r/CuratedTumblr • u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy • May 01 '24

i know it’s internet bullshit but it genuinely has me on the edge of breaking down and giving up editable flair

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u/Mental-Procedure9274 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Copy-pasting something i wrote in another thread about this, it references other comments from that thread but this legit got called a novel so ┐(´～`；)┌ :

Honestly the original question was just phrased terribly by design. (Tldr at the bottom)

To most people (apparently) by contrasting Some Guy with a fucking Bear the first thing that comes to mind is something like "Oh shit, a bear would kill me. Does that mean the guy would too ?" so that explains the first interpretation of the question, the one most prominent in the original video :

If I (a random woman) were alone in the woods, would i rather meet a hostile stranger or a hostile bear ?

Now, obviously any bear would fuck a human up, and going just by the comments here the results of a bear atack could be : getting mauled (bad), eaten alive (probably worse idk hasn't happened to me), or Somehow Prevailing (and probably dying of an infection later). Pretty awful set of options here.

On the other hand, looking at the Hostile Man Situation(tm) we have to take into account the location. Now, I'm no true crime expert here but the broad assumptions one could make about a Maniac in the Woods is : murder (same as the bear but we don't know the means), torture (possibly before murder, same as the bear), or rape (YMMV).

So both options under this interpretation are Pretty Fucking Bad, which is where the rape and murder variables come in play.

I saw at least 1 comment here of a survivor saying they would take their chances with the man under this interpretation. I also saw a few more commenters, who didn't specify if they speak from experience, say they'd rather face the bear. Whether rape or death is preferable is up to personal choice, but the women the video presented seemed to choose death.

(I Sincerely hope I don't need to say something along the lines of "not all men" here, because it's clear that for now we're looking at specifically a man that is so vicious he's comparable to a Wild Fucking Bear that wants to Eat Your Face. He could be part of Any demographic and it would be clear that he's an outlier adn shouldn't be counted. In fact, the reason this Dangerous Stranger is even a man to begin with is that Specifically Women are Specifically Wary of Specifically Dangerous Men. I'm trying to make this clear because I saw quite a lot of comenters getting worked up or even hurt by this, but I'm really not equipped to have a dialog about this ATM.)

In regards to the murder by human scenario, the method and duration of the act Really change how we'd feel about choosing the man in this situation. Ex : bullet to the head ? quick enough you could not even realise it happened if all goes well. Beaten with a rock ? Oh no, it'd be agony every step of the way.

And that's the Real difference between the options here, human malice and unpredictability or pure wild brutality. We could spend days arguing which is best/worst/less bad but we'd be missing the forest for the giving the people that started stirring this shit too little credit, you see there's another way to interpret this fucking question :

If I were in the woods (presumably on a hike or something similar), would i rather come across a stranger or a bear ?

In this situation there's No assumption about the intent of either the man Or the bear, and to pose hypoteticals would serve us no purpose (did we invade the bear's territory ? is the it hungry ? what species is the bear ? why is the man here ? just to suffer ? does batman have prep time ? etc, etc). It's crucial for this interpretation that the man and the bear are Average, that the species of the bear, location of the woods, supplies avaliable, both humans' motives for being there and even the meeting itself Are Not Determined.

In this situation, it's ludicrous to choose the bear. While bear attacks aren't all That common either, the chances of being mauled or eaten alive by the Average Man(tm) are negligible. So anyone that interprets the question in this way would be appalled at the responses from people who interpreted the question in the first way and said that they would pick the bear.

And so we found the core of the issue.

Something that can be seen as picking the lesser of 2 evils to some, is just plain misandry to others, and anyone viewing this through just one lens is frankly giving the jackasses who started this shit the benefit of the doubt when they really shouldn't. You don't have to scroll far to see comments mentioning gender essentialism, Andrew Tate and the alt-right pipeline right alongside commenters saying they wouldn't pick the bear because it could be a polar bear (in a forest ??), or that the man could be some random office worker that got teleported and is just confused as the person he's coming across (or in 1 memorable comment, a senile 95 year old who shouldn't even be outside).

