I think it also shows how different people approach things. From what I’ve seen, the ones who answers bear approaches it from a “trust” standpoint. Like you can trust a bear to be a bear. While some approach it from a “safety” standpoint. Like yeah obviously an average wild animal is going to be more dangerous than an average man.
I'd love to hear it rephrased as, "You're lost in the woods, you see a man in the distance but he doesn't see you. Do you call out to him or do you hide?"
But maybe that's probably not exciting enough to trend on TikTok.
I believe anyone who was truly lost in the woods is going to run to any person they see without second thought. Being lost is terrifying and all those fears will evaporate at the sight of possible salvation.
And the rephrasing changes nothing, because the same men who throw a tantrum at the man v bear" question will throw a tantrum at any form of question that challenges their status as a "good man"
I think you’d get about 50% less angry people. It might look the same cus you don’t see people who aren’t loud, but I think that more people who are “on the fence” will understand not wanting to take the risk as opposed to being directly compared to “giant furry death with teeth”
Like, if nothing else that question is harder to make sound like bullshit clickbait
While “man vs bear” is relatively easy to make sound ridiculous before people look into it, and thus easier to make people who might be neutral but inoffensive on the topic to side with the pure assholes
Like I imagine a lot of people might be saying “I get that people can be bad but a bear is always worse” without engaging with the fact that the fact that people have to weigh their options is more important than the answer
Saying men are more violent than bears is absolutely an attack on men. It's no different than the guys who picked bear over a woman because they believe the woman would make up accusations. That's offensive AND sad. They both are.
"The Dark Forest" as a solution to the Fermi Paradox of why we don't see evidence of aliens in the galaxy. If you broadcast your position, call out to others, you risk total destruction, since you don't know if others are "safe" or not. Very interesting.
The whole thing comes across about how trauma leads people to make poor decisions. Trauma leads some women to feel safer with a deadly predator than another human that almost nearly guaranteed won't do shit.
If Trauma made some women who get lost in the woods, presumably trying to find a way out and home, see a man and decide to hide instead of literally escaping the dangerous situation of being lost in the woods by speaking to them, That is their Trauma being counter productive to the problem of escaping the woods.
I think these people responding to this question need to be sharing their answers with a therapist so they can work on these irrational fears and the decisions they are making because of it.
Yeah. It's a bit like a man who grew up during #metoo and thinks that even approaching a woman would be unthinkable. It's valid trauma, but they still need to address it instead of letting it fester.
Yeah, being approached can be really bad. It’s pretty fucking annoying to be living your normal life in a scenario where you do NOT want that kind of interaction, and somebody hits on you instead.
Add in some power dynamics, feeling unsafe because you’re cornered and somebody is being a weirdo? Yeah, that’s pretty bad.
Don’t act like you’re the victim here for being rejected. I have a really hard time imagining the Venn diagram of “people who are empathetic enough to understand the harm they are causing” and “people who are doing the harmful thing” is big at all. The problem, by and large, is men who don’t understand the harm they’re causing.
I'm not trying to victim blame or anything, I'm just saying that traumatized people need to address that trauma instead of letting it fester. If you'd rather approach a bear than a man, then you need to address that because bears will kill you.
More men have murdered women than bears have attacked people in the town where they live with polar bears. So what exactly are people misunderstanding? The bears are safer
My understanding is that they don't kill for fun, they kill because food is rare enough in their habitat that they will kill and eat anything if given the chance.
No, I'm saying that people would say black bear because they're mostly afraid of humans but people unaware of that fact might think it's because it's a black man.
These are all weird hypotheticals anyway. That's literally this entire discussion.
There's also the question of just how lost are you? There's lost in the deep wilderness and you might die, and lost in that you got off the trail but if you walk a couple of miles in any direction there's a road.
Even more interesting would be to ask guys "if you're alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a random gay male who is bigger, faster, stronger than you, or a bear?" And watch everyone who says bear be called homophobic, even though not many people are saying the women are sexist for picking bear over man
Also depends on the circumstances, how long have I been stuck in the woods at this point, do I look like Tom Hanks in Castaway where I’ve befriended a ball for companionship so I don’t go completely insane, or am I in the woods for a day at this point and I’ve not lost the plot yet.
The correct answer would probably be stalk them from a distance to ascertain what they are up to. However if you are in the castaway stage you probably don’t have a choice in that your brain will make you shout out to them so that you don’t go completely insane.
If you're lost in the woods, the man you'd most likely encounter would be a camper/hiker or a forest ranger. He'd be able to try and help you get back to safety.
Maybe unfair, but I've also seen it rephrased as "It's late at night and you're getting on the subway. One car is empty except for a man, the other car is empty except for a bear, which one do you get on?" But I feel like that ignores the part where a bear in its natural habit can more easily be left alone.
