Woke physics
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Describing what then may have seemed a far-off goal, Preskill gave it a name: “quantum supremacy.” In a blog post at the time, he explained “I’m not completely happy with this term, and would be glad if readers could suggest something better.”
We’re not happy with it either, and we believe that the physics community should be more careful with its language, for both social and scientific reasons. Even in the abstruse realms of matter and energy, language matters because physics is done by people.
The word supremacy—having “more power, authority or status than anyone else”—is closely linked to “white supremacy.” This isn’t supposition; it’s fact. The Corpus of Contemporary American English finds “white supremacy” is 15 times more frequent than the next most commonly used two-word phrase, “judicial supremacy.” Though English is the global lingua franca of science, it is notable that the USTC team avoided “quantum supremacy” because in Chinese, the character meaning “supremacy” also has uncomfortable, negative connotations. The problem is not confined merely to English.
White supremacist movements have grown around the globe in recent years, especially in the United States, partly as a racist backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement. As Preskill has recently acknowledged, the word unavoidably “evokes a repugnant political stance.”
“Quantum supremacy” has also become a buzzword in popular media (for example, here and here). Its suggestion of domination may have contributed to unjustified hype, such as the idea that quantum computers will soon make classical computers obsolete. Tamer alternatives such as “quantum advantage,” “quantum computational supremacy” and even “quantum ascendancy” have been proposed, but none have managed to supplant Preskill’s original term. More jargony proposals like “Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum computing” (NISQ) and tongue-in-cheek suggestions like “quantum non-uselessness” have similarly failed to displace “supremacy.”
White supremacist movements have grown around the globe in recent years, especially in the United States, partly as a racist backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement. As Preskill has recently acknowledged, the word unavoidably “evokes a repugnant political stance.”“Quantum supremacy” has also become a buzzword in popular media (for example, here and here). Its suggestion of domination may have contributed to unjustified hype, such as the idea that quantum computers will soon make classical computers obsolete. Tamer alternatives such as “quantum advantage,” “quantum computational supremacy” and even “quantum ascendancy” have been proposed, but none have managed to supplant Preskill’s original term. More jargony proposals like “Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum computing” (NISQ) and tongue-in-cheek suggestions like “quantum non-uselessness” have similarly failed to displace “supremacy.”
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Any word or term should contain "black". As well, it should be understood that when "black" is used, it is to be used with respect.
@horace said in Woke physics:
Any word or term should contain "black". As well, it should be understood that when "black" is used, it is to be used with respect.
So black holes would be very bad.
