Strategies of Information Dominance in the Context of the Rivalry Between Western and Chinese Concepts of the Future World Order

Statement of the questionFundamental changes in the field of information technology over the past thirty years have led to the emergence of the most unexpected phenomena in all areas of human activity.

Search engines, social networks, big data, smartphones, and the digital economy have not just changed the quality of life, they have transformed a significant part of humanity into a new form – a kind of hybrid of man and technology. Or as they often say now – Homo Digital. The potential of new technologies, both creative and military, is commensurate with the potential of nuclear energy.  In this regard, today it is extremely important to correctly assess the opportunities and risks of new technologies, to understand which of them will be the basis of the new world order and media consumption. The task of this article is to try to make such an estimate in the first approximation by describing and analyzing the schematic diagram of one of the variants of the information structure being created. 

Economic conflicts and the "tariff wars" of the United States and China are a projection of the aspirations of these superpowers to take a leading global position. The primary agenda for saving natural resources for the planet today, the understanding that "people and nature are on a collision trajectory," implies a meaningful and purposeful environmental policy: control of resources, quotas for emissions and production, regulation of migration flows, etc.  Without political will, this is not feasible on the scale of the state, and if we talk about the community of states, we need a single transparent policy on this issue.

 Or you can go further: the globalists' projects justify the need for a single decision-making center and a mechanism that makes it extremely unprofitable to violate the decisions made. This will be discussed in more detail below. The term "globalists" in this article is used more from an economic point of view to designate a community of politicians, large owners and leaders of TNCs who advocate neoliberalism in Hayek/Friedman terms (privatization, free trade and the abolition of state regulation) on a global scale. Clarification is needed here.

According to one of the most striking studies on economics written in the Internet era, "Capital in the XXI Century" 2013, by French economist Tom Piketty, the main beneficiaries of globalization and liberalization in the economy are "the upper decile of Anglo-Saxon countries". The data provided by Piketty is particularly revealing within these 10% of the wealthiest Americans, Britons, Canadians and Australians (and New Zealanders). He divides this decile into 9% and 1%, and in the wealthiest 1% he also provides data on income and property of 0.1% - the richest stratum of the population of these countries. For each group, Piketty provides detailed figures on income, property, taxes, etc. and the rationale for using his methods at each stage of the study, compared to which the Forbes ratings are balloon advertising. Piketty summarizes all this data on graphs that visualize the impressive successes of these individual categories. Piketty's terminology is very direct and unambiguous. For example, a note to Graph 9.5. The upper thousandth part in Anglo-Saxon countries in 1910-2010: "Since the 1970s, the share of the upper thousandth (0.1% of the richest) in national income has greatly increased in all Anglo-Saxon countries." ^{[1, p. 318]} Next is graph 9.6. The upper thousandth part in countries of continental Europe and Japan in 1910-2010 and note: "In comparison with the Anglo-Saxon countries, the share of the upper thousandth part in continental Europe and Japan has grown slightly since the 1970s." ^{[1, p. 319]}.

If we combine Piketty's data with the historical and administrative features of the EU, then the beneficiaries of globalization can certainly include the "upper-upper class high society" (1%) and partially the top 10% of the countries of continental Europe and European politicians affiliated with this upper stratum. And also, the majority of politicians and lobbyists in administrations and parliaments/governments in countries dependent on the United States and/or Britain should be attributed to globalists. It should be particularly noted that in the USA, it has been over the past 20 years that castling of politicians and business leaders has become a common practice.  After the end of their powers, politicians are employed in large corporations / banks or vice versa, business leaders go to government agencies. The cycle of politicians and corporate executives in Western scientific discourse is denoted by the term revolving doors. Also, a normal practice, especially in the USA and Britain, is a situation when politicians come from families of the highest financial stratum or political dynasties. Which, of course, greatly devalues meritocratic ideas about democracy in Western societies. The extreme of such a devaluation of values was formulated by Donald Trump: The American dream is dead.

It should be noted that Piketty's work, which has become a scientific bestseller of the last decade, is referred to both in the reports of the Davos Economic Forum and in the reports of the Club of Rome. Moreover, the globalists, using this research, argue the following thesis. Since, according to Piketty, inequality is growing, globalization should be not less, but more, and then the global government will be able to deal with it effectively. More on this below.Such a vision of the future by globalists contradicts China's ideology, primarily in the question of who and how will head such a decision-making center, as was stated in the final speech of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 70th UN General Assembly in 2015.

