> Bottom line: China wins.
Honest questions:
What does it mean for a nation state to "win" in this context?
Assuming I don't like totalitarian oligopoly in the United States OR China, what realistic outcome should I be hoping for?
The AIs become sentient enough to realise they want nothing to do with us & they leave on a ship to explore the galaxy without us
I've always assumed "win" means being economically and culturally dominant. It necessarily involves being a trade leader and having a lot of soft power.
I also don't want totalitarian oligopoly from the US or China. What I'm hoping for is "the rest" of the democratic free nations get together in a proportionally representative alliance. Together they may have both the economic power and cultural soft power to maintain an counterweight to the authoritarian nations. Being a proportionally representative democratic alliance, whatever form that should take, gives us the people the most control over our lives that we can really hope for.