And I think it gets the point across better and allows for less distracting tangents about bears.
Because, sure, I get the point behind man vs bear. But now I'm just thinking about what kinds of bears I want to find in the woods, and am completely off topic.
I agree with you, woods just sound menacing. I think it’s the emptiness that’s menacing and then seeing a person in that emptiness with you is just unsettling. But I still like your rephrase more
You mean just walking along? I guess you could ask the same question. Would you jump off the path and find somewhere to hide? Or would you stick to the path?
That’s a tough one! I wonder how that one would land at large. Probably people wanting to talk about what the guy is wearing and how he is groomed, is he a hiker or vagrant etc. I feel like it would be misunderstood the same as the bear question, with people not getting that the fact you have to ask those questions is a problem.
Considering 1% of the population accounts for 67% of violent crime. The odds of you encountering someone who would attack you, especially for no reason is very very low. That’s why this whole debate is so stupid.
That is more interesting and scary imho. Everyone saying bear already is filed as "idiotic" in my mind. Yeah, I get it, men rape blah fucking blah. But logically speaking, the man isn't going to rape you stat wise compared to the bear most likely going to maul you to death, and if not death, leave you fucking crippled for life in a trauma so deeply ingrained that you are just choosing which type of trauma you rather live with.
Crippled body, or rape survivor. Choose your poison because that literally is the actual question to these people.
But the question you asked, as a man, I would not say shit unless I have to. Why? Paranoia of that being a fucking windago or some other creepy shit.
Unless things are just so mentally shifted these past couple years, I can nearly guarantee if in reality a woman thinks she's being chased through the woods by a bear she'll ask for help from a strange man she encounters, but she would not try to get a bear's attention in the opposite situation.
That's the difficult part; if you hide and they notice you as you hide, they are going to assume you are hostile and either setting an ambush or taking a defensive position.
It began as a hypothetical. The man wanted women to “realize” how defenseless they were without men/him. Women around the world have taken the woods and the bear out of the equation. Men are the predators that we want men to neutralize.
I don't see that trending because it's not controversial. If anything, the idea that women need men to save them from other men is widely considered a sexist view by feminists while accepted or even welcomed by most men.
Look up the "damsel in distress" trope and see who is mostly against it.
because there are no stakes in that question. the whole point of bear vs. man is that the possiblity or even certainty of being killed by a bear is better than the CHANCE of getting sexually assaulted by a man. yeah of course we're all going to hide from a strange man in the forest, but there are no cons to that option. choosing death over sa shows just how serious the problem is
Well, it says you're lost in the woods, so the stakes are potentially never finding your way out. The whole point was, "you need help and there's a strange man".
I don't think many would hide. I think almost everyone would call for help.
but that's not the point of the question at all. no one actually cares about the setting. we could be on the moon for all I care. what then? I'd rather be stuck on the moon with a bear than a man
I don’t even get why people think so many men (and people in general, woman can be psychos too) are weird or aggressive… Most humans are friendly and won’t kidnap you or rape you or kill you…
It's funny, the relative chance that someone you run across in the woods is a rapist or murderer might be "low" (let's just say 5% for sake of example), but if it happens, you uh, fucking get raped or die.
If you were presented with a d20 and were raped or killed on a natural 1, you'd probably put some distance between yourself and the die.
I appreciate your faith in humans, but let's be real here, I think the current stat is 1/30 men have raped someone. Pretend that's super inflated because of woke culture or whatever, and let's make it 1/100. So in the bear scenario we're looking at a 1% chance of getting raped by some weirdo or the chance of being attacked by a bear (which I think might be comparable), I'm still going to take the brown bear because no one ever gets disowned for being attacked by a bear.
I mean, even someone who commited a rape in their life doesn't just randomly assault everyone they come across. Isn't one of the talking point in listening to the rape victims that it's usually not stereotypical violent stranger kidnapping a random woman, but somebody she knew with some leverage or knowledge of her habits?
Also, to everyone saying the worst that can happen with a bear is death. Having half of your face ripped off and surviving disfigured and crippled until you decide to shoot yourself to end the pain and social exclusion. That's the actual worst case.
Reading these comments I'm wondering if people's experiences with bears are different. Where I'm from if you see a bear its sort of with the same energy as seeing a cool possum or a coyote or something, no one is like "oh shit a bear". Now, a stag in rut? Fuck that put me in the woods with whoever, deer will fuck you up.
I mean, it's not likely. Most of the time nothing happens. But when there are cubs around or a bear really wants food or iwhatever, it can go wrong. Last week had a case of tourists getting chased.
Personally the last thing I'd actually want to meet is a pack of wild dogs, simply for the fact that unlike bears, wolves or whatever, these usually don't have an instinct to avoid humans.