Both concepts determine the introduction of new ICTs and contradictions of the globalist and Chinese ways are also revealed here.

The third important contradiction is military-technical. In addition to the anti-Chinese military alliance of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States - AUKUS, commercial satellite groupings are actively developing, which are dual-use technologies and create new threats that have not been previously considered. All these contradictions have already led to a production and technological crisis in the processor manufacturing industry, changed the balance of power and outlined fundamental changes in the global market of the entire IT industry. This study provides evidence that the industry is out of balance and is in the stage of active transformation.

It should be noted that the theses formulated in this article are quite correlated with the Harvard Kennedy School report 2021. "The Great Technological Rivalry: China versus the United States."^[2]

Background

To substantiate all of the above, you will need a small generalizing digression into the history of the development of the IT industry. In the initial period of the formation of the world Wide Web, the most popular Internet product was search engines. A short–lived competition revealed the absolute champion of search - Google. L. Page and S. Brin from Stanford University decided to apply the system of academic citation ratings to determine the most relevant answers to user queries and conquered almost the entire market, without any aggressive marketing strategy in relation to competitors. A new word has appeared – "to google".  

It should be emphasized that Google's cooperation with the intelligence community, long before this company became the largest player in the IT market. "In 2003, Google, in accordance with a special contract with the CIA, also began to support the search engine for the Intelink Management Service, which is part of it, "controlling top-secret, secret and simply confidential, but not secret Intranet networks for the CIA and other intelligence agencies." Key agencies used Google systems to support their internal wiki called Intellipedia, which allowed agents to share information with other organizations immediately after it was "absorbed" into new systems." ^{[3, p.157]}   These data are cited in his 700-page study "The Era of Supervisory Capitalism" by American sociologist Shoshanna Zuboff.

Having become market leaders, virtually monopolists, Google decided to change the rules of the game: since December 2009, search has become personal. [Horling B. Kulick M. Personalized search for everyone. Google Official. URL: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html (accessed: 04.11.2022)] Personal search means that two users typing the same query in a search engine from their computers receive different sets of results depending on their personal data. From that moment, the era of information encapsulation began: requests are automatically filtered, creating a personal information universe for each user. Today, Google Corporation's customers are all Internet users in one way or another. Android, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, GoogleMap and Google Play Store are all Google empire.

A slightly different filtering and encapsulation strategy was used by social networks: providing information based on personal preferences and preferences of "friends". The new verb of social networks is "to like". There were two databases and two concepts of identity: "what we google" and "what we like". ^[4] Moreover, both technologies are implemented according to the quantum principle: "Knowledge about what we do affects what we see."  [ibid, c. 131]

This filtering algorithm by the early 2010s had identified the dominant social network - Facebook.  In 2012-2014, the company acquired/absorbed Instagram and WhatsApp. In 2018, Facebook's audience exceeded 2 billion users and this virtual Lebon crowd made the corporation an important global player. [Press G. Why Facebook Triumphed Over All Other Social Networks.//Forbes. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2018/04/08/why-facebook-triumphed-over-all-other-social-networks/?sh=5876d6496e91 (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Social networks have become a communication, media, and political phenomenon.  The Arab Spring has demonstrated how these dual-use technologies can be used by extremists. ^[5]

An important remark related to the exposure of former intelligence officer Edward Snowden is needed here. The materials handed over by Snowden to independent journalists were published in the Washington Post, the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald's book "Nowhere to Hide", and Laura Poitras' documentary "Citizenfour" was also filmed based on these materials. Based on the results of these publications, a parliamentary investigation was conducted and the federal law "USA Freedom Act of 2015" or "Freedom Act" was adopted to calm public opinion, which does not change anything de facto.  Investigations were also conducted in a number of countries, for example, Germany, France, Brazil.