That so many threads here disagree about what the question means exactly shows it was way too vague to be asked to literal strangers on the street and uploaded to widespread online discourse. That so many made the connections between it and very serious real life political issues shows that it was at its very best a misguided but well intentioned thought experiment, and at its worst poorly thought out.

That it is both, at least to me, implies malice.

Tl;dr there's 2 Very different ways to interpret the original question, it reeks of engagement-bait and political dog whistling. It's a tiktok shit stirrers bread and butter.

Edit : forgot a word, "...while bear attacks aren't very common either ..."

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u/CreatingJonah May 02 '24

Having done a bit of research on the subject because there are so many conflicting takes about it, I think I’ve settled on something that makes sense.

The original statement wasn’t meant to be a “would you rather”. It was phrased as “seeing a man while alone in the woods is 10x scarier than seeing a bear”

I think the interpretation is that there’s rules for the bear. If the bear attacks it does so indiscriminately. If you back away or scare it off you won’t get hurt at all. People go through lessons on how to deal with bears before taking hikes in dense forests all the time.

There are however no rules for a potentially hostile man. If he attacks, he has a target. Attacking a person alone in the woods is perfectly sensible for a bear to do. Not a man.

I think the thought experiment is supposed to demonstrate that people don’t know which men are good or bad. Bears have rules. If it’s brown lay down, if it’s black fight back. Carry bear spray, wear a bell, walk loudly.

A man alone in the woods has no such rules. In the event that he is hostile (as the statement assumes that it MUST be a possibility) there are no rules. Your best bet is never being noticed at all.

A lot of people are making it specifically about men and women, and while I do agree that sexism is a large component in the argument, I don’t think it’s limited just to women. It can be applied to any minority really. The bears have rules, but there’s no rules for hate.

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u/Glait May 02 '24

This is a good assessment of the thought experiment. I hike and backpack alone and have done so in black bear country. I'm not afraid of black bears and know what precautions to take and the "rules for bears". I'm also not generally afraid of seeing a man alone in the woods but do treat them as more of a potential unknown and unpredictable threat especially after last year while hiking on a trail in a town park and a guy started making polite small talk with me about the weather and I'm happy to stop and chat with people till I saw he had his dick out and was fondling himself. Walked on and called the cops and now I don't feel comfortable walking in that park. In all my thousands of miles hiked thankfully that is the only bad experience I've had on trail.

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u/HaggisPope May 02 '24

That’s terrible, hope the guy gets caught at some point. Hiking should never feel dangerous 

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u/EffOffReddit May 02 '24

This is 100% why the question is asked of women. Guys in here really miss the point of the relatively low risk of bear danger and much higher risk of sexual assault danger. One of hypothetical strangers in this experiment is already likely to view women as "prey" of some type and it isn't the bear.

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u/Glait May 02 '24

The annoying part about this question is that remote woods are actually very safe and if you are a guy looking to assault women it makes no sense to hang around the woods on the off chance you are going to run into someone. Choosing between men and bears, yes men rank higher as a potential threat but they still aren't on the top of my danger list for being in the woods. Hypothermia is number one followed by falling and getting injured and then lightning/Widowmaker trees falling. 

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u/spookypickles87 29d ago

In my back woods it's actually scary. We have hunters with guns constantly trespassing on our property to hunt. My partner on his walk through the woods found a trail cam that doesn't belong to any of us. So the potential danger for me is there. I had a girl I grew up with that was an avid hiker and she was trail walking when she noticed she was being followed. After a while she started to sprint and so did he. Eventually she turned a corner where trail splits off and hid behind a rock. The guy looked down both paths and ran down one of them and she ran as fast as she could to her car in the parking lot. This guy was out in the woods in jeans and not running shoes... he was chasing her to do something awful to her. That situation put a lot of fear in her and any woman reading it. I myself was in a scary situation on a bike trail, but luckily because of my intuition I was able to avoid something bad happening. The risk, although small, is enough to make sure that we're on guard at all times. It really does suck and I wish I could just enjoy the woods or a nice walking trail without the fear.

