Ask Lemmy

I wouldn't have a problem with any actually democratic country being a superpower since I've always lived in a democratic superpower. Though it's flawed and not the greatest, it sure as Hell would beat growing up in an authoritarian superpower.

As for the things listed, I wouldn't mind the whole Chinese becoming the defacto world language considering I could probably learn it and if not, translation tools are better than ever before in most cases. I wouldn't mind Chinese Hollywood so long as they were making quality animated films (which is way more than possible for them currently, just look at films like Legend of Hei and Big Fish and Begonia). Fengshui as a spiritual practice I can't get behind personally, but have no problems with.

Got no complaints about where UN headquarters would be moved to in this hypothetical so long as it's not an authoritarian country. I don't mind Lunar New Year becoming a major holiday since it's fairly harmless as a concept (just don't go blowing yourself up with firecrackers somehow). So long as the safety and privacy measures are roughly the same and I'm not being uber spied on, don't really care who has control of business manufacturing, no authoritarian country though.

Knowing Baidu, without the government requirement to censor, they'd become the new gøøgle in this hypothetical world, so you wouldn't catch me directly using it. Don't have enough info on harmony to make a statement about it since I usually just use budget samsun phones with their android tweaks. As for windows/Linux, there are already whole entire Linux distros (like Deepin) that may be forks of one of the big distros but are their own thing. But knowing me, I'd still stick with whatever Linux I am using at the time, so little to no impact for me there.

All in all, I don't have a problem in this hypothetical. But that's something we're pretty far away from ever becoming a reality, though.

it'll take a huge and lucky shift to have this happen, but still interesting on your choices of pop culture changes.

anyways, i believe a more short term thing is each region will have economic areas of influence and may or may not have bits and pieces of what you described here.

That depends on how they act. China right now is on a path where I'd oppose them replacing the US. However the EU has the ability to replace the US as the global superpower - they don't because despite some significant differences overall the US and EU get along well and so they don't see any point. By cooperating the EU gains the things they want from being a global superpower without the disadvantages. Part of that cooperation is the EU is in NATO (mostly?) and so they are paying some of the military costs of the US being a global super power.

The US isn't perfect by any means, but we have done much better in many ways vs previous global superpowers. Right now I'd predict China would be worse so I oppose it. However who knows how things will change in the future.

I don’t think we have a choice, and the US having the largest military in the world doesn’t really mean anything unless we just want to kill everyone.

Sure why not?

There has to be more than one superpower. Humanity is too immature to behave itself without the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Most of the bullshit American hegemony really started to ramp up after the fall of the USSR when the US found itself unchecked. It could basically go in and fuck up whatever country they felt like. At least during the cold war, they had to consider the possibility of a power equal to their own countering them. Without a check and balance on the world stage, the U.S. has proven itself repeatedly to be without a doubt, the villain of the story.

I don't understand why you would connect these two things. Since when does any power's foreign policy treat those in the rest of the world as if they have any of the rights afforded to their own citizens? The US certainly doesn't.

No.

It wouldn't be any different, the US is NOT a democracy either and is a global superpower 🤷‍♂️

China will never be democratic. English is there because it's easy. There is no default search engine (but there would be one if "democratic" China controlled everything...), same for your Linux crap, who would install this without being forced when there are already a thousand better alternatives.

Sounds boring, you described what would happen if a dictatorship ruled the world (and no whataboutism with the USA, I'm also immune to what they are doing).