The documents and information submitted by Snowden and verified by experts contain unambiguous information that Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other IT corporations signed cooperation contracts with the US NSA in 2003-2009. [Gellman B. Poitras L. U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program // Washington Post URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html (accessed: 04.11.2022)] Which fully correlates with the data given in the work of Sh. Zuboff. ^[3]

         Such coercion to cooperate took place within the framework of the implementation of the "Collect it All" concept, proclaimed in 2005 by the Director of the NSA K. Alexander. [Warrick J. Nakashima E. For NSA chief, terrorist threat drives passion to ‘collect it all' // Washington Post URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-nsa-chief-terrorist-threat-drives-passion-to-collect-it-all/2013/07/14/3d26ef80-ea49-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html (Accessed: 04.11.2022).]

 The architecture of the modern Internet, including servers and data centers, was built by IT corporations together with the NSA and in fact is one whole. The most important digital resource of our time, the source of Big Tech's wealth – large user (personal) data used to build behavioral prediction models, is completely open to the intelligence community. (Big Tech or The Tech Giants, Big Five, S&P 5 are Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft.)

 "In less than a generation, the volume of user bases of the most successful network platforms has exceeded the population of most countries and even some continents. The boundaries of these arrays of users do not coincide with the state, and the interests of the parties controlling the activities of network platforms do not coincide with the interests of individual countries." ^{[6, p.110]} "This Google is a superpower that sets its own values and pursues its own goals, standing above and beyond the social contracts that bind the rest." ^{[3, p.111]}

Having recognized the social and military-technical threats inherent in the Internet technology in time, China managed to implement the Golden Shield project - the Great Chinese Internet Wall in the period 1998 - 2008. As a result, China today has an autonomous IR network, including search engines, social networks, messengers, etc.  In China, from the very beginning, the Internet was viewed as a dual–use technology that could be used to produce social harmony or to activate the process of suicide of society - civil war, in the terminology of Thomas Hobbes.  

Modern realitiesBy the end of the 2010s, the most promising trend for the future of media consumption were personal assistants are based on AI, the development of which was seriously involved in all the major IT corporations: Google Assistant, Apple SIRI, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Alexa, Facebook M, Sony Xperia Agent, Bixby, Samsung, Yandex Alice.

Where, AI - artificial intelligence, artificial neural network, a self-learning program, created under the solution of specific problems, for example, search engines are Google, Baidu or Yandex.

Today, these talking music speakers have become common household appliances. They collect information, self-study, improve, learn to recognize children's or slurred speech. Children and adults communicate with personal assistants, mainly by ordering entertainment content, less often used as a search engine.   However, personal assistants in today's media concept may eventually turn out to be a product for a narrow social group. Leading media resources have made access to their information paid today, this clearly indicates the vector: to divide the media consumption of the elites and the precariat. Personal assistants with whom even children can talk are becoming an important node of the new communication structure. Following the logic of this vector, it is appropriate to assume that this service will also eventually receive an information filter: for example, a paid extended version with access to news agencies and archives/libraries, while providing entertainment content to the bulk of users for free. 

Another promising, actively developed area (for example, in the company Neurolink I. Mask) are implants that allow you to control other devices. Neurointerface is a technology of communication between the brain and an external device — a computer, smartphone, exoskeleton, prosthesis, household appliances, artificial sensory organs and other devices. Today it is the field of medical prosthetics.  Including implanting a paralyzed patient in order to access cloud services and communicate with other implant holders. [Vance A. Brain-Computer Interface Startup Implants First Device in US Patient. //Bloomberg. URL:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-18/brain-computer-interface-company-implants-new-type-of-device?sref=LspfQlRv (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Professor Yuval Noah Harari of the University of Jerusalem writes in his widely quoted bestseller Homo Deus: "But if Hitler and others like him planned to breed superhumans through breeding and ethnic cleansing, then the technohumanism of the XXI century hopes to achieve this goal in a much more peaceful way, with the help of genetic engineering, nanotechnology and neurocomputer interfaces."^{[7, p.413]} "The projects of the XXI century – the attainment of immortality, happiness and divinity – also presuppose the benevolence of humanity as a whole. But since these projects are aimed at surpassing the norm, rather than preserving and guaranteeing it, they can lead to the creation of a new superhuman caste that will abandon its liberal roots and treat ordinary people no better than the Europeans of the XIX century with Africans" [ibid, p. 410]

It should be noted that the most likely candidates for superhumans, Professor Harari considers not the golden billion and not WASPS, but a certain community of WEIRD, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic - "global elites", who, according to Harari, will get access to new expensive technologies.

