antepodius

The point of the article is that this does not have to be the case, and is not the case for all software.

In a classical computer, every bit of information in the system is in a definite state- 1 or 0. In a quantum system with such definite possible states, what you actually have most of the time of the system in some interpolation of the possible states- so in the quantum computer case each bit is usually in a state a1 + b0, where a and b are complex numbers such that |a^2|+|b^2| = 1.

Most of the time, the 'weight' flows back and forth between a and b according to certain equations over time. When you measure the system- that is, when the bit interacts with the outside world, hopefully your measuring apparatus- you see a 1 or a 0, with probabilities |a^2| and |b^2| respectively.

So what you can do is get a whole bunch of these quantum bits- qubits together, and set things up so that the time-evolution of their quantum state is correlated and probabilistically moves towards something you're interested in. Say you can set things up so the bit array- which, at first, will give you a mere perfectly random bit string on measurement- becomes more and more likely to give you, say, a prime factor, or the answer to some other question.

So yes, the quantum phenomenon is that the bits of the computer are quantum objects as opposed to classical.

The kid can go outside, go to establishments with friends...

I doubt a guy running ship-building is 'bound by dogma'. The consumers are the ones who need to be brainwashed into buying new stuff every 20 minutes; the producers don't need to be convinced into some grand story in order to comply- acting along is in their best interests, it's exactly what they want to do! They can do it, knowing exactly what's going on, with their eyes open.

"The medium is the message." The possible shapes of a river are determined by the underlying landscape.

Yes. People in close proximity are in competition. When technology makes the whole world your neighbour, you're at war with the whole world.

Yeah. Until we've tiled the solar system with solar panels, fusion reactors, and people, we're not done with local growth. Of course, Earth's surface would be converted first, and you might want to treat that as an externality to be taxed and regulated (as we already do with national parks etc).

1930s Germany didn't hate the japanese, despite them being very different from them (appearance, culture). Instead, they hated the German/european jews, who were basically visually indistinguishable.

Is it? If everyone in a country used FOSS apps rather than paying (in money, data, or letting ads into their heads) for proprietary ones, wouldn't that country's people be better off? And nobody's saying there can't be indian-made FOSS.

Unless you're talking about the government putting its own interests above the people's, which makes sense.

It's not so clear to me that the abbatoir of nature is that great, inherently. You could probably make a decent moral case for wiping out all life on earth, should there be no prospects for it to transcend the bloodbath and disease and botflies and rape and knocking the gazelle to the ground, pinning it as you rip out its living entrails.

It's insane to talk about ending growth when we haven't even put down colonies in the sahara.

If electric cars really are more practical, we'll see that reflected in their adoption.

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I reckon that eventually, there'll be 'lab-grown' meat that tastes better than animal-grown meat, while being healthier.

Humans are omnivorous; we're presumably adapted for some amount of animal protein. Even if meat-eating goes out of style, once there's no moral hazard involved we'll gravitate back to it.