law, of whom 26,000 are still alive. [1] Only Turing has been "pardoned".

My understanding [2] is that the "pardon" implies there was nothing wrong with the law as such, just that Turing is forgiven for having broken it. So while I guess this is better than nothing, I don't know if it's really the way to go about it.

[1] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/t...

[2] I am not a lawyer, nor British, so give my understanding as much weight as it deserves...

ska• 13 years ago

I think you may have hit on the crux of it. If any stronger repudiation were offered, would that be the government opening itself up to 25000 expensive lawsuits?

lostlogin6• 13 years ago

I hope so, it should pay, and heavily. If it was my tax pound I'd support this. The minimum amount of harm this discrimination caused is pretty high, and there is little than can be done to correct this. Financial compensation is about the best thing actually possible, so do it while the victims are still alive. The lame option of waiting until 99% of the victims are dead, then offering some kind of pardon is vastly more likely however.

fractalsea• 13 years ago

Yes it is a terrible word to use, but these pardons have been issued to innocent people in the past and I suppose it has just stuck over time.

pcrh3• 13 years ago

Something in what you wrote reminds me of the many men shot for "cowardice" during WWI, some of whom were pardoned[1].

Many of those shot were suffering from PTSD (then called shell shock).

It is painful to consider the unjust fate of many people in the past, and even those alive today (would you care to take a walk in the Congo or Rwanda and discuss justice with those you might meet? Or perhaps take a walk in Syria?).

I really don't wish to contradict the sentiment of your statement, but only to say that "justice" is sometimes a luxury, and one which we should try to provide for everyone.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/hundreds-o...

Houshalter• 13 years ago

That's only a fraction of the number of people killed in WWI just from being forced to fight, or stupidly run at enemy trenches.

Sort of relevant; something about "injustice" elicits stronger emotional reactions than the exact same (or even worse) situation happening to someone just by chance (not unjustly through someone's actions.) On top of that we have a stronger emotional reaction to just imagining a single victim suffering, than being told "x number of people are suffering this fate".

stormbrew2• 13 years ago

So much this. It drives me nuts that the narrative on this issue always seems to boil down to the idea that Turing somehow earned not being persecuted for being gay through his efforts in the war and the injustice was that the government didn't live up to its end of the bargain, not the fact that he and many others were driven to suicide or horrible lives by this terrible law.

vacri3• 13 years ago

It's symbolic. The pardon does absolutely zero for Turing himself - he's long gone. It's symbolic that society is progressing and saying "we don't agree with this thing we used to do".

awjr• 13 years ago

This tweet pretty much sums up the whole problem with this pardon: "So remember children-homosexuality is acceptable, but only if you also invent the computer & single-handedly defeat the Nazis" https://twitter.com/bristolpaul/status/415467991414083584

afterburner• 13 years ago

I think what's interesting here is that socially conservative forces were able to get a man chemically castrated despite having done such a service to his country.

nostromo• 13 years ago

Pardon everyone convicted under similar statues and knight Turing posthumously for his efforts during the war and his contributions to computer science.

shazzy• 13 years ago

I do not think it is possible to knight posthumously.

blutack• 13 years ago

The House (and I) agree with you. I believe the hope is that this pardon of a well-known & loved figure in the UK will raise awareness in order to force the government to nullify all convictions resulting from this law.

Sixteen thousand of those men are still alive ... they can all now apply to have their convictions disregarded. I tried to amend it to extend this disregard posthumously to the 49,000 men similarly convicted but now dead...

The Government did not agree with us. They pointed out that, among other things, it would not always be possible in very old cases to know when sexual activity was non-consensual or under age. I think that the Government were wrong then and I think that they are wrong now.

Many of us—including the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, I think—regard this Bill as in some sense a second- best or interim option, in that we would have preferred a measure that offered the same comfort and recompense to the families and admirers of any of the many thousands of other individuals, now deceased, who were convicted under the same law. Still, we are where we are, and in Turing’s case the facts and his character are well documented. I would hazard a guess that others whose family members were victims of the same obsolete law and cruel sentence would, albeit as second best, welcome a gesture towards an especially prominent but symbolically representative individual.

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

All good; but curious: in Britain when cases are found to be tainted by prejudice, it isn't routine to throw them all out? Instead they are preserved in case the 'offender' had done something else too? Like maybe robbed a bank or cheated on taxes I guess (sarcasm).

