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Notes -
Update on the Scottish Dual-Wielding Incident:
The BBC has now published a brief but informative report on the Scottish “dual-wielding” incident, mostly relaying statements from the local police. If you missed the story: a Bulgarian couple, male and female, were approached by local youths in St Ann Lane, Lochee, at about 7:40 pm on Saturday. At some point, an axe made an appearance. The police have issued a statement, and the BBC, in a notably careful choice of words, clarifies: “BBC News understands that officers have found no evidence to substantiate claims being made online the youths were at risk of sexual assault.”
Of course, I have every confidence that some corners of the internet, including select denizens of The Motte, will find this hopelessly unconvincing. If your current epistemic stance is “If she floats, she’s a witch; if she sinks, she’s a witch,” then no combination of facts, logic, or official statements will ever suffice. If your model of the world is that everyone is lying except you and your Telegram group, my ability to shift your priors is probably limited.
Still, let me offer my own semi-informed perspective as someone who is, if not a local, at least more familiar with the Scottish context than your average Redditor. From the beginning, both /r/Scotland and /r/Dundee expressed skepticism toward the popular Twitter narrative. You know the one: a pair of wide-eyed local waifs accosted by a “brown pervert,” who then had no choice but to brandish medieval weaponry in righteous self-defense. You can practically hear the John Williams score.
Now, Scotland is not short on delinquent youth. The British white underclass is, in fact, legendary for its supply of teenage hooligans. Here in Scotland, the local taxonomic label is “ned.” While “non-educated delinquent” is probably a post hoc invention, the behavioral phenotype is easily identified. There is a rich ecosystem of teenagers hanging around bus stops, acting tough, and performing questionable antics. One of their favorite tactics, if challenged, is to shout “pedophile” at the nearest authority figure, thus flipping the script from “annoying brat” to “potential victim.” This tends to work, at least until they age out of the game and (statistically) either get jobs or fall prey to Dundee’s prodigious drug scene.
On the question of weaponry, it bears repeating that it is illegal in Scotland to carry anything that even vaguely resembles a weapon for self-defense. For the Americans in the audience, this is not Texas. Not only is it illegal, it is also, in local context, not normal to walk around with an axe. While I actually find this arrangement not to my libertarian sensibilities, that's neither here nor there. My own priors, which seem to match those of most actual Scots I’ve spoken to, lean toward a more mundane explanation. The girl went out carrying because she wanted to impress her boyfriend, or at least to raise her standing among her peers. She might have been looking for trouble, or simply wanted to show off, and twelve is not too young to have social status games on your mind. Puberty isn’t the only thing that comes early in these parts.
I can only reiterate that an axe is not normal to carry, even if one feels threatened. A pocket knife? I can understand, sure. But this is about as 'extra' as taking a hand-grenade to a seedy pub when you're worried about being roofied.
As for the “migrant crime” angle, I want to point out that Scotland is not England, and certainly not Rotherham. The “migrant problem” is much less pronounced here. Outside Edinburgh or Glasgow, brown skin is still a curiosity, more likely to prompt a friendly question than suspicion. Most of the time, it’s just an excuse for conversation. Scotland has its own problems, but racialized sexual predation is not at the top of the list.
I would like to believe that this clarification settles things, but I am also not naïve. If your epistemic filter is tuned to maximum paranoia, then the absence of evidence is merely further evidence of a cover-up. For everyone else, the police statement, local skepticism, and sociological context should nudge your priors at least a little.
Of course, if you prefer your axes in the hands of twelve-year-olds fighting imaginary Bulgarian sex pests, I suppose nothing I write will convince you otherwise.
This hardly seems fair.
First of all, saying that "no combination of facts, logic, or official statements will ever suffice [to shift your priors]" is like saying that "no combination of tanks, nuclear missiles, or hugs will ever suffice to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine." If all you've tried are hugs then you're not allowed to handwave tanks and missiles as equally useless. Likewise, if all you have are official statements, please don't demean our intelligence by putting them on the same level as facts or logic. Official statements aren't evidence of anything. They're just statements made all the less convincing because they emanate from the officials who are under suspicion in the first place.
Secondly, I already know the Bulgarian guy who was holding the camera phone is a creep. Do you know how I know? Because pointing a camera at a 12-year-old girl and following her around while she's clearly trying to disengage is A-tier creepy behaviour. You can try to "shift my priors" all you want, but I think he's a creep because he filmed himself acting like a creep. The video itself may not provide evidence that he's committed any particular crimes, but if that pattern of behaviour was repeated over a longer period of time I think it would rise to the level of criminal harassment. It would also invite justified suspicions of pedophilia.
It seems fair to me.
