Chapter IX — The Embodied Capital Decade

This decade will be remembered not for text models or virtual assistants, but for the embodiment of capital. Robotics turns time into a stored, transferable, and compoundable asset. Each year, nations deposit millions of robot-hours into their time banks; only some will achieve compounding interest.

China's advantage lies in scale, coordination, and energy. The U.S. must leverage software, financial liquidity, and innovation. Both are racing to reach the same horizon: an economy where time itself becomes a productive resource.

The scalar measure is simple: d/dt log₁₀(EPI) ≥ 0.2 sustainably, for half a decade. Whoever sustains that slope wins the race to embodied dominance.

Conclusion — Build the Time Bank Before It Builds You

The ultimate competition of the 2020s is not ideological; it is thermodynamic. Whose economy converts energy, capital, and intelligence into embodied time fastest? Robotics will determine which nations compound productivity in an aging world, which societies maintain growth without population, and which polities command the Von Neumann machines of industry.

The challenge is clear: Build the Time Bank before it builds you.