[lbo-talk] Andie reviews Les Misérables

[123hop at comcast.net]

Clearly Turing was a brilliant man who played in key role in the war by breaking the code. But was that by definition an act of political and social consciousness? Let's put it this way: was Edward Teller's collaboration in building the atom bomb and act of political and social consciousness? Given everything we know about Teller afterwards, no. Was it such an act on the part of Oppenheimer? Given everything we know about Oppenheimer afterward, possibly. 

Joanna 

----- Original Message -----
I don't follow. It isn't an act of social and political consciousness to fight Nazis if it's officially approved? 

Sent from my iPad 

On Jan 15, 2013, at 7:37 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: 


> No, not really. England was fighting the Germans....etc. 
> 
> Joanna 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> You don't call cracking the Enigma code an act of social and political consciousness? 
> 
> Sent from my iPad 
> 
> On Jan 15, 2013, at 12:34 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote: 
> 
>> On Jan 15, 2013, at 1:02 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: 
>>> Turing laid the foundations for modern computing. In that sense he was a giant compared to Swartz. But then he didn't die at 26 either. Who is to say what Swartz might have gone on to do. 
>>> 
>>> Yes, the analogy is not precise. It was the sense of loss I was trying to describe. 
>> 
>> Crazy as this might sound: if anything, the analogy is a disservice to Aaron, not Turing. Both were hounded to death by legal authorities for behaviour that was, at the time of its occurrence, against the law. Was Turing a giant of computing? Yes, along with Church, Gödel, Von Neumann, and those before them (Frege, Boole, etc, etc). If he had taken to say biology, someone else would have come up with the idea of defining a mechanical process for the execution of an algorithm. I am not however aware of Turing going beyond activities based on his technical brilliance to acts of political/social consciousness. To me, the great thing about Aaron is that at his very young age, and despite his gifts, he already had better priorities and a better understanding of what makes progress possible than any other techie I know of (even perhaps including RMS). 
>> 
>> 2 cents, 
>> 
>> —ravi 
>> 
>> 
>>> Joanna 
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> Nice. I see your point Andie - and agree the Turing analogy was a stretch. 
>>> Even so, there is obviously more to get upset about here. Doug didn't post 
>>> it here, but Susie Bright made the point that his emotional state (along 
>>> with public support for him, if not his actions) might have been part of 
>>> why the prosecution hounded him. Either way it is a great loss and it is 
>>> understandable that people are upset. 
>>> 
>>> Sean 
>>> On Jan 15, 2013 7:50 AM, "Shane Mage" <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote: 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Jan 15, 2013, at 6:12 AM, andie_nachgeborenen wrote: 
>>>> 
>>>>> I am stating to get angry at the misconceptions, distortions, and 
>>>>> lionization of Jean Valjean and his case. 
>>>> 
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