A reader named Prempeh writes in the comments section of my last post:
I’m really no happier because of knowing that a phenomenon called quantum entanglement exist [sic]. Now, you say, this phenomenon has the potential to enable super-powerful computing, teleportation, … I say, until science helps me with a comprehensive, provable, repeatable methodology for using it’s [sic] results to make me (and everyone who wants to be) happy, I really do not see it as significantly more helpful than faith.
NB: Any chance that a unification theory could help the poor stave off devastating climate change caused in part by the profligacy of the west? End the brutality of war? Stop child sexual exploitation? Remove corruption, greed, racism, …
This is not a rhetorical question
A few quick non-rhetorical answers:
- At the least, thinking about quantum entanglement doesn’t exacerbate problems like war and climate change (if we neglect o(1) terms like the jet fuel needed to fly to conferences). The same can’t be said for many other human endeavors.
- The scientific revolution 400 years ago led directly to a doubling of the human lifespan, the birth of democracy and its subsequent spread across the world (Galileo, Newton → Spinoza, Hume, Locke → Paine, Jefferson → …), and the cessation of practices such as witch-burning. It’s true that those few lucky enough to have been tribal chieftains with large harems probably wouldn’t want to trade places with a modern; and also true that Hitler and Stalin managed to surpass the already-impressive brutality of the ancients. But on the whole, it seems to me that the human condition improved once we started understanding how the universe works. And given the number of utopian ideas that managed to do nothing but drench this vale of tears in new tears of their own, I don’t see the relative success of curiosity-driven science as anything to sneeze at.
- I do try to do my tiny part to raise awareness of climate change and other threats to civilization. Of course, every time I do so, I’m attacked in the comments section by hordes of denialists who tell me I should stick to what I know about (like quantum entanglement). There’s just no pleasing everyone.
- I see the central problem facing humanity — much more central than climate change, greed, racism, or anything else you mentioned — as collective stupidity. If we, as a species, weren’t so collectively stupid, we’d have error-correcting mechanisms that checked the other problems before they spiraled out of control.I also maintain the possibly-naïve hope that, if people could just understand basic conceptual points about how the world works — like why quantum entanglement doesn’t allow faster-than-light communication, but is still not the same as classical correlation — some tiny contribution might be made to fighting the collective stupidity of our species and thereby helping to ensure its continued survival. That, and not the prospect of teleportation or super-powerful computing, is what really motivates me.