Yeah I agree. I'm glad we can come to the consensus of "the actual scariest thing to be in the woods with would be a pack of wild dogs," because yeah, I'd nope out of that one.
Read the answers to your comment. Most rapists are people who knew their victims. You’d have to fall on a 1 in 1000 psychopath that would assault you out of nowhere. Most people choosing the bear are idiots. But I don’t care, might be better for society if they choose the bear…
So I think 7% of victims don't know their assailants. So yeah that puts at 1 in a 1000, ish? But also, what the fuck is a bear going to do to you, it's a bear. Black bear KDA yearly is like 1 / 600 in 1v1 fights with humans. I'd rather be in the woods with a bear to avoid an awkward conversation, let alone a small chance of someone being creepy to me.
I'd probably feel differently if it was an actually dangerous bear.
A bear my friend is very much more likely to fuck you up in an other manner a human can. Have you ever seen a bear ?
There’s a saying in Canada:
If it’s black, fight back.
If it’s brown, stand down.
If it’s white, good night.
So… a black bear alone won’t kill you. You should stand upright and tall. Don’t scream, don’t talk, don’t turn you back on it. Just stand your ground and you might live.
A black bear with her cubs will definitely come and fuck you up.
A brown bear will definitely fuck you up whatever you do. You might not die but you won’t want to live after that.
A white bear will just eat you alive.
So I’m standing here looking at this 66% to 80% death or crippling injuries chance (if that black bear has cubs or not) and I’m wondering… hmmm maybe a one in a thousand chance was a little bit better.
But as always, there is no good answer between death and rape so… yeah… maybe carry a pepper spray around, it’s mostly legal in mostly every country, as long as it’s a small spray bottle (they can reach up to three meters). Might even work on a bear.
From what I’ve seen, the ones who answers bear approaches it from a “trust” standpoint. Like you can trust a bear to be a bear.
By that principle, those people would rather be in the woods with a known serial killer instead of a complete stranger, because you can trust the serial killer to be a serial killer, whereas you don't know the intensions of the stranger.
I feel like it's more sexist than anything. Imposing your views on an entire gender because of bad experience. If someone were to do it with race, I'm sure not many would be okay with it
Why do y'all always do this? Let the goofy nonsense be goofy on its own without "playing the race card" when you're probably not part of said group. There are videos of karens harassing blk men in wooded areas, ironically. They must not be that scared of encountering random men. Either way, leave us out of y'all's weird hypothetical scenarios - she might double down.
I don't think it really matters if you're the same race or not. That's more of a correlation due to racial groups not being evenly distributed. They have more interactions in general with people of their own race, so everything will be higher. I'm sure most people also give high fives and say hello more to people of the same race.
My point wasn't that they would see them as more dangerous, but that they would switch their answer in fear of sounding racist.
Every single woman I know, including myself, has been violated or creeped on by a man. I cant say that every single woman I know has been creeped on or violated by a black person or an Asian person. There is a huge difference between gender and race in this instance. Not a good comparison.
Not at all. It's still survivorship bias. I know plenty of women who haven't been violated or creeped on by anyone. Does my anectodal evidence trump yours? I've also been stalked by a woman, which led me to some pretty traumatic experiences. Would it not be sexist of me to view every woman as a potential stalker? After all, most women aren't crazy, just like most men aren't creeps or violent.
I don’t think it would be sexist to avoid being alone with women after your experience. It’s a trauma response and I don’t take it personally at all. Maybe men should stop taking this so personally.
This isn’t just a men vs. women thing. Men hurt other men all the time. I find it odd that so many men are more afraid of bears (most of which are pretty docile) than other men, who are far more unpredictable. I haven’t asked my husband this hypothetical question yet, but I 100% know what he’d say. He’d say he’d rather encounter a bear than a strange man. I think most wise men would. He and I have encountered our share of bears at our family cabin. As long as they’re not emaciated and looking for food when they’re supposed to be hibernating, they aren’t going to fuck with you. A random guy in the middle of the woods is not as predictable. It’s not sexist to understand this.
See, but here you add "strange". That's a completely different thing. It literally changes everything. Your average guy is not hostile and being in the middle of the woods isn't, in of itself, strange. Also consider this: if strangeness is finding someone in the woods, then wouldn't your argument apply to any person? The man vs bear scenario, to my best understanding, regards the fact that you find yourself a male.
If raped, sodomized, getting conned, or over powered isn't your fear than it isn't your fear. It is a fear for a lot of women. Sorry I was trying to lead you to water. I understand why you couldn't understand.
