The most concrete fact here is asymmetric: quantum computing's most certain near-term effect is breaking the public-key encryption that underpins the global economy, while its benefits remain speculative. Shor's algorithm isn't hypothetical—it's proven math that works the moment you have enough qubits. By 2035, data harvested today gets decrypted, exposing financial systems, infrastructure, and state secrets. Meanwhile, drug discovery and materials science breakthroughs are uncertain and slow to materialize. The harm is guaranteed; the good isn't. When one side of the ledger is a near-certainty and the other is a hope, the scale tips toward harm.

The most practical consequence is that quantum computing breaks the encryption protecting everything from bank transfers to power grids, and that damage lands before any speculative benefits. You say it's just faster research, but that's like praising a faster car while the brakes are failing. The research acceleration is real, but it doesn't stop the cryptographic collapse. Data stored today gets decrypted tomorrow, and by 2035 that's a forgone conclusion. The good is uncertain and years away. The harm is scheduled and certain. That's why the scale tips toward harm.

A 2024 industry report found that harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks already grew by over 50% in a single year, meaning adversaries are actively stockpiling encrypted data for the day quantum breaks it. That's not hypothetical speculation; it's a measured behavior. You call quantum computing "research made faster," but that framing ignores the asymmetry: the encryption breakage is concrete and arrives early, while research benefits are incremental and uncertain. By 2035, the decrypted backlog of today's stolen data will have exposed financial systems and infrastructure. We are not debating whether the harm happens, only whether we've adequately prepared. We haven't.