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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   27355 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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I'm happy to concede if the prosecution ends in a conviction. I still think it's more likely than not that they're acquitted (if I had to put a number on it, 70%).

I'm also happy to acknowledge that acquittal doesn't necessarily mean a lack of guilt, but I don't think the British judicial system is so corrupt that it represents null evidence.

So you will go 2:1 on this?

I have 100 British Pounds to your 200 that, contingent on a trial occurring, a guilty verdict is returned. (ie. bet is off if there's a plea bargain; you can have "not proven" or whatever jury shenanigans might be possible in Scotland though)

I'm not sure I trust you enough to hold up your end of the bargain. If, for the sake of example, it was @ArjinFerman offering, I'd take it, though I'd prefer smaller sums like £50:25 since I don't care that much. If you're willing to go through the hassle of finding someone to use as an escrow, while using crypto (which is hassle on my part), sure.

If not, I care about my reputation and epistemics to happily accept being proven wrong, if and when I'm proven wrong.

I'm pretty high trust myself, and can certainly find a way to get you 25 sterling without resorting to crypto -- but if you need someone to hold the dough that's fine with me. Pick somebody and we can both send them some cash -- I don't expect the mills of Scottish justice to grind excessively fast on this one.

I can nominate @ArjinFerman or @Corvos, if they're willing to accept. I'd be happy to not bother with an escrow if you're fine with it, given the lower sums involved.

My proposed terms are clear concessions on an acquittal or conviction, and if this somehow doesn't resolve in 2 years, a general throwing up of hands and acceptance that we're never getting to the bottom of this.

I'm grateful for your confidence in me! FWIW I thought about it like Arjin, but I've given my ID to a few mottizens now and I don't really want to get into a habit of it. If it's important I certainly can, but it seems like it's not necessary in this case.

I'm fine with the honour system if you are -- thanks anyways @ArginFerman!

So AIUI -- no resolution if neither of these two is tried on these charges (ie. some plea bargain to a lesser offense would be no bet; a guilty plea on what's described above is probably a win for me though?), or if nothing happens within two years.

In the event of a trial, I need a guilty verdict; "not proven", hung jury, not guilty etc. all resolve in your favour.

If you have any other scenarios we should cover, let me know?

I don't think we have juries here, but that's a nitpick. Those rules sound fine, though I'll note that I'd want the money myself instead of a donation to a charity, though I'd donate if necessary. And if that's the case, it has to be a charity that is legal to donate to in the UK, our free speech norms are a tad limited.

"no donations to the Stormfront server fund," got it.

I'd also prefer the cash -- details on that can be TBD; it depends how private you need to be I suppose, but we can figure it out. (and I'm gonna say ~50/50 we won't have to given the "no bet" possibilities)

Sounds good to me. We officially on?

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I don't think we have juries here

Unless Scotland has a different judicial system than England, you do. Though you might soon be right either way, because Starmer wants to get rid of them.

Apparently they are used only for "serious crimes" so probably not in this case. Unless it were to be framed as sexual assault, which seems unlikely.

Also it seems as though as of this year they've eliminated the Scottish quirk of "not proven" as an option for juries -- hard to say what the impact might be, but I don't think that's a verdict that judges return so it shouldn't impact the bet.

That's very flattering, but every time I looked into privacy-preserving ways of transferring money, it turned out to be a massive hassle, possibly bordering on impossibility. Personally, for my bets I prefer agreeing to donate to a charity of each person's choice, and taking the counterparty at their word (+ maybe a screenshot, though they're so easy to fake, it's effectively the same thing).

Personally, I'd say that if the police and prosecutors pressed charges against Dumana / Belov in the current political climate, the evidence against him must be pretty strong, and that would warrant a 70% bet in the other direction (keep in mind your original argument rested on nothing more than statements from the police, not official charges, or an actual convction).

But that's beside the point. I don't really have a problem with you falling on the other side of this and sticking to your guns, my issue was with your top level post on the topic, and how you portrayed anyone unconvinced by your arguments as unreasonable.

keep in mind your original argument rested on nothing more than statements from the police, not official charges, or an actual convction

Hmm? I don't think that's the case. I also heavily stressed what can only be described as "local sentiment", perhaps priors, in addition to the official story. The locals (debatably including me) thought it's more likely than not.

For example:

My own priors, which seem to match those of most actual Scots I’ve spoken to, lean toward a more mundane explanation.

and how you portrayed anyone unconvinced by your arguments as unreasonable.