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

My understanding is that the "pardon" implies there was nothing wrong with the law as such, just that Turing is forgiven for having broken it.

The fact of a pardon neither implies that the law was wrong nor that it was correct.

A posthumous pardon is naturally of largely symbolic import, in this particular case, the Royal Pardon is a kind of symbolic capstone to the earlier apology by the previous government in which -- while it was directed to Turing -- condemned the execution of the law more generally (the Prime Minister, when issuing the apology, stated "Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly."

saalweachter• 13 years ago

I don't know what the legal definition is, but the popular usage definitely implies guilt. EG, when the President pardons a crony, everyone knows he's totally guilt of whatever he was convicted of and more.

Is there a word which means a government acknowledges their laws were wrong and the people prosecuted under them were guiltless victims? If not, we could really use one.

There's a lot of that going around, and it'd be nice if governments had a word they should do more of.

pionar• 13 years ago

Is there a word which means a government acknowledges their laws were wrong and the people prosecuted under them were guiltless victims?

It's called an apology, admission of guilt, and usually some reparations are involved.

bshimmin• 13 years ago

The pardon does not imply the law (the Labouchere Amendment, 1885) was wrong, but the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which repealed it certainly does (or did).

__m• 13 years ago

The royals still referred to him as a faggot though.

WettowelReactor• 13 years ago

The British government has taken steps to address teh 26,000 that are still alive [1]. While this should be automatic it is still a step towards progress.

[1] <http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/sep/02/home-office-gay-s...

mcv2• 13 years ago

It's a step. A few years ago, they apologized for it, and people responded by demanding a pardon. Now there's a pardon. Maybe in a few years they'll pardon and apologize to everybody else who was convicted under that law.

Only a time machine can change what happened, but every gesture is something. It can't be made right, but acknowledgement of the wrong is still good.

adsche• 13 years ago

75,000 men were convicted under the same law, of whom 26,000 are still alive. [1]

They can apply to have their convictions disregarded, though. (It's also 16,000 of them.)

Yeah, not quite the same, but better than I expected honestly. :)

Alex_MJ• 13 years ago

Is there some LGBT organization in the UK who could pull off publicly granting a pardon to the government for its' treatment of Alan Turing?

Brakenshire2• 13 years ago

The British state already formally apologized five years ago, under Gordon Brown, for Alan Turing's barbaric treatment. I can't see how a pardon adds anything to that. The best response is just to treat people humanely in the present.

vacri3• 13 years ago

The apology was "We're sorry. The conviction still stands, however". The pardon takes care of the latter.

NAFV_P• 13 years ago

Turing died only a few years before the emergence of high level languages. I have often wondered if he would go for FORTRAN or LISP.

Stratoscope2• 13 years ago

I like to think the answer would have been "both": Lisp for power and elegance, and Fortran for speed.

grad_ml• 13 years ago

BBC please do not make any of the royal drama news headlines.

lostlogin6• 13 years ago

Thought I'd stick this link here - great place. http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk Last time I was there, 10 or 15 years ago, they were redecorating the house (can you call it that?). They had a load of really old fittings like taps etc in a skip. I still regret not asking if I could take one or 2. Having a few taps from that amazing place would be so great. I spent days of time there over the course of a year, and met a few of the people who worked their who knew Turing (by sight, not personally). You can see Turing's room at the place too. It was fascinating to talk to people who worked there during the amazing period Turing worked through.

elchief• 13 years ago

Lots of complaining on here, but I was glad to see it.

The government certainly didn't have to. It doesn't have to pardon everyone convicted of a crime that is no longer a crime.

It was a good thing to do for a good man, and I commend them.

MLR• 13 years ago

There have been countless people prosecuted due to unjust laws; society changes, and as that happens laws change.

