[marianatom]

You can brush any counterpoints away you want by mentioning pundits who are too early in their prediction.

Sure, let's talk about broader context and macro trends. unless something big changes, these macro trends won't go away:

- alignment of dictatorship vs free countries. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran vs US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India, Australia, Philippines, Canada.

- dictatorship is losing. China is propping up all the dictators around the world, and its losing that power

- China demographics collapse

- China's rising and insolvent local government debts, which can no longer generate income by selling land. because China has too many buildings - 6 billion by last count. and demographics collapse. and lack of jobs

- Tech sanctions on China. China's inability to catch up on tech.

which indicates China's stagnation and decline for the next 10-20 years.

[pas]

unfortunately far-right populist illiberalism is on the rise globally. (and also far-left populist demagoguery too, maybe unsurprisingly.) although, hopefully, that'll pass as the current median voter gets a grasp of reality (and get inoculated against social media fueled craziness at least a bit)

[marianatom]

here's the thing, humanity got lucky. there was a nonzero chance that china and the dictatorships could have triumphed. if China didn't botch the chance to overtake US in 2008 with a capable dictator. if China got its hands on many advanced US military technologies. if Russia didn't botch the Ukraine invasion. if covid didn't have a vaccine, except one that China developed.

I'm sure most of us are aware of the gulags that China ran in 2022, in the most prosperous city like Shanghai, with welded doors, lack of food, arbitrary killing of pets, moving their own citizens against their wills to camps or cells with no running water and unsanitary conditions. with cries in tall buildings from families in the middle of night for food. If. you haven't seen these things, go watch it online. Imagine if somehow China succeeded, and that's all of humanity's fate.