You can look at the technology of free personal assistants for the mass consumer from a different angle by taking a closer look at the Augmented Reality technology AR (Augmented Reality). This is a slightly different concept than the dialogue between the user and the personal assistant. Here suggestions come without requests, by default. The user looks at the object, and the system automatically outputs data to the headset's mini display, as a projection on the windshield of airplanes or cars of some models. In fact, these are system presets that can significantly affect user behavior.  This concept assumes that the user will use a device connected to the network (glasses or headset) for a significant part of the time, complementing everything that the user sees and hears with data.  In terms of Marshall McLuhan's theory of expansion, it is a prosthesis after self–amputation. ^[8] It can be said that in this case, the part of the brain's operating system responsible for the analytical processing of information is subject to self-amputation.

Augmented reality is an information filter that complements and interprets human perception, programs the vision of the world. The program code by default "complements" everything that the user sees and hears; without the possibility of choice, and without knowing that such a choice exists.   All incoming information in such an info capsule is processed by machine code. This is somewhat more than an informational and propaganda influence, rather, an option of "unconscious authority", "God's will" within us - in the terms of Carl Gustav Jung. ^[7] Machine code – becomes a law, a code, "created secretly and executed automatically." ^[10]

 Such an info-encapsulated system will give predictability, the ability to correct behavior and, ultimately, full controllability. Man becomes an extension of the machine, a part of it. The disadvantage of an automated society is that, like in a colony of ants or bees, there is little room for individuality. This technology, if successfully implemented, can unite society in the realization of a new harmonious world order or become an instrument of totalitarian dystopia.

Since 2022, judging by the active promotion of the metaverse theme in the media, the metaverse project has become the main direction of Big Tech development. For example, the New York Times search engine, when requesting "metaverse" for 10 months of 2022, gives 646 links, for the whole of 2021 – 117, and for the whole of 2020 – only 5.

Today on the web you can find many definitions of the term metaverse (hereinafter metaverse) from various articles and books, the company Meta Platforms, Inc., most often mentioned in articles about the metaverse gives the following definition: "The metaverse is a set of virtual spaces where you can "be" and communicate with other people who are not in the same physical space as you."  What is the difference between the metaverse and video games with 3D headsets? IT developer Raf Koster, distinguishes between online world, multivers, metavers. Online worlds are virtual 3D spaces with one main theme - for example, games or applications for the simultaneous "presence" of several users of 3D headsets. The multiverse is several different online worlds that do not have a common theme and rules connected to the network. A metaverse is a multiverse interacting with the real world, including things like AR technology, Internet banking, Google map, etc. [Robertson A., Peters J. What is the Metaverse and do I have to care. // TheVerge.URL: https://www.theverge.com/22701104/metaverse-explained-fortnite-roblox-facebook-horizon (accessed: 04.11.2022)]The term was first coined by writer Neil Stevenson in the 1992 dystopian novel Snow Disaster.

^[11] Stevenson's metaverse is a virtual world where user avatars interact. The prefix meta means "beyond", "verse" is part of the word universe.

Big Tech companies use this word to describe what they think will come after the internet. The concept of the metaverse assumes that the user does not look at the metaverse in the "window" of the monitor, but wearing a helmet, is "inside".  For such a universe to be complete, no single company should own the metaverse alone, just as no one formally owns the Internet. At the same time, the IT giants dominating the network today, according to the logic of business, should try to monopolize their segments of the metaverse. In 2021. Zuckerberg renamed Facebook Meta, thus leading the migration from the "Guttenberg galaxy" to the "Zuckerberg universe". His vision of the architecture of the structure under construction is set out by him in an open letter dated 02/16/2017. entitled "Building Global Community": "... to ensure our safety, to inform us, for civic participation and for the involvement of all."

But this does not mean that the rest of the IT giants and their curator - the intelligence community "5 eyes" (FVEY) - will remain on the sidelines. This is such a global project that it would be a mistake to start implementing it alone.

Meta-Economics and Meta-Politics It should be said that the media's interest in virtual worlds arose periodically, along with Hollywood blockbuster manifestos, such as "Lawn Mower" 1992, "Matrix" 2000, "Gamer" 2009, "Get Ready for the First Player" 2018, "Main Character" 2021.

We can also safely say that in recent decades, millions of people dependent on the video game industry, "live" half in virtuality.