Every single one of those people should be given a pardon, or none of them should.

mydpy2• 13 years ago

About f*cking time, but is it enough? No, but hopefully we won't need to worry about things like this in the future. Progress is progress and I'll take it.

microtherion• 13 years ago

The infinite tape of justice winds slowly, but grinds exceedingly fine.

bitsteak• 13 years ago

Scumbag Hacker News: Admires spies only after they're dead.

lostlogin6• 13 years ago

You really compare the NSA to activities at Bletchley Park, fighting Nazis?

infinity0• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, that is just what the British intelligence community are doing over here. It's a fucking disgrace, but I wonder if the timing of this pardon is because of that. They had the chance to do this a year ago, but didn't.

pbhjpbhj2• 13 years ago

NSA are fighting terrorism, which probably includes some Nazis somewhere in the mix. That aside it does seem the current groundswell of public opinion is firmly against all spying?

thrillgore2• 13 years ago

SO MUCH EDGE

Rogerh91• 13 years ago

You know, I was just reading a WSJ special on how returning PTSD-afflicted veterans were lobotomized...

Reading back on what happened to Turing and countless other homosexuals gives me those same chills.

What a simple pleasure it is to live in the era we do now. No, not everything is perfect, but so much has improved, and it's up to all of us to improve things even further, and to keep the momentum going.

Datsundere• 13 years ago

59 years late.

kimonos• 13 years ago

It would have been better if he was still alive when he was pardoned...

fmendez• 13 years ago

It seems to me that the fitting thing to be issued here is an apology, not a pardon.

finnw• 13 years ago

They already did that. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm

alan_cx• 13 years ago

This is politically motivated nonsense. At right wing government trying to prove its not homophobic. Yes the Queen issued the pardon, but it wont have been done without the government being consulted. Pardoning one person like this when thousands suffered is an insult. They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significance is creating a two tier justice system.

And frankly, I find the whole thing problematic. Judging the past by todays standards is just wrong to my mind. He did break the law as it stood, right or wrong. Its not like we now have evidence he was innocent of the charges. What do we do, go over all the past laws that have been repealed, pardoning every one who was convicted along the way? That would be insane. What about the reverse? Surely if we are to pardon people who got convicted under laws that we have now repealed, we should go back and try any one in the past who has committed acts which are now crimes but were not then.

Yes, Turing is of huge historical significance. What happened to him was awful and tragic. If the notion that he wiped 2 years of WW2 is not over exaggerated, millions owe him their lives and freedoms. There for not just a great scientist, but a world figure of huge significance. But, this is not the right way to honour him. And from what I can see, is shameless political points scoring by a weak government concerned with its gay credentials.

If it were me, I would have left the conviction alone, let it stand as a reminders of our stupid homophobic past (1), and perhaps done something like having a national Turing Day, which could celebrate science and open humanity. Or something like that.

(1) Not so stupid. Problem back then was that the vast majority of people were disgusted by homosexuality. So, obviously they kept it quiet. If they got found out, they suffered. Problem for organisation concerned with secrecy, is that the social pressure placed on gay people made them easy and obvious targets for espionage. They were easily black mailed. Now a days, most people have no problem with homosexuality, so the threat of being outed is weak. The problem back then was not government, its was the social attitude in general to gay people. There for, to me it is wrong for the public to point fingers at the government. Had the public not been so prejudiced, the government could have kept their genius employed, and alive. Its our fault as a society. Government had to operate in that context. It had no choice really. And of course many people in that government would have had the same attitude as the public. But in the end, it was our fault, our shame, as a society. And that is what we should remember.

jmedwards• 13 years ago

They should have either pardoned everyone who was convicted under these laws, or none of them. Favouring one man because of his historical significance is creating a two tier justice system.

Does that actually work, though? I gave this some thought today, and I wondered what the ramifications were for having to unpick 100s of years of perhaps other law and cases and convictions, including those where maybe a prior conviction under the act led to X led to Y... and then there is all the conjoined case law. This naive guy suspects it is not as simple as it sounds.

youngtaff2• 13 years ago

Turing often seems to get most of the credit for ending the war early (probably due to the injustice he suffered), but we shouldn't forget others suffered in different ways.

Tommy Flowers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers), who arguably created the first electronic computer to decrypt the Lorenz cypher was just as important and his work was not acknowledged until the 1970s.

Flowers wanted to create a computer after the war but the Bank of England wouldn't lend him the money because they didn't believe it was possible and he couldn't disclose he'd already done it due to official secrets act.

mcv2• 13 years ago

Let's not forget the millions of Russians who died on the eastern front. Without them, nothing at Bletchley Park wouldn't have mattered much for ending the war.

gaius2• 13 years ago

This is politically motivated nonsense. At right wing government trying to prove its not homophobic.

