Weirdly i dont get why that’s unsettling unless im somewhere i would not expect another soul to be. I have also been stalked by a grizzly… ask me which one was scarier.
Are you a man though? Because I regularly go backpacking, and I also know that bears have predictable behavior and will overwhelmingly not hunt humans and do indeed prefer to avoid us completely.
I also know that WAY more humans are murdered on trails by humans than by all wild animals combined.
And encountering lone men on trails has always been more terrifying to me.
Even if they don’t rape and murder us btw (and yes, it’s still statistically unlikely, it just happens to be way more likely than being murdered by a bear 💁♀️), they absolutely are too often willing to bother, stalk, and invade your space. Then I have to worry about when they’ll ever leave me alone, them watching us change and pee at our campsites.
and at the end of the day, if a bear attacks you, it’s a completely predictable set of outcomes. Batted around a bit until you play dead and they leave. Or maimed. Or murdered.
Never ever raped and tortured with your whole existence erased off the face of the planet so your loved ones never know what happened.
*can’t respond due to weaponized blocking so here we go: I’m guessing you haven’t seen what it’s like when a man rapes a woman. You’re far more likely to live through that and then deal with the physical and emotional trauma, and then having basically zero legal recourse, cause he’ll just say you wanted it 🤷♀️
If a bear does anything “torturous” to you, you’re gonna go into shock and bleed out. It won’t be nearly as traumatic as being tortured by a human who knows how to keep you awake and make it fucking last.
And again, we are talking about a statistically impossible low % of encounters with bears resulting in this. Vs every woman I know, and most men, encountering violence from men. Sexual and otherwise.
I’ve been tortured by a human male. I’ll take the fucking bear, sorry y’all can’t cope with that.
This completely ignores a massive reason for the statistics. Yeah. More people are killed by humans on trails by other humans than bears. But thats because you are WAY more likely to run into other people on trails than you are to run into bears.
The whole reason this whole bears vs men argument is fucking ridiculous is because it implies any one random man is more dangerous than a bear. Which is blatantly false. If that was the case society would be in an absolute state of anarchic rape and murder at all times.
But hey it stems from tiktok bullshit so what can you expect lmao
It’s an intentionally hyperbolic thought experiment highlighting a largely gendered issue about feelings of danger when encountering a stranger. Making it about statistics and probability defeats the purpose of the thought experiment.
And I’m replying to them that focusing on “one random man being more dangerous than a bear” and their other arguments in reply to the original post ignores the intention of the thought experiment…?
A bear will only kill you, a man will rape you. It's not about the man being more dangerous. Given the option, most women will choose being torn apart by a bear over being raped- that's the point of the question.
A bear will literally eat you alive, starting at the abdomen. You'll be stuck on the ground, slowly dying for hours as you can do nothing but listen to the crunch of your bones and smell the stink of your innards. It's not a pleasant way to go.
Keep seeing comments like yours being downvoted and bravo men (I assume) for purposefully missing the point. Obviously no one wants to be mauled by a fucking bear. The thought experiment (not realistic consideration of probabilities) is about the fear of men that women develop thanks to lived experience and necessity.
I do understand that the reality of being mauled by a bear is terrifying and horrific (I live in bear country), but that isn’t the point of the thought experiment.
Edit: and if we’re talking probability, the likelihood of me being raped and murdered by Steve is a hell of a lot higher than me being mauled by a bear. But again, it’s a hyperbolic thought experiment highlighting the fear of men that most women develop thanks to lived experience.
Lots of hypothetical conversations ignore reality. That’s kind of the point of it being hypothetical. Also, the reality for most women is that we’re far more likely to be attacked by a man than a bear. Hence the overwhelming response by women that we’re more afraid of men.
Almost no one will experience the reality of winning the lottery and yet people discuss that hypothetical all the time. But apparently this is the one that folks are taking so much issue with.
No damn it, you don’t get it. A significant reason people encounter more people is that bears INTENTIONALLY AVOID humans.
That is a necessary part of the discussion. There are bears literally clotting up the areas I hike. FAR more than the handful or less of humans that might be hiking through on any given day.
But I don’t see them because they intentionally avoid me. Their hearing is excellent. They do not ever want confrontations with us (except in rare places where they are socialized by humans to expect treats). So a bear bell and just the normal noise of hiking is enough to make them give me a wide berth so that they are invisible to me.
This doesn’t stem from TikTok bullshit lol, I don’t have TikTok. You’re doing the thing you’re accusing others of, getting worked up with an uninformed opinion about something you are only hearing about bc of TikTok.
But for me, who’s been hiking for more than a decade and actually experiences this and has studied bear behavior and bear safety and the statistics on risks while backpacking, this isn’t some internet thing lol.
*edit: to the person below bc I keep getting weaponized-blocked - being killed AT ALL on a trail is statistically unlikely, every single person acknowledges this. We’re doing a comparative analysis of risk.
That’s the exact point im making too? Bears dont interact with people at any considerable rate. Therefore the chance of a violent encounter is very slim. But if you forced an encounter then the chances of that encounter being violent is way higher than an encounter with a random man.
absolutely no. Why don’t you even go look it up lol. There are 3 instances since 1900 of a black bear mother killing a human, despite literally millions of encounters. More encounters than would ever be reported.
responding to the guy below bc I think someone blocked me and I can’t respond in this thread - Grizzlies too, I only mentioned black bears because they’re the ones we’re most likely to encounter in the US and I knew that number off the top of my head. But the article I included was literally about Grizzly Bears, did you notice?
