“Marketplace of ideas” means the idea with dominant capital will be dominant; it is not the “merit” of the argument that wins a person over. In a dictatorship of the proleteriat by seizing the means of production the socialist enterprise controls the capital and therefore “wins” the argument for the proleteriat. The perception whether an idea is good or not is always affected by bias; the point is for whom the bias should be in favor of.

That does not mean there is no objective reality or concrete solutions to real-world problems. Science is the method of figuring this out and marxism is a science. The problem is where and when people choose science in the day to day world. There are classes of people with sufficient privilege that perceive not to be affected by this ignorance, and therefore ignore the science when it suits them.

It is not a question of whether “censorship” is good or not; de facto censorship will always exist with every community and society - the question who gets to decide which censorship, what gets censored and which media it should take form in.

If one imagines a space with no formal censorship that does not mean it does not take place; a lack of a formal structure and hierarchy just means an informal one takes place instead, and in a capitalist world this means capital will dictate what those will end up being.

In early stages of socialism by definition it will have capital mechanisms such as markets; this is not maintained in a “neutral” environment, it will inevitably come with the culture of liberalism.

We should aim to have a scientific approach and understand of how things works and try to step away from the liberal frameworks we are brought up in which often conceptualises problems it does not really want to solve in absractions, rather than ground them in the concrete of the real.

My argument isn’t for or against censorship; it is just a tool and to understand how and whether we use this tool we should understand the science of how ideas “win” people over.

One can think of a socialist country as where the standards enforced on an educator is enforced on every aspect of society and this includes what gets amplified and de-amplified for the progression of society. No individual has the correct answer, our collective knowledge and trials of how to apply this scientifically in a continually shifting landscape is the way forward.

Thanks for the response - much appreciated

From what you learned is there a version of linux that you would recommend to install on your macbook that doesn’t involve too much tinkering? (Use case: mainly browsing/research and writing, the occasional spreadsheet and presentation app, the idea is to improve longevity of the laptop if possible)

Thank you - dialectical materialism really helps in understanding the science of the political economy and the articles on redsails.org really helps accelerate this understanding by breaking it down; I am still learning!

It is difficult to “brainwash” people against their perceived material interests. People are “apolitical” because they benefit from the status quo. There are plenty of Chinese liberals within the mainland who are allowed to benefit from the current system as they interact with it in a way that is overall beneficial to the dictatorship of the proleteriat but if there are narratives that they feel will benefit them further which they can act on that causes malevolence, then they will potentially be a greater cost to the system than a benefit; a burden the country could do without.

Western propaganda works because of perceived material benefits of going along with it and the costs of going against it exceed the benefits in a capitalist world; not because it injects ideas into human beings scifi/horror-movie-style like a poltergiest taking over them against their will.

Though you did not state this, it is important to appreciate considering the cultural revolution as a total mistake is not dialectical; they were mistakes made during that time but without it you would not have the lessons learned and the societal progress that is modern China. That does not necessarily mean we need another cultural revolution. However, if you would like to see an alternative timeline without a cultural revolution just look at what happened to India post-independence. Scientific socialism includes the trials and discoveries of that science from which the world can learn from. We do not need to adhere to the low standards of Western liberalism in framing what makes up “right” and “wrong” when analysing history.