Cameron expended a great deal of political capital, which won't have won him any votes because "TORRIEESS", on same-sex marriage. Haters be hatin', and sure Cameron has done some stupid things, but don't let your class-war prejudices blind you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10200636/I-want-to-...

jasonkostempski• 13 years ago

"What do we do, go over all the past laws that have been repealed, pardoning every one who was convicted along the way? That would be insane."

It's insane to pardon a dead person in the first place but, for the currently convicted, why would that be insane? Seems like a massive reduction in sentencing should at least be considered. Sure, they broke a law, but most of us do that everyday. Maybe the reverse wouldn't be so bad either. Could stop a lot of stupid laws from passing in the first place.

3am• 13 years ago

I find it useful to ignore what motivations people have and focus on what they actually do. This is obviously a good thing - it was an immoral law and Turing deserves a pardon.

I also find it useful to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Just because Turing deserves even more honors and everyone prosecuted by that evil law deserves to be pardoned doesn't mean that we can't celebrate this one step.

Also, it's kind of selfish (even though he's dead) to feel that the conviction should have stood. This corrects an injustice, and it must be done, regardless of the arguable societal benefits otherwise.

tekkanphan2• 13 years ago

They should give a royal apology

sanoli• 13 years ago

Yes, they apologized 5 years ago, and now there's a pardon. As an important abolitionist from my country once wrote, "Justice that is late is not justice".

kopos• 13 years ago

Should this not have been an "apology" instead of a "pardon"?

cmpaul• 13 years ago

Prime Minister Gordon Brown had already issued an apology in 2009.

infruset4• 13 years ago

Wait. Someone who has a title and shitloads of money just because they were born is pardoning one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, as an act of kindness?

How does such an undeserving leftover of the middle ages even have a say in this?

johneth• 13 years ago

You're misunderstanding the power that the Queen has. Just because it's a 'Royal pardon', it doesn't mean that she actually pushed for it. The opposite is true, in fact (the Queen is a symbolic head of state, and does not interfere politically - anything you hear the Queen doing is almost certainly at the request of the UK government).

infruset4• 13 years ago

Granted. But still, symbolically, that's how it sounds, so maybe there's a problem with this system?

What I mean is that even if it's done at the request of the government, that's only a description of the political backstage, but in public it is expressed as the monarchy's doing ("royal" pardon).

Kliment• 13 years ago

The actual pardon: http://cryptome.org/2013/12/turing-pardon.pdf

bluecalm• 13 years ago

Instead of pardoning bullshit get him a chapter in elementary school history books. Chapter about a man, who greatly contributed to modern science and the war effort and was prosecuted by bigoted fanatics running the country. Then warn about similar attitudes displayed today and teach the children to recognize them along with their gloomy consequences. That would do some actual good instead of insignificant PR gesture of pardoning.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Have we ruled out the possibility that the UK government is more desperate to legitimize code breaking than to exonerate a mistreated war hero?

I don't think that's the case, but these days it's getting harder to be sure.

enen• 13 years ago

Anyone know a good movie/book on his life?

nayefc• 13 years ago

Unrelated to the topic, but:

He said the research Turing carried out during the war at Bletchley Park undoubtedly shortened the conflict and saved thousands of lives.

Clear example of "history is written by the victors". The Allies were as guilty in the war as the other side. Neither side's goal was to "shorten the conflict and save lives" but to "defeat the other side" with no regards to human life.

SimonPStevens2• 13 years ago

What I find most intriguing about this is the how a law that was enforced only 50 years ago has so quickly become abhorrent to the majority of the population. It's an interesting thought experiment to consider which laws we routinely use today to punish people will become morally unacceptable in the next 50 years.

Copyright and patent laws, and laws used against Snowden's whistle blowing are some obvious ones that are due for changes, but what's more interesting is if history continues to repeat itself it seems likely that some things we consider wrong now will become acceptable in the near future and the reverse is also true. This is much harder to predict.

(Humans driving cars is a reverse example. I think in the next 50 years it will become illegal for humans to drive cars manually except on private racing circuits)

jiggy2011• 13 years ago

I doubt that we would need to make human driving illegal. More likely automated cars become so popular and cheap that a generation grows up without learning how to drive manually and outside of a subset of enthusiasts human driven cars simply start to disappear from the market.

