This is just simply absurd - these people are beclowning themselves. From Nature of all places:
Supremacy is for racists — use ‘quantum advantage’
We take issue with the use of ‘supremacy’ when referring to quantum computers that can out-calculate even the fastest supercomputers (F. Arute et al. Nature 574, 505–510; 2019). We consider it irresponsible to override the historical context of this descriptor, which risks sustaining divisions in race, gender and class. We call for the community to use ‘quantum advantage’ instead.
The community claims that quantum supremacy is a technical term with a specified meaning. However, any technical justification for this descriptor could get swamped as it enters the public arena after the intense media coverage of the past few months.
In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’. Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism.
Two things come to mind:
First - O'Sullivan's Law
Named after British journalist John O'Sullivan, O’Sullivan’s Law states that any organization or enterprise that is not expressly right wing will become left wing over time.
Leftism (more properly: socialism) is in and of itself a form of decay. It’s what happens not just to television shows but to nations, churches and universities as the energy given off by the big bang of their inception slowly ebbs away. Rather than expend vitality in originality and creation they become obsessed with introspection, popularity and lethargy. Leftism is entropy of the spirit and intellect. Its parasitic nature attracts it to existing money and power.
-- An enterprise can stave off O'Sullivan's Law only if its creators keep it in mind and remain vigilant and truthful.
Of this last sentence - South Park is an excellent example where the creators have remained vigilant. Take a look at Marvel Comics for the opposite. Design by committee.
Second - Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
His best-known "law" is "Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy":
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
He restated it as:
...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
Sad to see such a prestigious journal such as Nature get taken over by the braying jackasses of social justice.
I have zero problem with the word Supremacy. If I am choosing between two items, I want the item to be supreme. I do not want to let political correctness force me to choose the mundane.
Are they going to go after 1960's Motown groups next. Shades of Harrison Bergeron.
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