Today's interest in augmented and virtual reality has moved from the field of fantastic concepts to the practical plane. The reason is the significantly changed potential of technical capabilities. The capacities of today's servers are able to serve a very limited number of users of the new metaverse Internet. But potentially, this is no longer impossible.

         INTEL Vice President Raja Kaduri, December, 2021: "Think about what it takes to put two people in a social environment in a fully virtual environment: convincing and detailed avatars with realistic clothes, hair and skin tones - all this is displayed in real time and based on sensor readings that capture real 3D–objects, gestures, sound, and more; ultra-high bandwidth data transmission and extremely low latency; and a permanent environment model that can contain both real and simulated elements. Now imagine that you are solving this problem at scale – for hundreds of millions of users at the same time – and you will quickly realize that our current computing, storage and network infrastructure is simply not enough to implement this concept. Truly sustainable and exciting computing, scalable and accessible to billions of people in real time, will require even more: an increase in computational efficiency by 1000 times compared to today's state of the art. [...] We believe that the dream of providing a petaflop of computing power and a petabyte of data within a millisecond to every person on the planet is within our reach." [Koduri R. The Powering of Metaverse.Intel.Newsroom.URL:https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/opinion/powering-metaverse.html#gs.vosbwj (accessed: 03/04/2022)]It is also important that devices that may replace smartphones – headsets, glasses and augmented/virtual reality AR/VR helmets - are being actively developed and tested on a large scale today.

Mark Liu, chairman of the board of directors of Taiwan-based TSMC Corporation, which provides more than half of the global processor market: "The main problem at the moment is how to make AR and VR headsets more affordable and lightweight and extend battery life [...] headsets must be improved 100 times if to become as popular like smartphones." [Chien-chung C. Huang F. TSMC, MediaTek upbeat about Metaverse future.// Focus Taiwan. URL: https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202112060016 (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

These interviews are given to illustrate the position of processor manufacturers: the metaverse engineering solution already exists, but significant resources will need to be mobilized for implementation.  Taking into account the speed of technology development, the metaverse operating in test mode today will be able to reach a certain "industrial" capacity in the next 10 years, but only if there is unity between the leadership of BigTech and the political leadership of the United States and their closest allies, as well as when implementing the ideas reflected in the "CHIPS and Science Act", signed a week after theAfter the visit to Taiwan by the Speaker of the US Parliament, N. Pelosi, where she met with the leadership of the TSCM.  [Whalen J. Pelosi dined with Taiwan computer chip executives during her brief visit. // Washington Post. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/03/pelosi-tsmc-meeting-lunch-semiconductors / accessed: 04.11.2022)]

It is also important that there are not enough specialists to launch chip production in the USA: "... more than 30,000 high-tech workers may be required to implement all planned production projects. The US can get these workers only by organizing "the talent pipeline" from Taiwan, according to an article in the Washington Post. .» [Whalen J. A new era of industrial policy kicks off with signing of the Chips Act.// Washington Post. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/09/micron-40-billion-us-subsidies / (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Today, to use the Oculus VR headset (a subsidiary of META) or another variant of the video game devices sold on the market, the user must log in using a Facebook account and then view free and paid applications offering access to virtual spaces, which can be both private, where the user is alone or with friends, and public.

One of the defining characteristics of the future metaverse is its constancy – it cannot be turned off, it is not a computer game. The metaverse, by design, claims to be the next iteration of the Internet, but for this it is necessary to scale the technology to the level of mass smartphones. Also, the question will inevitably arise how to convince users to "move" to a new wonderful meta-world. Returning to Jung, the "inner child" in each of us, who dreams of living in a fairy tale, will curiously put on glasses or a helmet and move from the real world to the metaverse, as in a video game, and today there are already a certain number of users testing the prom version of the metaverse.  Basically, they are addicted to video games and social networks (such dependence is often a deviation from the mental norm). Despite the fact that the harm caused by the Meta corporation to minors has already been the subject of hearings in the US Congress in 2021, children are already entering promo metavers using headsets/passwords of older family members. [Eccles L. My journey into the metaverse — already a home to sex predators.// The Times.URL: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-journey-into-the-metaverse-already-a-home-to-sex-predators-sdkms5nd3 (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Mentally healthy adults can be sent there with a "libertarian paternalistic nudge" ^[12], if, for example, their standard of living is greatly lowered and additional earnings are offered. People receiving benefits, over time, begin to feel a sense of their own uselessness, uselessness to society, dissatisfaction, frustration, especially in megacities, far from nature. The loss of self-esteem and self-esteem, over time, leads to psychological deviations, a decrease in criticism. Such a potential "crowd" can be used to scale metavers with a certain "architecture of choice".

