This is my first question and I must admit I haven't put much effort in making sure it is on-topic for the community, but I felt this was the right place to ask.
I've read about the 2019 short story by Ted Chiang, Omphalos.
(Note: The post was edited out, upon a suggestion, regarding the apparent lack of receptiveness towards the story, which had been considered undeserved, by at least one reviewer which I've kept cited for completeness)
You could look at it from the Omphalos hypothesis POV (referenced in the linked Wikipedia article) which may not make it particularly appealing but you could also look at it as an analogy to
the global power shift from the Western Culture/Civilization (represented basically by USA/Europe) to the East (China/Russia but specially China) in which the Western Civilization initially established itself as the "center of the world" with a number of achievements, but could ultimately fail to assure its dominance and prevent the subversion of its own values by the East, implying in a future dominance by the latter.
Story spoilers ahead
In the story, the world was demonstrably created by God and this is confirmed by science, along with the belief that the planet where the protagonist lives is the center of the Universe. Then she finds out that this belief is only partially true; indeed the Universe has a center, but it lies within a different planet. The world wasn't created for her people after all. The bottom line seems to be that "people will resist it but eventually learn to live along with this new notion" and that the whole notion and the advancements that allowed to attain that knowledge are pointless.
That seems to be in agreement with what I mentioned before. Science, democracy, capitalism, Chistianity and other Western Civilization staples won't be enough to prevent the center of the world from shifting to its real center. They actually just serve to help accomplish exactly that. The East learns how to play along with those values (in the context of a long-term global domination plan) without losing its distinct culture and essence, and manages to subvert them in order to reach dominance. The current power holders will have to learn to live with the new establishment, and will eventually do exactly that. Probably in a government/governments with massive China-provided AI surveillance as many technologists predict -- I couldn't find the predictions collection I've read once but this one article I found fits the bill -- and other totalitarist nightmares. Also, please consider the author's Eastern origin in that interpretation.
In that sense I think it is a frighteningly spot-on story/analogy/omen.
Does the story actually try to say that or point that out (along with a less stretchy interpretation)?
