The fact that North Korea someone publically declares themselves to be democratic in the name of their country. That tells you little about how it’s actually governed.
Actually, it tells you a lot. Countries with “democratic” in the name are probably far less democratic than nations without it. The point I was making was that calling yourself something conveys information, depending on what you call yourself. Calling oneself communist has a positive correlation with other countries who called themselves communists. Whether they behave according to the ill-conceived utopian ideology doesn’t really matter, what matters is that we can increase our credences that they will behave in certain ways. Clearly, this is dependent on subject: Calling oneself a good driver probably conveys very little information. So, you can’t dismiss it based off counterexamples in different areas. Otherwise, you could say that since people who claim to always tell the truth sometimes don’t tell the truth, someone who claims to sometimes lie might be lying about lying (which is a ridiculous conclusion).
To say that calling oneself communist contains no information at all seems extremely unlikely to me, just based on all the other countries that have done so, even if I didn’t know of the recent changes in China. I’ve become more confident in this view from listening to people who can read and speak fluent Chinese and who have lived there for over a decade, and who saw first-hand the rolling back of free market rules.
To change my mind about communism not providing any info, you’d have to show how you built your reference class to reach that conclusion.
This would make sense if China was a black box of which we only knew the official name.
ETA: The point being that we have tons and tons of much more relevant evidence on their behavior than what they chose to call themselves 100 years ago.
When you have a government that identifies as Communist, that’s a threat that needs to be taken seriously. The evidence I’ve looked at this threat to evaluate this threat is anecdotal…
It’s a perfectly reasonable jumping off point to get into the specifics. I agree that if you have a more specific reference class, you should use it (I’ve made that point myself before, “holding your IQ test results in your hand and refusing to read it because ‘The average is 100, so I probably got 100’”).
Actually, it tells you a lot. Countries with “democratic” in the name are probably far less democratic than nations without it. The point I was making was that calling yourself something conveys information, depending on what you call yourself. Calling oneself communist has a positive correlation with other countries who called themselves communists. Whether they behave according to the ill-conceived utopian ideology doesn’t really matter, what matters is that we can increase our credences that they will behave in certain ways. Clearly, this is dependent on subject: Calling oneself a good driver probably conveys very little information. So, you can’t dismiss it based off counterexamples in different areas. Otherwise, you could say that since people who claim to always tell the truth sometimes don’t tell the truth, someone who claims to sometimes lie might be lying about lying (which is a ridiculous conclusion).
To say that calling oneself communist contains no information at all seems extremely unlikely to me, just based on all the other countries that have done so, even if I didn’t know of the recent changes in China. I’ve become more confident in this view from listening to people who can read and speak fluent Chinese and who have lived there for over a decade, and who saw first-hand the rolling back of free market rules.
To change my mind about communism not providing any info, you’d have to show how you built your reference class to reach that conclusion.
This would make sense if China was a black box of which we only knew the official name.
ETA: The point being that we have tons and tons of much more relevant evidence on their behavior than what they chose to call themselves 100 years ago.
Exactly, which is why I looked further into it:
It’s a perfectly reasonable jumping off point to get into the specifics. I agree that if you have a more specific reference class, you should use it (I’ve made that point myself before, “holding your IQ test results in your hand and refusing to read it because ‘The average is 100, so I probably got 100’”).