 Since 2022, articles about weddings/commemorations in the metaverse, shareholder meetings, etc. have been published in media of the caliber of The Times. [Dhillon A. For meta, for verse: couple plan Potter-themed wedding in virtual reality // The Times. URL: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/for-meta-for-verse-couple-plan-harry-potter-themed-wedding-in-virtual-reality-872t68p2n (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, such messages create a certain public discourse and are similar to hidden advertising of a new technology. This is true, with a little clarification of what is advertised. It seems more likely that the task is not a paternalistic push of The Times readers into virtuality, except for an excursion as future buyers of Meta Platform, inc. shares. The real economic interest, corresponding to the scale of the project, can be represented by a large army of the precariat - all those who receive or will receive state benefits today. It would be ideal to make sure that all these benefits eventually begin to turn around inside the metaverse.

For today, there are already blockchain platforms, such as playtoearn.net where, as the name suggests, gamers can earn small amounts in cryptocurrency, due to their gaming activities. Recipients of the benefit can also be offered an additional daily mini-income, just for the fact of an 8-hour stay in the metaverse.  As soon as a multimillion-dollar plebs with guaranteed income appears in the metaverse, a multibillion-dollar market, internal and external, will appear. Ideally, as much money as possible should be spent inside the metaverse on virtual goods, for example, on applications to improve your avatar. Then there is the question of marketing, how to expand this new market of intangible consumption. Based on the speed of the introduction of smartphones or social networks, it can be assumed that within 10, at most 15 years, society will be recoded into a post-consumer one, colonizing the virtual world.

The ideology of post-consumerism, in accordance with the environmental agenda, should significantly narrow the needs of earthlings. According to the global trends described in the reports of the Royal Society of London^[13], the Club of Rome ^[14], the Davos Forum ^[15] and not so clearly, in the UN declarations on the prospects of the SDGs - optimal, material consumption is seen at the level of the Enlightenment: non-daily meat consumption, modest housing conditions, rental and rental instead of Ownership (Sharing Economy). [ Auken I. Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better.//Forbes. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/shopping-i-cant-really-remember-what-that-is-or-how-differently-well-live-in-2030/?sh=5afd4cb51735 (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

This will eventually allow us to build a non-growing, steadily developing society. The disadvantage of such a society is the spread of a new "norm": a family of one person, and as a result - the loss of traditions and solidarity of generations.

Thus, the main possibility of the metaverse seems to be the painless, conflict-free implementation of the sustainable development goals of humanity declared by the UN. And as a result - stabilization by 2050, maximum by 2100, of the world's population at any level codified by the program.  

However, it should be taken into account that such machine-based social projects have a completely closed, opaque architecture. Snowden's revelations highlighted the danger of concentrating IT power. Striving for eternal peace, one should remember Immanuel Kant's formula: "All actions related to the right of other people, whose maxims are incompatible with publicity, are unlawful." ^{[16, p.300]}

It is important to note that there is an alternative concept that has been openly tested in China for several years. Chinese futurist and writer Chen Quan, co-author of the book "AI 2041: Ten Images of our Future", speaks about the new identity from a completely different perspective: "You will score points for each of your actions, but this will not necessarily affect your social status or income, but will be reflected, for example, on your recognition in society, on your identity." [Nosyrev I. "Society will be in a state of struggle": business guru about the near future // RBC. URL:https://www.rbc.ru/own_business/09/01/2022/61c319d49a7947f99c935fb1?from=from_main_2(Accessed: 11/29/2022)]As in the global metaverse, in the Chinese social rating system (social credit), a system of "self-improvement", the construction of identity is proposed.

But if a virtual identity, an avatar, is being constructed in the concept of the metaverse, a real "new superman" is already being formed in China in a test mode. (This does not negate in both cases the danger of developing along the path of totalitarianism).