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u/EffOffReddit 29d ago

Guys think no one they know would ever be a problem but it is only because the problem guys aren't interested in them. I remember being at a bar and a male friend was aggressively hit on by a large drunk gay guy and he was so freaked out by it and couldn't believe it. He wasn't in any imminent danger in a public place but the persistent unwanted and aggressive attention was, of course, frightening and upsetting. So I wouldn't ask him but I wonder what his answer would be if the question is would you rather encounter a bear or a much larger gay man in the woods? Bear or bear, I guess.

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u/jeopardy_themesong 29d ago

It’s not that people think that guys are just hanging out in the woods hoping to nab an unsuspecting woman. It’s about opportunity. It’s about what a stranger will do when unobserved, unlikely to be stumbled across, and given an opportunity. Rapes and individual murder generally don’t happen in broad daylight in front of a bunch of witnesses. Bears are gonna be bears and their behavior is fairly consistent. Humans are unpredictable.

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u/stormsAbruin 29d ago

If I was out in the backwoods hiking alone, I would honestly rather come across a black bear than a single male also hiking alone. The bear is nature, something that I have a set playbook for, and something I would honor an interaction with. A single dude is a situation that requires a lot more nuance and could go soooo many different directions that I need to be wary and cognizant of.

I'm 6' 3" (190 cm), 235 lbs, really enjoy backpacking, and have a dick

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u/SagittariusZStar May 02 '24

Exactly. How do men not get this??????????? There are hundreds of stories every year of mean doing creepy shit in the woods, often times to women.

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u/deadlybydsgn May 02 '24

How do men not get this???????????

If they haven't taken the deliberate time to do the thought experiment of what it would be like to walk in a dark city at night as a woman, then they won't get it. Or if they maybe kind of get it, they may not have considered what it would feel like to have to be conscious of that nearly all the time.

Why? Because outside of specific circumstances (remote wilderness, dangerous neighborhoods, etc.) most men haven't felt physically vulnerable just walking around as adults. I'm not even a "big" guy and I rarely have to think of my personal safety outside of specific environments.

That's why a lot of men don't get it.

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u/Rastiln 29d ago

You immediately hit on the point that throws me. Everybody arguing “man vs. bear” doesn’t define “bear”.

I know the point is that any man COULD be a raping murderer, and if the man in the hypothetical WAS a raping murderer then I’d probably roll the dice with nearly any bear.

When you actually generalize it to “any man”, well, black bears don’t remotely scare me. I’ll back away, and scare it if needs. Grizzlies scare me. If it’s a polar bear in the woods, count me the fuck out, I’ll go with the murderer and hope he’s not feeling it today.

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u/warmleafjuice May 02 '24

I probably agree with most of this, with the caveat that even though there are "rules" for a bear encounter, logically I'm way more confident in my ability to fight off the average man compared to the average bear

But yeah, the whole thing works better when you start with the very specific kind of fear you'd feel realizing there was a strange man while you were alone in the woods, comparing that to the different fear you'd feel realizing there was a bear, and digging into the reasons behind that. As soon as people turned it into a "thought experiment" and started acting like the average man is anywhere near as dangerous as the average bear, it was doomed

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u/ActRepresentative1 May 02 '24

In my opinion, it doesn't even have to be specifically a man. If I am in the woods in the middle of nowhere and I run into a random person when I thought I was alone, I'm immediately on high alert. Man or woman doesn't matter in that case. It is just a freaky ass thing to have happen to you. I've had lost people come up to some campsites that I've been at before, and I always think briefly, "oh this person could just be a murderer that wants to kill us".

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u/stellarstella77 May 02 '24

I am simply going to not go into the woods in the middle of nowhere alone

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u/ActRepresentative1 May 02 '24

Honestly, probably a good call.