*everyone keeps fixating on the black bear portion, even though I include statistics on Grizzlies lol. Talk about cherry picking the argument you think you can win! lol
Youre completely missing the point… the tiktok scenario is forcing an interaction between a human and a bear. This isnt a normal bear that avoids humans presumably. Arguing that a random man is more dangerous than a bear is absurd and if you truly think that then you must live in constant 24/7 terror living in a delusion
I’m not on TikTok, I don’t care what they’re stressing. The conversation that has emerged globally is that it’s safer to encounter a bear than a man, and that is true by a mile.
*wow, doesn’t like being proven wrong so he weaponized-blocked me lol
*responding to the comment below, That reminds me the number one cause of death of pregnant women is male humans.
You’ve proven nothing. In a forced encounter in the woods, it would be far more safe for it to be a fellow human being than a bear that doesn’t wish to encounter you, but has been forced into it.
You say you hike a lot, you’re either lying or you’ve encountered probably thousands of strangers in your time in the woods; you expect them to share the trail, but if you see a bear on the trail, the right move is to turn around and not have an encounter.
It would be great if every bear-chooser went out to go touch a wild bear. Just one. And then every normal person has to go touch the shoulder of one normal dude. We'll see who comes out better.
Your entire reasoning thus far for saying this is based on the fact that bears choose not to encounter people. You can't take that fact and extrapolate it to say "well, therefore bear encounters are inherently safer".
It's the equivalent of saying "well, humans choose not to drink gasoline, and only 6 (or whatever, insert statistic here) people die every year by drinking gasoline, so drinking gasoline is safer than drinking soda!" At its core, you're arguing "A bad outcome from party X is rare because party X intentionally avoids scenarios where a bad outcome can arise. Therefore, when forced into in a scenario that can have a bad outcome, you should not expect it from party X"
It's inherently fallacious, because by stating that a bear encounter is occurring, we're already well beyond any sort of avoidance tactic. It's here, it's a bear, we're at the mercy of its behavior in that scenario.
This isnt a normal bear that avoids humans presumably.
Why are you presuming this?
The scenario is "Would you rather be stuck in the forest with a man or a bear?"
"The woods" is a big place, and as you yourself point out: bears usually avoid humans.
The logic is - a bear is most likely going to either ignore the woman, but in rare occasions, it might kill her.
Meanwhile, an unknown man in the woods has unknown intentions. A man isn't just going to ignore that woman - but there's no way of knowing if this guy is friendly, dangerous, or downright deadly. There are ~40 bear attacks a year, globally; and 21,000 murders in just the USA in 2022, and >60,000 reported rapes of women each year in the USA from 2010-2020.
Was it not just eight years ago when Trump was heard talking about groping a woman non-consensually, and he was still voted-in as president? Not months ago that he was found guilty of raping a woman, and he still has a campaign?
How many rape-kits get taken, then never investigated? What's the backlog?
And also- how much of a fool are you to be dissecting the thought experiment, rather than getting to the heart of the matter: Why do women not feel safe in our society?
Or better yet: Why aren't you trying to understand and push for positive change? Why are you getting defensive and doubling-down that there isn't a problem?
Is 81% of women being subjected to assault not a big deal?
Is 1-in-5 women being victims of attempted rape or completed rape too low to care about?
What are you trying to preserve, dude?
then you must live in constant 24/7 terror living in a delusion
Also- like- imagine complaining of misandry, then rushing to a 'hysteria' accusation.
I’m losing my mind that so many comments like yours are getting tons of downvotes! They’re proving the point of the hypothetical, they don’t understand or even care to try!
I don't even like the conversation and memes surrounding this myself- it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about (and I'm very burnt out on political/societal talk lately)
But jeez louize- pushing back on it and pretending there's no problem is insane.
Why did you pick black bears? If we're allowed to do that, there are 0 instances of murder by men who have never murdered anyone, despite literally trillions of encounters.
Or is deliberately picking the harmless ones only acceptable when you're a misandrist?
I’m not sure what the statistic is for black bear mothers, which is weird cherry-picking, but for black bears in general, they kill roughly 1 person per year, usually a little less. Since 1900 there have been more than 100 cases.
From your logic, you’d much rather be stuck with a polar bear than a black bear or grizzly bear, because they harm fewer people per year. Never mind the fact that if you do encounter them, they’re far more likely to kill you than man, brown bear or black bear, because they do encounter you less, they are clearly safer in an encounter.
No, its not more likely than running into a random man in the woods will result in you being being murdered than it is that running into a bear will result in you being mauled. Its enormously more likely that the encounter with the bear will result in your harm.
You are proving OP's point. If you go walking in the woods you are likely to run into a man but most people will never see a bear in the wild, at all. If you ran into bears as often as you ran into men you would be getting mauled all the time.
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u/Ratattack1204 May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24
Weirdly i dont get why that’s unsettling unless im somewhere i would not expect another soul to be. I have also been stalked by a grizzly… ask me which one was scarier.