It's not pessimistic or defeatist; you first have to recognize the limitations and failure modes of your system before you can think about changing it.

Is it possible to live in a world where powerful entities have gotten there through ethical means? Sure. We don't live in that world, though.

And yes, if I said "name me one powerful person/entity that got there through ethical means", I'm sure you could give me a name. But that name would surely be an outlier.

Help me through the practical implications of this logic. We should concede to Chinese AI dominance because we can’t do it perfectly?