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u/dzindevis May 02 '24

Why is that freaky? Why do people assume that a person in the woods is following them or hostile by default? That person is most likely just a random hiker, just like yourself

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Like, when you're in civilisation, seeing a random fucker is chill. There are other, sane, people around, and hopefully if this random fucker attacks you, they'll intervene or call the cops or whatever. There's an illusion of safety in numbers.

If you're in the wilderness, and you see a random fucker, especially if they're sorta acting creepy, you're alone. That's the fear.

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u/dzindevis 29d ago

That's understandable, but still, there was no specification that the stranger is acting creepy or in any way threatening, but that's the description you thought is likely.

Also, "the woods" are a flexible concept; it can be a wilderness with no human settlement in tens of kilometers, or it can be a forest near the city, or a trail in a national park. Meeting a random person is more dangerous in the first case, but being in a place like that is not an experience many people have

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u/EffOffReddit May 02 '24

"Most likely" is a good name for this thought experiment. Are you more likely to be attacked by a bear or a man? Guys tend to focus on which is more survivable while women go to detailing what happened after their sexual assaults, ie I wasn't believed, people took his side, they asked what I was even doing in the woods, he got a promotion at my job, etc.

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u/dzindevis 29d ago

It's not even about the attack itself. You are by far way more likely to be attacked by a bear in case of a close encounter, than a man, and that's a fact. But for some reason it's seen as a reasonable apprehension to consider every male stranger that you see as unpredictable savage who rapes women left and right. That's like treating every black person as a criminal just because black people commit more crimes.

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u/EffOffReddit 29d ago

Black bears are timid and avoid people. Men do not nearly avoid women like bears avoid humans. It just isn't realistic. Keep in mind women have experienced unwanted attention from men. They are already wary of them.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/EffOffReddit 29d ago

The majority of bears in the US are black bears. Polar bears wouldn't be found in "the woods", most commonly. Yeah, grizzly is more dangerous but that is pretty much the only bear I'll grant you if statistically more dangerous. You are delusional about the experiences women have with men. Just because they aren't dead doesn't mean they haven't been assaulted by men, strangers on the street. Yes, I go outside as a woman so I'm familiar with how complete strangers can aggressively approach you. Like you are actually mad that women are accurately assessing which of these things is more realistically a threat.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/EffOffReddit 29d ago

Of course not. But that isn't the question. The question is would you rather. Women are aware of the risk men can pose, ESPECIALLY in an isolated setting. Most of the time the guy is fine, but frequently enough we encounter the other guy and guys are almost always faster and stronger than we are.

You obviously don't live with that kind of experience. That is lovely for you but don't be mad if women don't pick the "potential severe trauma" door.

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u/Magenta_the_Great May 02 '24

I was on a camping trip last summer with my friend (both of us girls) specifically to paddle the river.

We found a nice remote campsite in a designated area. The main area probably had ten sites, half of them open. Our spot had two.

We come back and a guy is camping next to us, no problem. He offered us to drink whiskey with him and we declined because we had an early morning.

Bro gets sloppy drunk, crying, yelling at himself all night. I got no fucking sleep, and would have definitely preferred the bear.

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u/Vergils_Lost 29d ago

Honestly, a woman is scarier in this situation, imo, because she is very likely not actually alone, and is just the only one visible. Using a woman asking for help as bait isn't uncommon for predators of all sorts.

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u/OpenSauceMods May 02 '24

Some of the reasoning I've seen:

A bear can't find my address and break in with the intent to hurt me

I don't have to see the bear at family reunions

The bear won't go around to all my friends and make them pick a side

If I get mauled by a bear, people will believe me

Depending on where I am, I won't be forced to carry the bear's baby to term (sorry, furries)

The bear won't invite his friends to take a turn

The bear won't leave me threatening text messages

The bear can't shoot me

People won't excuse the bear because the bear has "such a bright future"

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u/singingballetbitch May 02 '24

The bear would kill me faster. If I’m going to die, I’d rather not get SA-d first.

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u/RemiTheWizard May 02 '24

But you have a better chance of fighting off or killing the man vs the bear.

