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Well said.
Because if women prioritized ease in relationships this thread wouldn't exist.
Certainly there will be manipulation and "court drama" but on the country level, look to any Muslim nation that allows harems. It's not that individual women have no power, it's that the group "women" does not comprise a meaningful political bloc. Thus "female sociopolitical power will collapse", not "the wife's sociopolitical power."
This and your point on chaos are very strong observations. It could be that I'm wrong about sex disparity in simulacra interest, and that would significantly change the progression. I could also be wrong about the swiftness of automation and the requirement for human labor. If women are equally interested, all these changes occur so quickly there isn't the span of decades between 2050-2100 where significant amounts of human labor are still required, it would make sense to reduce the male population first. Women are sensible about these things, they'll take quite easily to life in post-scarcity civilization.
But I'm not wrong. The matter of automation isn't one of logistics, it's one of society. We can't flip a switch and become a post-scarcity civilization, we have to prepare for it. We have to draw plans to sunset all those structures based on human labor, and that's all of them. We have to develop the spirit, inculcate to posterity, so they are psychologically prepared for the cessation of the cycle of School -> Career -> Retirement. We have to develop new structures and new politics to accommodate a country where people only work if they want. This means an interim where labor is still required. Some labor automation won't cover for that reason of giving people work, some practical reasons of redundancy, some aesthetic, but wherever there is labor automation can't cover, that is the domain of men.
I'm also not wrong about the sex disparity in use. Clear evidence of biology informing these preferences can be found in the share of US households with children where the mother is the breadwinner and the father is the homemaker: 1% Women don't want to provide, they want to be provided for, deservedly, but this is exactly why simulacra simply cannot offer for women what they can for men. Men aren't attracted to Alexandra Daddario because she's an actress, but we all know why Grace Brassel is with Shane Gillis. It doesn't matter if it's by the time few are working, because attraction isn't really about being provided for either, it's toward the man doing the providing, and how. It's not enough about attentiveness or emotional labor or housework. It's not enough about physical attraction. It is a gestalt thing that a robot cannot achieve with women by fact of its existence. Shall I be more clear? The "relational prostheses" are lesser things, pathetic things, contemptible things women are above, and no enduring attraction may arise from that sort contempt.
In a vacuum, the sex disparity in births could be flipped as you suggest. It makes sense, the inclination to chaos is a powerful argument for reducing the male population. All the way up to when a country that isn't 90% women decides to invade.
Sociopolitical power in harem situations is wielded by being the mother of the heir. Look at Mohammed bin Salman - son of the third wife, so plainly she manoeuvred her way into getting her son made the heir:
And Salman's father was the (reputed) twenty-fifth son of his father. The strongest alliances are those between children of the same mother (though of course this does not rule out intra-clan scheming to replace one likely successor with another, which is another theme in Chinese history when you have harems and multiple sons by multiple wives/concubines):
This has been the tradition: the sultan's mother and the sultan's favourite wife/concubine are the women with power, so it's worth scheming to make sure you're either the favourite of the current sultan, or the mother of his heir (best of all, of course, is to be both). That's one reason why monogamy makes for stronger dynastic lines - if there's only one legitimate wife and bastards by favourites, mistresses, or concubines have little to no hope of being in the line of succession, you cut way down on intra-family slaughter over succession (and the Wars of the Roses show how important reducing conflict over heirs is). If you look at the Al-Saud family, the succession bounces around between potential Heirs Presumptive who get replaced (and often imprisoned) as they rise and fall in favour, which means instability and public concern and unrest. By contrast, everyone knows that William is the heir of Charles, and it's not going to be "Charles decides to name one or another of his nephews, nieces, or grandkids as heir then changes his mind and names another".
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