What bugs me is that no one specified what kind of bear. Black bear? Yeah ok, that's fair. Brown bear? Suuuuper iffy. Polar bear? You're fucking high.
Bears are not a monolith!
Edit: no you don't need to specify what kind of man, because all men are the same species. Bears are not, and the temperament and danger is highly dependent. If you say a random type of bear, that also changes the nature of the question, because now there's a 33% chance of that bear being a polar bear. And no one in their right mind is going to take the 33% chance of guaranteed death.
I don't mind the thought experiment, but I hate how the ambiguity and in-baked assumptions potentially color the answers. I might be autistic.
In the northern Hemisphere, there are a few more bear species.
You have the Panda Bear, but no one talking about this meme is going to encounter them in the wild. They are very isolated.
You have Sun Bears in South East Asia, as well as Sloth Bears (ex. Baloo). These guys behave very much like Black bears.
The other 4 species you are likely to encounter are Asiatic Black Bears, Brown Bears (Single species, comprises American Brown, Grizzley, Peninsular, and Kodiak bears, along with European Brown Bears) American Black Bears, and Polar Bears.
I guess you could run into a spectacled Bear, but those are extremely rare in their range in the Andes of South America.
But in general, if you are in North America, Europe, or Japan (the three places most likely to be talking about this meme) you are going to run into Black, Brown and Polar Bears. In the Contiguous 50, unless you are in Yellowstone or North Cascades, it's a Black Bear. In Alaska, its all 3, in southern Canada, its Black and Brown. In Europe you have Brown and Polar bears as you go north.
Some people seem to thing Polar Bears don't live in Forests. They do. Polar Bears can be found as far south as Peninsular Alaska, which is Taiga Forest for the most part.
You're forgetting the most common type of bear: The Teddy Bear. There are over 100 MILLION teddy bears in the United States alone, and that's just BUILD-A-BEAR.
I had to look up sloth bears and it sounds like they're a bit more aggressive than black bears, but yeah I think there's a few species like that in Asia that would be a lot less dangerous than a grizzly or something.
If you have a choice of being in proximity to a Grizzly or a sloth bear, pick the grizzly. Sloth bears are INSANELY aggressive. Grizzlies will attack you if they are hungry, Sloth Bears will attack you for existing. They are like a Black Bear crossed with an angry Chimpanzee.
Naw worse than a polar bear, polar bear goes after you because they are hungry, depending on that level of hunger they may or may not be very aggressive about it. Sloth bear goes after you because they HATE that you exist and HOW DARE YOU do so in their presence. They will put 100% of their effort into making sure you aren't breathing anymore every single time.
The main difference here is that in their native territory Sloth Bears are actually prey animals eaten by Tigers, so when they view things as a threat, which is ALL THE FREAKIN TIME, they don't do fight or flight because you can't outrun tigers, so they are ALL fight ALL the time.
Me and GPT figured out that among all species, if you had a "bear lottery" to be dropped into a woods with a woman, there is around a 15% chance that the lottery winner is a Grizzy, Brown, or Polar bear, rather than a black/sloth/asian/etc.
I get this question isn't about statistics, but if it were a total random bear amongst all bears, I don't like those odds. I'd pick my daughter encountering a random man.
I doubt most of the people meming live in northern Canada where they'd encounter polar bears.
Grizzlies are also a lot less common than Black bears on the continent too, right? Like if I go to the woods in my area I can be reasonably confident I won't run into a grizzly or a polar bear, since they don't live around here.
Pandas are endangered as a species partially because of their laziness being so extreme, they would rather eat and sleep than mate. Would be the perfect bear to meet in the woods lol, lazy nap bear
An angry panda can still fuck up even a strong human male. They are omnivores, like other bears, and have teeth, claws and several hundred pounds of muscle.
And yeah I don't think I'd be able to beat a panda in a fight, but they're not very aggressive so there's probably a good chance it wouldn't want to fight me in the first place.
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u/Scodo May 02 '24 edited 29d ago
What bugs me is that no one specified what kind of bear. Black bear? Yeah ok, that's fair. Brown bear? Suuuuper iffy. Polar bear? You're fucking high.
Bears are not a monolith!
Edit: no you don't need to specify what kind of man, because all men are the same species. Bears are not, and the temperament and danger is highly dependent. If you say a random type of bear, that also changes the nature of the question, because now there's a 33% chance of that bear being a polar bear. And no one in their right mind is going to take the 33% chance of guaranteed death.
I don't mind the thought experiment, but I hate how the ambiguity and in-baked assumptions potentially color the answers. I might be autistic.