Can you trust self-report?

Thought experiment. 

Suppose a hypothetical country has what we would consider a very bad human rights record. They imprison and torture people without explanation, violently suppress dissent, allow abuse of women and minorities. But also suppose that this country is extremely talented at swaying public opinion using big data, machine learning, social media. They're so good, that they succeed in getting more than 90% of their citizens to truly believe that their system is good. 

Does that mean their system actually is good?

As outsiders, are we allowed to judge them and decide that their genuinely-held beliefs about themselves are just wrong? Would that mean we're imposing our values on other cultures?

Or, take the thought experiment a little further. Say this hypothetical country is really successful and ends up conquering the rest of the world. So there are no outsiders anymore. Almost everyone in the world now believes that the situation is great. While what we now consider human rights are being egregiously violated every day. 

Is that a good scenario? If not, what's the basis for judging it as bad? Our own values now, imposed on the future when nobody holds them anymore? 

coincidences

Andy: "What a coincidence! I was just thinking about you both and then I ran into together you here! It must be synchronicity."

Barbara: "Hmm, I don't know... Maybe you were more likely to be thinking about us in this mothball store because you noticed last week that all our clothes are holey. And even more importantly -- how many thoughts have you had in the last fifteen minutes? And how many different components did each of those thoughts have? Maybe you were thinking about us playing baseball. Then if you saw a guy walking past with a Dodgers cap, you'd have a coincidence. Maybe you were thinking about us playing baseball in the summer. Then if you saw an advertisement for a summer getaway, you'd have a coincidence. I would bet there were probably thousands of different components in the thoughts you had in the last few minutes. And, as you walk around a public place, you see thousands of different things. So that's (roughly speaking) millions of different opportunities for a sheer coincidence to happen."

Cindy: "I agree with you, Barbara. But isn't there another interesting point there? The number of 'components' you see in the world is somewhat subjective. For example, some people have never experienced significant anxiety. If they see a stranger hiding an anxiety reaction in public, there's a good chance they won't even notice the signs. They're effectively almost blind to that phenomenon, that 'component'. Or another example. Some people don't know the first thing about computers and literally couldn't tell the difference between a MacBook and an HP. So there are no opportunities for them to notice coincidences involving MacBooks. My general point is that the more features of the world we're sensitive to, the more connections we potentially see. I think you could argue that at least some of the 'meaningful' feeling of life comes from the sheer amount of different layers and modes of organization in the world. The fact that you can look at a spoon and describe it a hundred different ways -- in terms of metallurgy, the history of its invention, the economics of production, the way reflections work on concave surfaces. And that traces of all those 'components' are dancing around in the backgrounds of our minds all the time, giving us a rich feeling of connection to the world."