Question: how will the free/liberal society (plagued by polarization, etc) fare against the dystopian ones? In the past we've been able to out-innovate and mai

Question: how will the free/liberal society (plagued by polarization, etc) fare against the dystopian ones? In the past we've been able to out-innovate and maintain moral leadership thru a fictional aspiration to democratic norms. Now state actors can run finely targeted propaganda campaigns and measure our engagement with them in real time while using extensive censorship measures to prevent us from doing the same to their populations. None of this invalidates your point, but the tables have been tilted and abstract discussions of freedom tend to avoid wrestling with the geopolitical ramifications.