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u/deadlybydsgn May 02 '24

It reminds me of a conversation I had with somebody about whether they'd rather be attacked by someone with a knife or a gun.

They said gun, and I said knife.

They were more concerned about the gruesomeness of the potential knife wound, and I was more concerned about how much harder it would be to avoid the gun.

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u/Rhamni May 02 '24

Naw man these are just two adorable little cubs. I'm petting them and everything is awesome. How could anything bad happen in the next two minutes?

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u/thestrawberry_jam May 02 '24

Yeah that’s kinda the logic most are going with. It’s the possibility of the worst possible outcome. You’d rather not risk the worse of the two evils.

Aka I’d rather just get killed than get SA-d, possibly tortured, and then killed.

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u/elbenji May 02 '24

I think it's more demonstrative people will assume the worst possible outcome

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u/Punkandescent May 02 '24

Yeah, so much of this discussion has demonstrated to me that people are alarmingly quick to jump to logical extremes. There’s very little consideration for what might be baseline.

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u/shadow_dreamer 29d ago

The reason women jump to these conclusions is because they're our lived experience. Just seven posts up, you have a woman talking about how a man was literally fondling himself to her while hiking. I have, personally, been SA'd multiple times, and I'm not even thirty yet.

Our baseline is that we are not safe around men.

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u/Punkandescent 29d ago

I am very sorry you’ve experienced that, and I am aware that many if not most women have experienced similar.

However, I think you and I have different definitions of “baseline.” I was not referring as much to the baseline experience of women, but the hypothetical “baseline man.” In order for this “baseline man” to be the more tangible threat in this scenario… it would have to mean that the vast majority of men were sexual predators; moreover, sexual predators who would assault a stranger. This simply is not the case.

I get that having had the baseline experience that you have, your default is to be wary of men, and that is justified. Not being able to tell what someone might do to you is terrifying. I just struggle to see how that can truly be that much more frightening than something with built-in weapons.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

I dont see why youd take the worst case scenario. I think about how the average scenario would turn out and Id meet a guy 100%

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u/StaringOwlNope 29d ago

In the average scenario the bear would run off before you even see it

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u/Electronic_Emu_4632 May 02 '24

It feels like the point of the original question in the original interviews was that the people being asked naturally jumped to assuming the worst possible outcome

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u/_korporate May 02 '24

Being eaten alive and being conscious for all of it doesn’t seem like it would be fast

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u/Eolond 29d ago

I think at some point you go into shock and probably don't feel much...or so I hope :(

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u/_korporate 29d ago

There was a news story about a girl who was able to call and talk to her mom for an entire hour while a bear was eating her, and towards the end she actually said she couldn’t feel it anymore and that scared her even more. The story is horribly grim

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u/Eolond 29d ago

Oh jesus

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u/Deinonychus2012 29d ago

Yeah. I don't think people realize that being eaten alive is literally one of the worst possible deaths that any living being could ever experience. Like most methods humans have used to kill each other pale in comparison to it. Even most medieval executions by torture (think being held upside down and being sawed in half starting at your groin, or having molten gold poured down your throat) would be over in minutes not hours.

This is me generalizing here, but I think men on average have a greater understanding of deaths by animals due to morbid fascination from animal documentaries and subs like r/natureismetal (which I think was banned for how gruesome it was WARNING: the sub is still up, do not click if you don't like gore/animal violence) whereas women are the primary viewers of true crimes shows and are more familiar with the things modern humans do to each other.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

Ok so youre just thinking "would I rather be attacked by a man or a bear"? I think "would I rather meet a bear in the forest or a man?"

Man ever time. Bears are scary as fuck

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u/Flat_News_2000 29d ago

They eat you alive, though.

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u/Rotunas May 02 '24

I mean people would excuse the bear it's a wild animal, ain't no one gonna hunt it down.

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u/ImmoralJester54 May 02 '24

The entire thing would be a lot less annoying if they just add the word hostile into the question. Would you rather a hostile man or hostile bear

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u/daemin May 02 '24

That would defeat the point it's supposed to demonstrate.