Is there a video longer than the than the 45 second one? There are a number of types of altercations that result in a Bulgarian man feeling compelled to, provoked into, or choosing to film a girl wielding a couple blades instead of walking away. Potentially, the Bulgarian man was not actually threatened by the encounter, but understood it was illegal, wrong, or entertaining. Most of the scenarios I envisage involve the kid instigating some shit as kids who stash weapons on the block do. Filming obscene, novel, or even dangerous things is now the response I expect from most people. Do it for the gram, fam.
In the 45 seconds of footage I saw, the girl start out keenly aware that brandishing her weapons on camera is bad, wrong, or illegal. I guess whatever preceded this was meant to be for show, but not to show everyone. This is why the video starts with her hiding the weapons. Called out, the punk instinct kicks in, and she reveals her weapons. She must be well educated in the arts of the street, because upon a challenge she chooses to keep it real.. What is she gonna do, stab me? Wu-tang!
There's a possibility that this girl is what many want it to be. Just like it was possible that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist, and that possibility carries on to the present. Maybe she had ready access to weapons in the land of loicenses because she was practicing for an upcoming tryout for the local HEMA club. Maybe. Perhaps she, to borrow language from people I associate with the outrage, dindu nuffin.
So I'm not beating up on a potential victim I'll pledge $100 to a Scottish youth charity that looks like it goes to underprivileged (white) Scots so long as we find reasonable suspicion the girl in the video is responding to immediate sexual advances by the man filming her. If there's no such of charity I'll ask locals decide where it should go.
The rest of your post deals with the specifics of the video itself, and I couldn't give less of a shit about what actually happened if I tried, so I apologise if this seems like I'm picking on you, but my intention is to point out that Sunshine made a phenomenally excellent point. Smuggling in 'official statements' with facts and logic, like they are even in the same universe, is beyond ignorant. The difference between smh and the telegram chuds he scoffs at is that the misinformation printed on those telegram channels is written by someone who actually believes it.
An official source is written by a professional. The writers aren't concerned with the truth of a situation, they are concerned with its management. They will omit details, use careful wording ("no evidence to substantiate claims") and construct a story that serves their interests first and foremost. They aren't necessarily lying, but they are absolutely not telling you the whole truth. They are spin doctors, and to take their word as gospel is profoundly naive. Just like trusting a random dude on social media, trusting official sources is just outsourcing your critical thinking to people that have repeatedly proven themselves unworthy of that trust.
Also lol at the idea distrusting the authorities is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt. Was it Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder Footsoldier? Who ran the Spanish inquisition again?
I know everyone wants to talk about this shit, because it's currently popping off. So I don't expect everyone to adhere to my 'wait at least a week before I even consider judging the facts of the situation' stance. But it would be nice if the people who brag about epistemic humility actually employed it.
I think that sums up my stance, and is, in fact, what I actually said. I am not leaning uncritically on the police report, I consider it significant, but I have taken pains to explain the local sociocultural milieu.
The fuck? Scott has a point about "bounded distrust". Governments, and their official mouthpieces are neither infinitely trustworthy nor untrustworthy. You can throw just about anything Pyongyang says into the trash, other nations command more credibility. Britain is not North Korea.
If firefighters ask you to evacuate your building because of a gas leak, don't tell me you're going to go lighting matches to see for yourself, because you don't trust a damn thing The Man tells you.
What is that I imagine hearing you say? I'm strawmanning you? Then I'd invite you to reconsider attempting to brand me as someone slavishly dependent on the "official" take.
I don't consider that strawmanning, I consider it a misunderstanding of my position. It does illustrate my point though. I would not light matches to see for myself, no, because a fire-fighter telling me there is a gas leak in my building is an immediate authority dealing with an ongoing situation. A police department's press office is a completely different animal, they are engaged in narrative control after the fact. Conflating the two and suggesting they require the same level of compliance... I don't have a brand, I have a label maker and OCD.
Anyway my point is that Pyongyang or London, lumping official statements in with facts and logic is downright insidious. As for 'nudging your priors at least a little' if that is indeed all you meant and it wasn't an ironic 'OBVIOUSLY this is the correct take' line, then you should think about how you write everything else in your post, especially the faux wistful "Of course, if you prefer your axes in the hands of twelve-year-olds fighting imaginary Bulgarian sex pests, I suppose nothing I write will convince you otherwise." that follows it. That is not the language of the thoughtful truth seeker, it is the language of the partisan drawing battle lines.
You began with your preferred narrative - "little ned girls harassed a dude who didn't deserve it" - and then assembled your evidence to support it, deploying the official statement as a key soldier in your army. That is the same thing the telegram denizens do. The exact same thing. You are outsourcing your critical thinking to people who don't deserve it.
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