[anonymous-panda]

I find the panic over potential threat of quantum quite amusing when the machine is still extremely theoretical - all existing machines are slower than classical and it’s not even clear they can scale to the required number of qubits.

There’s nowhere near the same urgency and significantly more denial over global warming. A bit apples and oranges but climate models have a better track record, are wildly conservative (ie our present is much worse than the past climate models predicted) and it’s a real problem we know exists and is a bullet train headed our way.

[ziddoap]

I think this may be your technology bubble showing.

Global warming is talked about on the radio, TV, movies. It's sung about in songs. There's several conferences, widely-attended protests, stickers on appliances, tax initiatives, etc.

A few comments on obscure sites like HN can hardly be called a panic. It is silly to suggest that there is more urgency about post-quantum attacks on crypto than global warming.

[CobrastanJorji]

I totally agree that climate change is a far more serious problem than quantum computing, but we do actually spend quite a bit on climate change, if not nearly as much as the problem warrants.

Depending on how you measure it, we theoretically spend about a trillion bucks a year worldwide on climate change ( https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-l... ) and maybe a couple billion bucks a year on quantum computers.

[eru]

Measures to combat climate change are weird, and also politicised in weird ways.

Eg the US administration like to pretend that climate change is a top priority, but then complains when Chinese tax payers generously subsidise solar cells and electric cars for American consumers.

[mensetmanusman]

These technologies are manufactured with stricter environmental controls when done in the US versus China. The picture isn't as simple as it may seem.

[eru]

How does this complicate the picture?

The environmental controls you are talking about mostly protect the local environment. Protecting the local environment is great, but crudely speaking, the global climate doesn't much care about whether you dump some toxic waste in some part of China.

What I hear in complaints about the exports from the Americans is that they are worried about good old jobs for good old American boys and girls (preferably in a union that is a strong voting block one way or another). So I would take the Americans at their word here.

Yet again, if the local environment in China was a priority of the administration that outweighed concern about climate change, you would see a very different policy. Instead of just putting tariffs and other restrictions on imports of some Chinese goods. You can probably come up with your own examples.

[jon_richards]

When global warming hits, the people who benefited from ignoring it will be best off. When quantum computers hit, the people benefiting the most right now will be the worst off as all their communications from this era are decrypted.

[SJC_Hacker]

The slow poison is alot less alarming than the sharp knive.