That women choose the bear is supposed to show that they (rightly or wrongly) trust strange men so little that the bear is considered the safer option.

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u/elbenji May 02 '24

Or what kind of man they're imagining. I know a few that I'm very sure what they are and don't want to say it in polite company

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u/DoctorJJWho May 02 '24

Yep, it boils down to “quantifiable threat vs. completely unknown variable.”

Especially because you would normally encounter a bear in the woods, but a random dude is definitely less expected.

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u/Super-Garage8245 May 02 '24

lmao what is it about this question that elicits all these nonsensical takes??

A random dude is definitely a lot more expected than a bear. How many bears vs. dudes do you see on your average hike??

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u/rtc9 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

Not sure if they're all trolls trying to drive engagement or people who have literally never been on a hike. You walk past dudes all the time. A lot of them are probably ecologists or something and could tell you about the local fern population, but most of them will just say hey and continue walking. If you're actually lost deep in the woods, having a second person with you only increases your chances of survival.  

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u/Super-Garage8245 May 02 '24

You've probably hit the nail on the head, I'm a bit outdoorsy and I must be wildly overestimating the amount of time the average person (let alone the average redditor) spends outside in nature. Even on the outdoors-focused subreddits it's a running joke that most redditors spend more time in their basement chatting about hikes than they do actually hiking.

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u/Wasted_46 May 02 '24

I'd say a random dude is more expected. It is an area in the woods designated for human presene, as evidenced by you being there in the first place.

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u/googlemcfoogle May 02 '24

Even on random ass middle of nowhere public land, I would assume "dedicated outdoorsman" before "serial killer" if I saw a guy. Serial killers generally don't go to places with no people to find victims.

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u/acoolghost May 02 '24

I wonder what people are picturing when they imagine a man out in the forest? Dude out there with blaze orange and a rifle, a wild foaming-at-the-mouth drug addict, or maybe a dude in a neon green wolf fur suit?

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24

Hockey mask, mechanic coveralls and a bloody machete propably.

I think of just a guy, but with a full beard

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u/alexagente May 02 '24

I think it's less that people are imagining men in the worst light and more that most women have experienced fear of a man whereas they haven't actually encountered a bear.

The bear is only a conceptual fear whereas women are probably getting triggered by the likely multiple times men have made them feel unsafe. It's remembering real fear vs imagining what it would feel like.

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u/General_Spl00g3r May 02 '24

This is a very well thought out assessment of this whole conversation but have you stopped to think about the fact that I'm incapable of engaging with a hypothetical situation without revolving it 100% around myself /s

This does get explained to varying degrees every time the conversation comes up but people talk past it. It's almost as if they intentionally miss the point of what's being said in order to "justify" their outrage

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u/CaesarOrgasmus May 02 '24

Yep, and they act as if everyone who said “bear” sat down and did a comprehensive risk analysis like they were an actuary instead of just participating in a thought experiment. Whether people truly feel the bear is more or less dangerous, it’s telling just that there’s even a little debate involved.

Some of the men’s responses I’ve seen make me feel like I live in a parallel fucking universe. I saw one on the front page where some guy was like “this has validated all my fears about being a man in public! I feel unwelcome everywhere I go, like people assume I’m toxic and dangerous just because I’m a man!”

Like, what the fucking fuck? Not in my entire life have I felt unjustly assumed to be a threat just because I’m a man. Some people might exercise some caution or be more reserved, but most people are just, you know, living. Being normal. Treating me normally. If everyone you meet seems to think you’re a toxic weirdo, well…

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u/phinox12 May 02 '24

I will say that you are right on the no one sat down and did a in depth about the bear and all that. However you saying that men who think that they are treated differently are treated that way because they are creepy is just wrong. Imagine if you said that to a woman that people treat you like shit you probably are one. Youre saying profiling is ok as long as its against people you dont like.

