Comment by dotcommand | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dotcommand | Hacker News Reader

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It's not odd. The journalist who wrote this piece mostly likely regurgitated misinformation/propaganda he read it elsewhere. Since you clarified the tech misinformation, I'll tackle the historical misinformation.

> changing the course of the war and giving the Allies a significant advantage over their Nazi adversaries.

Turing, Bletchley Park, Engima machine had no material impact on the war. 90% of the german military were destroyed by the Soviets in the eastern front in a simple battle of attrition. It would have served the soviets better if britain had shut down bletchley park and used those resources to send bullets/trucks/etc to the Soviets. Turing, Bletchley Park, etc provide no advantage over the germans as the germans were already heavily disadvantaged - by population, economy, technology, military, etc.

The soviets by themselves vastly outnumbered the germans and had a far greater military industrial complex. The soviets produced more tanks, planes, guns, etc than the germans. Now toss in the british empire and the US and the germans stood no chance.

It's amazing how misleading the media, news, etc are when it comes to ww2. One look at the actual data/facts/stats is rather sobering. Germany had no chance of winning. You have a better shot at beating 3 heavy weight MMA fighters at the same time than Germany had of beating the US/Soviet Union/British Empire. Go look at the data of Japan vs the US/China/British Empire/etc. Japan had even longer odds.

The propaganda that has been built around Turing, Enigma machine and WW2 in recent years is rather impressive. I guess being one of the founders of Computer Science isn't good enough? We have to exaggerate/lie about him winning ww2?

You seem to have taken one point (that the soviets would sooner or later have eventually defeated germany - perhaps true, or perhaps not), and stretched that to breaking point to try and make another (that Enigma had no material impact on the war).

That's simply not true, even if Enigma has been somewhat mythologised.

First, consider that time was of the essence. The Germans were working on their own nuclear weapon, and had enough traction that this was of great concern to the allied leadership. So the question is not, would the soviets have won, but rather would they have won *before the germans completed their nuclear weapon*.

So the real question is - did Enigma distract and delay the germans from this goal?

It did. As just one example, breaking Enigma is widely held to weakened the U-boats hold on the North Atlantic, without which the D-Day landings could have been delayed by a year or even longer, as the North Atlantic was the route that brought ammunition, fuel, food and troops to Britain from America.

What would the germans have done with an extra year with no western front to worry about?

At the very least, they would have been able to redeploy resources to the easter front, which would certainly have slowed the russians down. And at the worst, they could have completed their own atom bomb, with dire consequences to the rest of the world.

It's certainly hyperbole to say that Enigma won the war. But it's also hyperbole to say - as you do - that Engima machine had no material impact on the war.

it's generally regarded that the german was no where close to develop a nuclear bomb. They had plans that was started, but they didn't really have the resources to do this at all. It's just part of this narrative myth, maybe to justify the operations against them or that it just makes for a better story. Also, germany's fleet was in shambles toward the end of the war and the allied had complete control of the english channel

You are right or close-to-right about this (and your comment is what prompted me to look up some stats about which I did have wrong assumptions, so thank you), but the combative tone (and hyperbole and dissing of journalists) you are using is a disservice to the facts you want to share with us.

Why do you think the journalist don't deserve the dissing, if they do a sloppy job of it. Years ago when Guardian had comments open for most of its articles, the commentary was full of people calling out every single sloppy thing the journalist did in the article, until the present editor effectively banned the criticism of journalists. Journalists could use direct and immediate feedback.

(1) Because sibling comments already pointed out that the journalist is correct about Turing becoming better known among the general US public around that time. (2) It is a lazy "middle brow" reaction to just always blame the journalist and claim that they did not try to understand what they have read -- there is no nuance and no possible answer, it just ends the conversation instead of opening it up and trying to understand why an intelligent and honest person would say what they said (discourse is impossible if you do not start from an assumption of honesty and demand of yourself high standards of proof before assuming laziness or dishonesty). (3) It is dangerous for the fabric of society to just disregard what journalists say altogether instead of trying to understand it in the context of their (usually admitted) biases. (4) Admittedly this last one is just a pet peeve of mine: There is a gigantic difference between journalists and opinion writers and I strongly dislike when journalists are blamed for the intellectual and moral failures of opinion writers.

This is such a bad take, it's borderline disingenuous.

(1) Pointing out that Turing was well known before 2012, as if this fact somehow explains anything about the context or reasoning for the viewpoint, is lazy. Generally, duplicated points occur in internet forums. "someone else already said this" is, at best, banal.

(2) This is apparently what happened, so it's accurate critical analysis, afaict.

(3) This is beyond hyperbole. Fabric of society? Which society? What do you mean by "fabric"? SMH

For what is worth, I am actually sincere, not disingenuous/trolling (and I link my public identity to this). I have a hard time seeing how your agreement about the facts in (1) (whether repeated or not by others) does not contradict your claims about "what apparently happened" claimed in (2). The question was "why is dissing undeserved" and in (1) saying "because the journalist is right in their context" seems like a pretty reasonable answer to me.

Lastly, I am surprised at your umbrage at what I have said in (1). When asked "why", it seems like a pretty reasonable answer to say "look at all the other comments that confirm and justify this statement".

(3) Fair enough, it is hyperbolic. Democratic society. "Fabric" is a pretty common idiom for the underlying norms (e.g. journalism exposing issues with the other 3 branches, having a non-governmental source of mass information)

I thought the term "fabric of society" consists of things like hospitals and pwer plants - things that can be bombed, and upon which society depends.

It seems it has been used in both and other ways: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/example/english/fabric-o...

For what is worth, your comment and this link[1] is the first time I have seen it used for material infrastructure.

[1] I am on the fence whether the quotes in the link can straightforwardly be interpreted to be about material infrastructure as opposed to "moral/social fabric".

> 90% of the german military were destroyed by the Soviets in the eastern front

This is probably true of the Germany army, but not the air force, and certainly not the navy.

Furthermore, it does not demonstrate your point that "Bletchley Park ... had no material impact on the war", which is demonstrably false. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra for a list of some contributions; but it is surely obvious that reading the enemy's communications is going to be of great help in a war.

> Germany had no chance of winning.

True once they were fighting UK + USSR + USA; the odds against them were too great.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra

Quote:

> The exact influence of Ultra on the course of the war is debated

So, you provided a link that proves your own comment incorrect ...

The statement "the impact of X on Y is debated" is a different one than "X did not have an impact on Y". I agree that there's not enough to say definitively that Enigma definitely had a major impact, but that doesn't mean it absolutely didn't.

> I agree that there's not enough to say definitively that Enigma definitely had a major impact

The parent comment wrote:

> which is demonstrably false

which demonstrably proves my comment perfectly valid and correct.

Try again later.

There are so many incommensurables in your argument.

Should they have spent the money on trucks or information?

Did Enigma do anything or did it merely prevent losses?

Should they have invested in spies or computers?

There is another possibility…was enigma merely a front to mask the real source of the information—-some human source? Initially its value could have been as a “check” on the intelligence coming in from a German source. The fact that it led to the development of computing must be entirely due to Alan Turing’s influence.

It's worth mentioning that it wasn't just Germany on the Axis side, but a 6 nation alliance that invaded the USSR.

The US empire needs to justify it's existence.

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