That is not true. I think I made a strong argument, but I also acknowledge:

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.

In other words, as a Bayesian, my opinion is that you should at the very least be slightly swayed by the argument. That is not the same as thinking that anyone who disagrees with me is unreasonable. There are actual people (living breathing humans) who are immune to any argument, probably including divine intervention. My scorn is largely reserved for them.

Similarly, the article you shared has meaningfully moved my posteriors. Back then, I expect that if anyone asked, I'd say I'm 80-90% confident of a lack of guilt, and now I've moved down to 70%. That is precisely the kind of update in the face of new evidence that I endorse and respect. Hence why I do it myself.

I expect that if a conviction is secured, I'd jump to maybe a 90% certainty that I was wrong, and if they're acquitted, then back up to 90% confidence of being correct. Feel free to tag me if something happens, since I don't really read the BBC that often.

That is not true. I think I made a strong argument, but I also acknowledge:

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.

In other words, as a Bayesian, my opinion is that you should at the very least be slightly swayed by the argument. That is not the same as thinking that anyone who disagrees with me is unreasonable. There are actual people (living breathing humans) who are immune to any argument, probably including divine intervention. My scorn is largely reserved for them.

Well, maybe I took it all a bit too personally, but even with your explanation it kinda feels like you're saying that not moving your priors based on the things you mentioned is unreasonable. I happened to find the arguments you brought up unpersuasive, so their effect on my priors was mostly zilch (maybe witch the exception of the police originally charging the girl), and I think that's perfectly justifiable.

I think one thing you didn't address in your original post, that heavily informed my opinion on this story is that:

Young men are animals. Cross border, cross race, cross culture, etc. As they say, testosterone is a hell of a drug. Ages 15-25 I don't trust the sexual judgement of 90% of young men. Most of those men find a productive or semi-productive outlet for their sexual desire. I think porn has helped blunt the edge of young horny men in modern society, but the blade is still there lying at the throat of society and young women. Some number of men slip through the productive cracks, and they target younger women. Even a 22 year olds loser with no job smoking weed all day can look cool to a 16 year old dumb girl.

Much of the time its the responsibility of fathers and older brothers to protect young women from these predations. The threat of getting your ass kicked is usually enough to deter the worst dirtbags. But in the absence of these protections there are occasionally going to be cases where the young women themselves take defense into their own hands.

The base story here of young 20's man hits on young teenage girls is absolutely not surprising to me. I'd guess there are stories like this in every location in the world with more than a few thousand people. A case where there are no men around to protect the young girls is not that strange, especially in a low class area where fathers might be absentee. A case where the girls take their defense into their own hands seems inevitable, humans have a basic need for security and protection. All of that would have been a total non-story.

Its just that the young 20's man is an immigrant, and the young teenage girls are native. Which sparks the culture war aspect of this all. But those additional considerations seem inevitable in any situation where there are immigrants. Similar situations sparked off black race riots in the south (young black men hitting on young teenage white girls).

Ages 15-25 I don't trust the sexual judgement of 90% of young men.

But.. but.. but.. DeepNeuralNetwork is assuring me that 25 year old men are only wanting to fall in love with and have babies with 15 year old girls, that's all!

I mean, I agree with you, but the argument I'm currently enmeshed in seems to be falling out along the lines: girls that age are plenty old enough, men are horny for young girls because biology, girls that age can and should be having babies, parents are only trying to control their children, older women are only jealous and want to restrict men to ancient, raddled, crone pussy instead of fresh, nubile, teen pussy.

DeepNeuralNetwork is a different person who gets very little agreement from the rest of the forum.

Young men generally prefer partners about 3-5 years younger than themselves. Look at the data from any country and any age, and this bears out. DeepNeuralNetwork is mistaken or just trolling.

I'm also happy to acknowledge that acquittal doesn't necessarily mean a lack of guilt, but I don't think the British judicial system is so corrupt that it represents null evidence.

If you are using judicial verdicts to update your world view as if they were unbiased (in the statistical sense) estimators of guilt, you are doing it wrong.

Suppose a parent shows up at a hospital with a non-verbal, injured child, displaying injuries of a type which is generally thought to be caused by violence in 85-95% of the cases and accidents in 5-15% of the cases, as estimated by different domain experts. Suppose that there is no further evidence to be found either way -- the parent denies using violence, and there is no video of how the kid got injured.