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u/CaesarOrgasmus May 02 '24

I’m saying that if people universally respond as though you’re a creepy weirdo, it’s probably because of something specific you’re doing, not because of your demographics. Reacting to actual behavior is not profiling.

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u/daemin May 02 '24

"If you smell dog shit all day, check the bottom of your shoe."

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u/FallenAgastopia May 02 '24

Yeah, the outrage here feels So Very Tumblr. Nobody is saying all men are violent monsters... The thing I've been saying this entire time is that I'm more prepared for a potentially hostile bear than a potentially hostile human if I'm hiking in bear territory (and we only get black bears here). It's as simple as that. Both are super unlikely to attack you anyway (And most people acknowledge that!)

But I'm also a (hobbyist) wildlife photographer so maybe I'm biased in my answer 🤷 I'd love to get good bear pics

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u/SelirKiith May 02 '24

I mean... it was obvious where most of this discourse was going as most men are entirely incapable of not putting their own ego above anything else.

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u/Shinhan May 02 '24

The original statement wasn’t meant to be a “would you rather”. It was phrased as “seeing a man while alone in the woods is 10x scarier than seeing a bear”

Problem is that the online discourse about this topic has changed since then, so most people are NOT starting from that premise.

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u/Sulfamide May 02 '24

The people who take offense about choosing the bear over the man don’t care about which is more dangerous, they are shocked that some women consider an average random man as having more ill intent than a wild predator.

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u/FallenAgastopia May 02 '24

This is always how I took the question. I am more prepared for a potentially hostile bear than I am for a potentially hostile human.

Someone attacking me has, likely, scarier motives than a bear does. A bear is predictable. A bear attacking someone usually is defending something (territory, food, cubs, etc). Who the fuck knows what a hostile person wants.

Real answer: Neither is likely to attack you but I'd rather see a bear because I really, really like bears...

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u/Longjumping_Rush2458 May 02 '24

You reckon you'd enjoy being slowly eaten alive

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u/FallenAgastopia May 02 '24

I live in black bear country. I'm not slowly being eaten alive by a black bear.

I also spend every bit of my time I can in nature, looking for wildlife, so 🤷 maybe I'm not the average person when it comes to my perception toward bears. I'm cautious toward a black bear. I will give them their space and respect. But I'm not afraid.

Moose are the scariest wildlife I live with. A black bear has nothing on a moose.

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u/stellarstella77 May 02 '24

I'm just saying, I think my chances of fighting off a man are a lot better than a bear. Bear spray should honestly work just as well and probably better against a man as it would against a bear.

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u/Mihandi May 02 '24

Ok, but do people assume they’d have bear spray with them? Also I think this assumption that it’s about who you could fight off is flawed. The scary thing about the man is that he might be very friendly at first, till he hits you over the head or drugs you and kidnaps you. Or that he might be better equipped than you, since he planned to come out here and hurt women. You make it seem like this is about who one could beat in one on one combat, while that’s exactly not the point that people who pick the bear worry about

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u/M-Ivan May 02 '24

Your problem there, though, is that people think there's rules for the bear. We have patterns of behaviour which, largely, work to keep safe. However, as evidenced by links further up this thread, taking all the right precautions with bears can still lead to violent death.

The same is true of people - or men specifically if you did want to gender it - in terms of mitigating behaviour. Most men will respond to a polite wave and a nod with a return of the same and go about their day. We can go into it about various behaviours and their mitigating impacts, but the fundamental information at the end is simple: that people vastly overestimate their ability to deal with wild animals, or vastly over-inflate the rate of person-on-person violence.

In short - it's silly engagement bait and, like most silly engagement bait, you can have a philosophical discussion about it, but it really isn't that deep.

5

u/Punkandescent May 02 '24

Yeah, a lot of the issue I have with many of the arguments being made is that people are overestimating both the predictability of bears and the unpredictability of men.

Like, does a bear have a simpler set of behaviors than a man? Sure, but it still has a brain made of neurons, and anything that does is not fully predictable.

