> I know Hartmut Neven personally and professionally, and have for decades

I don't want to put you on the spot too much, but can you speak to why he included the part about many-worlds in this blog post?

I don't know enough about Google to say if maybe someone else less technical wrote that, or if he is being pressured to put sci-fi sounding terms in his posts, or if he believes Google's quantum computer is actually testing many-worlds, or some other reason I can't think of.

> Attacking him for wearing a wristband? That's an ad hominem attack, and not worthy of my time to counter you on.

I picked my words very carefully and I would appreciate if you responded to what I said, not what you think I implied.

I specifically called out - I'm having feelings of bias. That in a field full of quack science and overpromises and underdelivery, I am extraordinarily suspicious of anyone who I feel might be associated with a shall we say "less than rigorous relationship with scientific accuracy". This person's aesthetic reminds me of this.

> The fact is that "Burners" are everywhere, nothing about Burning Man means someone is automatically a quack. Your distrust seems misplaced and colored by your own personal biases. The list of prominent people in tech that are also "burners" would likely shock you. I doubt you've ever been to Burning Man, but you're going to judge people who have? Maybe you're just feeling a little bit too "square" and are threatened by people who live differently than you do.

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm a repeat Burner throughout the 2000's (though it's been a decade), and I've been to a dozen regional Burner events. I know many Burners both in the tech industry and outside of it.

So I actually speak with some experience. I know wonderful people who are purely artists and are not scientifically/technologically inclined - and they're great. I also know deep technologists for whom Burning man is purely an aesthetic preference - a costume not an outfit. Something to pretend to be for a little while but that otherwise has no bearing on their outside life.

And I unfortunately know those whose brainrot ends up intertwining. Crypto evangelists who find healing crystals just as groundbreaking as the blockchain. It's this latter category that I am the most suspicious of, and what I worry when I see a person presented as an authoritative leader in the Quantum Computing domain demonstrate in their external presentation.

I led with an acknowledgement that I am judging a book by it's cover, which one ought to never do. But I think it is worth pointing out because respectability in a cutting edge field is important, lest you end up achieving technological breakthroughs that don't actually change society at all (as already happened with Google Glass).

> You don't have to believe me, and I don't expect that you will,

Why would you expect that I wouldn't?

> but I've talked at length with him about his work, and about a great many other topics, and he is not as you think he is.

That's fantastic to hear! You have direct evidence contradicting the assumptions generated by my first impression. This is all that matters, and all you had to say.