We already have driving assistance systems like ABS and computers which will automatically apply brakes which can reduce the risk of accidents but we don't mandate that all vehicles on the road use them.

SimonPStevens2• 13 years ago

Computer breaking is still relatively new. Give the law time to catch up. Seatbelts were optional when I was a child, but mandatory now (UK).

But yes, I do agree. Human driving may well just become unpopular rather than illegal.

gizmo686• 13 years ago

The cases you cite seem fundamentally different from the anti-gay laws under discussion. Copyright and patent laws, even if we look back and say they were stupid, we would still be able to point to the problems that they were designed to solve (of which they have solved somewhat), and view them as a reasonable attempt. Similarly, we would recognize that humans driving cars was okay not because of of a poor moral system, but rather because we had no better alternative.

I suspect that some of the areas we will look back on in a similar way are drug laws and sex laws (we still have prostitution, child porn, and statutory rape, all of which seem immoral only in a cultural sense).

rmc4• 13 years ago

I think trans rights are something that in 50 years time will be like gay rights now. We'll look back 50 years to today and think the treatment by society of trans people was barbaric.

In 50 years time Chelsea Manning might get an apology because medication she needed wasn't given to her in prison.

davidtanner• 13 years ago

We can only hope.

berrypicker• 13 years ago

The trend is that certain ideas are offensive and are therefore kept censored or ridiculed, until people can overlook those societal views of past generations and assess the ideas with a fresh perspective, at which point they become accepted.

There are things today which if you say you might lose friends over, but I am certain it's a case of nation-wide groupthink. Evidence? In other parts of the world these ideas are widely accepted already.

sockypuppy• 13 years ago

It's an interesting thought experiment to consider which laws we routinely use today to punish people will become morally unacceptable in the next 50 years.

It's also an interesting thought experiment to consider whether beliefs we deeply and routinely hold today will become as morally unacceptable as the belief that homosexuality is wrong, unnatural and ought to be punished.

For example, what if it becomes wrong to believe in meritocracy? If in fifty years, everyone from scientists to politicians to the media blasts the message that it's wrong and hurtful to heap prestige, financial rewards, etc. on brilliant hackers and successful entrepreneurs?

Presumably many HN'ers strongly believe in meritocracy and point out historical examples of stagnation in non-meritocratic societies, mathematical/economic arguments why meritocracy is good, etc.

What if anyone who sincerely believes in meritocracy, and makes these kinds of logical and data-backed arguments in favor of meritocracy, is met the same way that today anyone is met who argues against the liberalization of our treatment of homosexuality?

Please, treat people who honestly believe that homosexuality is wrong the way you would want believers in meritocracy to be treated in the hypothetical world I've laid out. First, because you want a civilized precedent for dealing with distasteful beliefs, to reduce the downside if your own beliefs will one day be regarded as distasteful. Second, it simply makes the pro-gay argument look weak if the best way you can deal with opponents is call them names like "bigot," or threaten to blacklist them and destroy their livelihood.

Another fun thought experiment: s/bigot/heretic/

thrillgore2• 13 years ago

Finally.

jackmaney• 13 years ago

Way too little, way too late.

huherto• 13 years ago

The queen was already reigning when Alan Turing was brought to trail.

May be the queen is who needs to be pardoned.

vithlani• 13 years ago

Let this be a reminder to all hackers and geniuses out there: protect yourself from your society. You exist purely at the mercy of your physical realm. It does not matter how essential your discoveries, how profitable, how useful to mankind, how breathtaking. If you are perceived as being a risk (through something simple like your sexuality) you will be ground to dust. The decision will be made (perhaps justifiably) but it will be executed by the worst sort of petty human being: bureaucrats, under achievers, jealous men and beasts in human form who have been handed down power by the state. They will unleash a torrent of hellfire in your life.

This beast does not discriminate: weather a gathering of Sikhs in a park, tribes of Africans or a sole genius with an arguably significant contribution to the war effort - to the beast they are all one once the order has been given.

Always ensure you have some form of protection and a way out.

The British establishment should be ashamed of themselves. They have tolerated homosexuality for centuries among the upper classes up to and including the royals. To grind down a man on the level of Turing with for such an absurd reason is an act of criminal stupidity. All the more so after his efforts during the war.

The computer science community all the world over should reject this "pardon" and ask the queen to stuff it up her posterior.

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing

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