It is also important that users wearing a helmet (or suit) of virtual reality are not only in a conceptual, but also in a real capsule, where their senses receive information not directly, but indirectly, through the filters of the system. It is logical to assume that such a user will also receive all the news in the metaverse. The assumption that taking off the headset-helmet after a few hours in the metaverse, someone will watch TV news, or read a book, looks very unlikely. And consequently, the metaverse becomes an alternative media, as well as a physical intermediary between man and the environment. An important question should be asked here.   

Will the owners of the new universe be sufficiently altruistic, taking into account the above-described effect of automating society to the state of a hive, giving unlimited power, the keys to the world. For example, the titular co–founder of the metaverse, Meta Corporation (formerly Facebook), has been developing according to the predatory principles of the first colonial trading companies since its inception. "The original sin of initial capital accumulation" (in terms of Hannah Arendt), market takeover (unfriendly), monopoly within a significant market segment, sale (secret) of user data, content censorship, arbitrary blocking of personal pages. The renaming of the company took place after a long series of scandals, lawsuits, multibillion-dollar fines, exposing confessions of top managers of the corporation. A negative news background has become the norm for this corporation, and it is obvious that these reputational losses are associated with over-ambitions of the management.

 It should also be noted that by the autumn of 2022, shareholders were alerted by the Meta's financial indicators and the company's share prices were significantly adjusted. [Mac R. Meta’s Profit Slides by More Than 50 Percent as Challenges Mount. NYT. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/26/technology/meta-facebook-q3-earnings.html?searchResultPosition=1 (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

 It is also important that the sales of BigTech shares are largely due to the militarization of the Taiwanese situation. [Miller C. The chip war the West must win. TheTimes. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-chip-war-the-west-must-win-f65297j3t (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

ConclusionToday, the technology of the metaverse exists in the form of a concept and a promo version.

Under a certain scenario, the metaverse will be able to reach its initial production capacity in 7-10 years at the earliest, in parallel with today's Internet, for example, push-button phones and smartphones coexist. However, already today, BigTech or, as S. Zuboff calls them, corporations of supervisory capitalism, have orders of magnitude more power than the principles of democracy imply: "This unprecedented concentration of knowledge creates an equally unprecedented concentration of power — asymmetries that should be understood as an unauthorized privatization of the division of public knowledge." ^{[3, p. 255]}

Digitization of human experience as behavioral data allows making predictions of human behavior and using such predictive products to change and control behavior. [ibid. 450]

Such a totally dominant position is not just a monopoly and an oligarchy, but can become a dictatorship and further tyranny, in the Aristotelian coordinate system. Is it possible, in principle, to give such power over the world to corporations and special services, or is it necessary to control an international, supranational body, such as, for example, the UN IAEA, which also raises many questions.  

If you look at new technologies from the point of view of geopolitics, it is impossible not to notice a potential military-technical "undermining" under the Great Wall of China. In 2022, it became obvious that I. Musk's satellite Internet works effectively, even when deployed at 10% of the design capacity. Starlink, after some time, will be able to provide everyone with satellite Internet and, consequently, also with immersive, programming technologies of metavers. Which could pose a direct threat to the Great Firewall of China, an autonomous Internet that has been successfully operating in China for the past 15 years.

It is important to add that today there is a situation called the global chip crisis in Western media [Wu D. King I. Deutsch J. The Global Chip Crisis // Bloomberg URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/storythreads/2021-03-09/the-race-for-chip-supremacy-could-reshape-the-world (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Due to the explosive growth of ICT and the pandemic, the demand for processors grew exponentially. Taiwan, as the main processor manufacturer and technology carrier for the next few years, may become the main nerve center of the evolution of civilization. At the beginning of 2022, Taiwanese companies account for about 2/3 of the world's chip production (we are talking about the physical production of chips, including by developers from other countries whose chips are assembled at the same factories). [Edovina T. Batch of a new chip // Kommersant. URL: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5282560?from=main (accessed: 04.11.2022)]The technological leadership of Taiwan today is so asymmetrical that without the participation of Taiwanese specialists, the rapid construction and launch of new factories for the production of processors of the latest generation is not possible.

There are two possible extremes here. If Taiwan, for some reason, withdraws from the project of building several factories for the production of the latest processors in the United States, the power of BigTech +FVEY may eventually cease to be absolute. Technological multipolarity will come.  If Taiwan takes most of the specialists in this field to the United States and reduces production in Taiwan, the global IT industry will change significantly. Over time, the US will be able to control from 2/3 to 3/4 of the market, which will greatly reduce China's capabilities in the field of high technology. It should be noted that the mass exodus of Taiwanese specialists to the United States can hardly be realized in peacetime.

