Yes, totally. I feel like the computational complexity part of quantum computing is actually pretty well explained to the 'layman' by some of Scott Aaronson's work, but unfortunately it's not well placed in context (i.e. it very much focuses on the theoretical CS, and not the whole QC picture). You have to sort of start digging for material about computational complexity theory/quantum and stumble into his output.

Planning on starting a substack/blog soon!

Your questions are helpful bar-setter for me, and more or less align with the questions that I had when I was starting out this project (sans the skepticism of quantum mechanics period, I take that as a given). Going down your list:

- Yeah there's a distinction between asymmetric and symmetric encryption schemes. Asymmetric schemes are typically used to make a shared private key which is then used in ensuing symmetrically encoded communications. Those asymmetric schemes are broadly vulnerable to quantum based attacks, hence the need to upgrade to 'post quantum encryption schemes' (PQS). PQS approaches have been developed and are slowly being rolled out, even though it's unclear when the threat of quantum-enabled cracking will be real.

- Yes, I cover this extensively. This actually relates to your last question as well, since error depends in part on what kind of qubit platform you're working with. A superconducting qubit naturally 'decoheres' (loses its unique state) over time, with some sort of semipredictable rate of decoherence, whereas photonic qubits sometimes just get lost! All platforms have some sort of built in error due to the fact that you are applying essentially analog gates to them, and these gates have some imprecision that may build up over millions of operations. I'd characterize the challenges as A) reducing error, and B) correcting the errors that inevitably occur.

- This was one of my sticking points too. The short answer is that there are a few different modalities all competing to be 'the one', and no one really knows what's going to win out. They all have their own (dis)advantages.

No, quantum physics is not a sham. Lasers are an application of quantum physics, for example. Usage of quantum physics principles in non scientific (thoughts are entangled!) or arbitrary macroscopic contexts (since electrons can cross a barrier, a human can pass through a wall) is an entirely different thing.

I would be very interested where you got some of these misconceptions and half-truths.

Thanks for sharing this. I think there are a few books in this vein: intro to quantum algorithms, basically. I particularly liked Thomas Wong's “Introduction to Classical and Quantum Computing”. I'm not so particularly interested in the math details, and I want my book to go further. I haven't found any (layman-friendly) text that breaks down the actual mechanisms of operation behind the qubit modalities, considers the implications of successful QC development, etc.