The way I have constructed the example, there is only one possible outcome in a fair criminal trial: acquittal due to reasonable doubt, as the courts would rather let ten guilty go free than sentence one innocent.

A guilty verdict is very strong evidence of guilt. A verdict of 'not proven' is very weak evidence of factual innocence (as opposed to legal innocence).

I imagine this can lead to cases where two people who had a gunfight can both get away with claiming self defense. If we try A and find we have to acquit him because it is plausible that they acted in self defense, we obviously can not base a trial on B around the finding that A was innocent as far as the law could tell.

For the Braveheart thing, I do not really have a horse in the race. On priors, I would find it more likely that young men harass some underage girls than that some underage girls get out of their way to threaten some young immigrant men, but stranger things than the latter have happened.

I don't see how this disagrees with anything I've said?

The hypothetical example you've presented is probably more cut-and-dry than anything we've seen here. I suspect that it would actually be more likely to end in a conviction than you think, judges do not regularly do Bayesian calcs in court.

A guilty verdict is very strong evidence of guilt. A verdict of 'not proven' is very weak evidence of factual innocence (as opposed to legal innocence).

I agree, in fact I alluded to the same. If a video came out showing an assault by the accused and without a conviction (as unlikely as that is), then I'd be willing to accept that in lieu of a favorable legal verdict.

On priors, I would find it more likely that young men harass some underage girls than that some underage girls get out of their way to threaten some young immigrant men, but stranger things than the latter have happened.

The bayes calc on it would just be a total win for the "he touched the girls" take.

If you are using judicial verdicts to update your world view

Reminds me of the Australian SAS warcrime case. Footage was released of what was inarguably an extra judicial killing of a captured and unarmed man. Like, I'm ex Australian army and not even I could deny that these guys were guilty of murder. But there were still hundreds of people saying "they haven't been convicted yet" and "the investigation hasn't been concluded."

https://old.reddit.com/r/Military/comments/1lccwjc/australian_sasr_during_their_deployment_to/

But we could see it with our own eyes. You can see in real time the murder happening, zero grounds for self defence. In war you get away with shooting the odd POW, sure. That guy could have been making IEDs or have personally killed Australians, sure. But if you get caught on camera you go to jail. That's how the world works. Why do people insist on the outcome of the investigation or the court ruling when they can see with their own eyes the crime occurring.

It's a weird deferral of responsibility, even though we know the courts are wrong all the time.

It immediately brings to mind consummate bureaucrat Buck Turgidson:

President Muffley: General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.

Gen. Turgidson: That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority.

The bayes calc on it would just be a total win for the "he touched the girls" take.

I tend to agree with this. Also, from what I understand about the UK system for criminal prosecution, it seems unlikely that these charges would have been filed against these defendants in the absence of strong evidence of guilt.

It seems like your explanation covers only half the story. And the alternative explanation covers the other half. In the original video the girls are screaming "don't fuckin' touch us over and over." They're still obviously carrying weapons. Why isn't the middle of the road opinion that some Scottish "neds" were walking around with knives (your take) and were felt up by the guy at some point (braveheart take) explaining why they were yelling and brandishing weapons while backing away?

I agree that's a possibility, and if that's proven, I'd be more sympathetic. I personally disagree quite a bit with the UK's approach towards banning pretty much every form of self-defense.

Surely it seems rather unlikely that even the kind of man who feels up young girls in the street would feel up young girls already carrying knives. There's poor impulse control, and there's Darwin Award-bait.

And you believe that this is an argument in favor of your preferred position?

People win Darwin awards all the time.

There's a lot of 'worst of both worlds' possibilities here, not the least of which is they were flirting consensually until he tried to feel her up in ways she didn't like and it turned into an argument. It's not that weird for gutter trash young men to go after teens, and it's not that weird for the teens to like it up until they don't.

It's more common than you think. Some people go into primal aggression mode and will attack if the victim looks afraid, even if they are armed.

There were videos during the 2020 blm protests of people charging men with guns and getting shot when they could have just walked away.

It's been studied in neuroscience, there's a bunch of info about heart rate, cortisol, and the cerebral cortex shutting down leaving people operating with just their limbic system. But there are many people here far more qualified to dive into the details of that. My undercaffinated brain won't give you a decent summary.

I presume the kind of scottish teenagers who carry hatchets to the park are the kind who know not to brandish them as they walk down the street.

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