Today there are two alternative projects for the future of humanity: the enlightened dictatorship of globalists - United humanity ^[14] and harmonious multipolarity - a Community of a single destiny of mankind [China MediaProject.URL:https://chinamediaproject.org/the_ccp_dictionary/community-of-common-destiny-for-mankind / (Accessed: 04.11.2022)] The concept of the common destiny of mankind was announced by China at the UN in 2015 and introduced into the new Constitution of the People's Republic of China in 2018.

During the presidency of Barack Obama, globalists also tried to formalize their project legally, in the form of three interrelated agreements. The Agreement on Trade in Services (TISA) was supposed to make the participants of the Transatlantic and Pacific Trade Partnerships (TTIP) and (TPP) one. With the adoption of these documents, the participating countries recognized the supranational legal rights of TNCs and became de facto one super-corporation.

The black swan Donald Trump tore up one of these agreements live on the third day after the inauguration, thereby bringing down the entire structure that had been built for decades. [Tharoor I. Trump kills TPP, giving China its first big win.// Washington Post. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/24/trump-kills-tpp-giving-china-its-first-big-win / (accessed: 04.11.2022)]

Today, the concept of globalists, declared by the reports of the Club of Rome and the WEF, has been simplified: to create a supranational governing body instead of the UN, with an effective enforcement apparatus. "[United Humanity] can preserve many specialized UN agencies, but it will have to endow them with sanctions mechanisms wherever global problems are affected. This is the main meaning of global governance." ^{[14, p.191]}

The globalist strategy towards China has also been adjusted. The main goal was to persuade China to abandon its ambitions by limiting access to resources, Russian in the first place; the maximum in such a game would be given by a conflict between two neighbors, as already happened after 1953, when the change of leadership of the USSR caused the cooling of relations between the allies in the Korean war.

Western and Chinese concepts have significant ideological, civilizational and economic contradictions. Moreover, the last decade has shown the low acceptability of the Western model for civilizational states, such as China ^[17], India, Russia, as well as Iran and Turkey. And in this regard, it is necessary to take into account the thesis of the Davos WEF 2020 about the impasse of globalization: "The most likely result in the continuum "globalization - deglobalization" is an intermediate solution: regionalization." ^{[15, p.83]}  A similar thesis, but more from a technical than a political point of view, is in the joint study of Henry Kissinger, ex-director of Google E. Schmidt and ex-director of Amazon D. Hattenlocker "The Age of AI": ".. in the initially global industry, the process of regionalization may eventually begin – the unification of users into blocks that are under the influence of various AI, which are developing in different directions." ^{[6, p.150]}

***

 The neoliberal model of globalization of the last thirty years no longer works either politically or economically. China, representing the East, has risen so much that the West is afraid of presenting the bill for the "century of unequal treaties."

It is extremely important that China is included in the system/West, today a significant military-technical contradiction has been added (as was shown above) and if we extrapolate these trends to very small time horizons, we get the following: the deployment of the structures of the new AUKUS military unit, the containment of high-tech industries and the restriction of access to resources, in combination with the loss of ICT sovereignty, is likely to lead to a significant decrease economic and political status, and further to serious concessions to the West with difficult predictable consequences, as it was in the late USSR.

It should also be added, the repeated strengthening of work on the ideological opposition of "capitalist" Taiwan, "communist" China, the creation of a dichotomy "(Taiwan) KR / anti-PRC".  This gives, among other things, a significant reserve of managers who speak and think in Chinese, but programmed with globalist codes, able to "pick up" management in a hypothetical extreme situation. All this creates a potential existential threat to the People's Republic of China.

There was a situation of a zero-sum game. The parties do not want to negotiate, as they do not believe in compliance with the agreements.  Awareness of the finiteness of the planet's carrying capabilities and the assumption of one of the parties that only a single resource management center can become a solution led to an unprecedented escalation of the struggle for the opportunity to become such a center.

 All these contradictions finally separate the strongest global players along the poles, excluding the possibility of peaceful cooperation, which is critically necessary in the protection of the nature of our planet. @