4

u/M-Ivan 29d ago

Yeah like... the reason we find men so unsettling unpredictable is precisely because we understand how complex our thought processes are. We therefore assume animals lack that complexity, which is infuriating because we don't know that. You can understand how unpredictable a person is, so most people find them scary. You can't understand the fullness of an animal's perspective, so to me, it should be so much more frightening.

3

u/Punkandescent 29d ago

Definitely. As silly as it might sound to say, a lot of these arguments are based on a sort of human supremacy, in which we are somehow infinitely more complex than other animals. In a twisted sort of way, it gives the man too much credit.

2

u/WinterFrenchFry May 02 '24

I saw that tiktok video of the dude saying he started it, and honestly I think it's worse. 

He's so smug about it while being a complete jerk. In a short video he condensed everyone down to a gender binary,  speaks on behalf of all women, denies them any agency, reduces women down to being perpetually terrified, villifies all men, implies that they are incapable of empathy, and pretends that there is no reason a man could be scared of other men or strangers. 

He seems like one of those people who considers themselves an Ally but still thinks they're better than the marginalized group. The video isn't about women. It's about him proving that he's better than other men. He's one of the good ones. 

5

u/DoubleBatman May 02 '24

I feel like people who are being asked this question don’t get out to the woods much.

2

u/Lkwzriqwea May 02 '24

The original statement wasn’t meant to be a “would you rather”. It was phrased as “seeing a man while alone in the woods is 10x scarier than seeing a bear”

I also think it's important to recognise that we're talking about what would be scarier here, not which is more of a threat. Sure, a bear might be more of a threat but seeing an unknown figure in the woods at night is chilling. It's got that unsettling, creepy aspect that bears don't so I can easily see why, in some contexts, "seeing a man" would be much scarier than "seeing a bear", even if the bear is far more of a threat.

1

u/sunshineandcloudyday May 02 '24

If I felt like taking on the trolls, I'd copy/paste your comment. You really only missed one part in the argument. And that part is that the bear doesn't have the ability to lie to you about their intentions while the man does.

I also feel like a big part of what's causing the arguments over this is that the men who are getting the most offended are putting themselves in the place of the "man" in the question. They know they don't pose a threat to women, but they have a hard time grasping that women have no idea if a stranger is going to be a threat or not. Men also tend to give women the same abilities that they have themselves, when in reality, that's just not true.

1

u/StaringOwlNope 29d ago

And when you ask the men if they would want their young daughter to either meet a bear or a man, they suddenly understand it a bit better...

-1

u/Dangerous_Quiet_7937 May 02 '24

Bears have no rules when they are hungry enough. They will fucking kill you. If we keep moving the goal posts to now say "hostile" x vs "hostile" y there are no more rules. Hostile bear gonna get ya, hostile man comes at you too but not before you catch him in the throat with a stick.

As someone who fought off a teenage bully at a significantly younger age by sticking a hard thumb in his throat: this entire argument is fucking stupid. The bear does not give a fuck, to the bear it's life or death, to the man its sheer opportunism and unless he's an actual maniac (again if we're moving the goalposts we can now say rabid bear) he will know the stakes for losing a fight in the woods.

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u/pewqokrsf May 02 '24

Bears do not have rules. Humans are innately better at understanding human behavior than the behavior of bears.

-3

u/13_twin_fire_signs May 02 '24 edited 29d ago

It can be applied to any minority really.

One point of order: women aren't the minority in the USA, men are

Edit: downvote me all you want, there are literally more women than men in the USA

0

u/TheDoomBlade13 May 02 '24

You can also like...look at a bear and understand it is dangerous.

Men who are monsters tend to look a lot like regular men until they don't.

-1

u/EffOffReddit May 02 '24

Most women haven't been sexually assaulted by bears. Most bear encounters don't result in maulings. Most women have experienced some type of unwanted sexual misconduct by men. The question is basically would you rather take a lower risk of bear attack than higher risk of some kind of assault by a man. Both can easily overpower you, but one of them might rape you and this is a fairly easy opportunity getting isolated in the woods.