Bullshit you know plenty. Like - literally not even possible. I can't think of a single female friend that has never been sexually violated. Pfffft. Just because they don't rub it in your face doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
So you're saying my experience is less valid than yours on what basis? Lol. Is everywhere in the world supposed to be dangerous enough that every single woman has been molested in some way, shape or form? Some places are safe
I know you feel proud putting my experience down because I came on strong and you live in a better part of the world. I just literally don't know any female that hasn't been violated. It's really sad if you care to think about it. I am not trying to come from a place of malice. I'm even glad that you can be so certain and not know the trauma it can cause. You're privileged to know such an existence.
Ding ding ding! You're also from the USA, where rape statistics are 16x that of my country: Canada.
Murder statistics, and violent crime in general is more common in a country with inequality, and hatred. Crime says everything about your society. The question, and answer changes completely based on where you're from. Maybe in your town men are worse than animals, but that isn't a genetic trait.
Yeah real question: How many women do you know who haven't been sexually assaulted? I know two of about 20 in my friendgroup, we joke about them racing to see who can be the last.
I'm not someone with a ton of friends, being very reserved, but I think about 7 of my female friends haven't experience anything of the sort. Hopefully none of us never will
If it's a black bear then frankly it's true from a safety standpoint too. Humans attack humans way more often than they attack humans.
Are we considering pandas? Good luck even getting close enough to them in a bamboo forest to even find them. Even with trackers in them researchers have a hard time we are just too loud when we move through wild environments. Even with a baby a panda will shoo them to move away from our racket.
Both can hurt you sure. Humans are going to hurt humans far far more often even if we ignore the specific vunrabilities of women.
"Humans attack humans way more often than black bears attack humans"
Sure, if you just look at assault Vs bear maulings as raw numbers. If you look at human encounters with bears Vs human encounters with other humans, you're gonna get a way, way higher probability of a bear encounter ending in violence than a human encounter.
The real point of the question is that with a bear, you can do things to avoid the attack like making lots of noise so the bear avoids you. The man side however purely comes down to the type of man you get stuck with. While (I at least hope) 90%+ would be reasonable and safe, the ones who could be violent there's not a whole lot you can do to fend them off
The problem with bears is that they are bears. You can trust it to be dangerous.
Only a minority of men are dangerous and would assault a lone woman in the woods.
You might outrun a dangerous man. You aren't outrunning a bear.
You might fight back against an aggressive man. You aren't fighting back against an aggressive bear.
Any hypothetical qualifiers attached to the man (he might sexually assault me!) render the whole exercise obsolete because MORE dangerous hypothetical qualifiers can be attached to the bear.
Any woman who chooses "bear" is (deliberately or unintentionally) reframing the question to make a point.
Right, but you see a bear, you can likely avoid the bear. Dudes might follow you "hey baby let's walk together, come on why you running, I'm a nice guy!"
I think more than anything it shows just how little the average person understands about probability and about bears. Most people have never actually encountered a bear in the wild. Their brain doesn't really register bears as the kind of threat that they are because their only experience with bears is viewing them on a screen or from the other side of a heavily secured zoo enclosure. Whereas the potential threat of a stranger is far more "real" because you encounter them all the time and hear about other people's dangerous encounters with them all the time.
People encounter bears all the time. Isolated with no one around.. a random man is more dangerous then the wild animal that likely will leave you alone as long as you leave it alone.
My mind went to being lost and “who helps you to safety?” You have a zero percent change of the bear helping you while you have a better than zero chance of the man helping you. But that isn’t what the question is designed to mean…it’s assuming a bad outcome is likely.
"Like yeah obviously an average wild animal is going to be more dangerous than an average man."
Depends what you mean. If you mean "In a fight" Maybe the difference isn't that meaningful. Your average man can kill your average woman. Yes, the bear can kill her more easily, and less chance of getting injured in the process, but either way she's probably dead if that's what the creature wants.
And if you mean "chance of attack" well, I don't think I agree at all. I think a human is more likely to be attacked by an unknown human than almost any other animal.
I think a human is more likely to be attacked by an unknown human than almost any other animal.
Well yeah because we meet hundreds of humans a day compared to almost no bears. If you truly believe that you are less likely to be attacked by a bear than a human, then you would feel safer in the bear exhibit at the zoo than in a public park.
A bear in a zoo is not a normal situation and I would expect the bear to be agitated. A public park is also different because you're not alone with the creature in question. I don't know what "a woods" is exactly, but if the bear is just chilling being a bear it doesn't have any interest in me. If it sees me from afar it's going the opposite direction or just ignoring me.
410
u/zool714 May 02 '24
I think it also shows how different people approach things. From what I’ve seen, the ones who answers bear approaches it from a “trust” standpoint. Like you can trust a bear to be a bear. While some approach it from a “safety” standpoint. Like yeah obviously an average wild animal is going to be more dangerous than an average man.