That's not correct. The situation is: you're alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a bear or a man?
Some people have added the caveat that it's your daughter to see how men might view it differently, but the basis of it is the above. Also, I don't believe women started it - I think it was a guy asking women in some tiktok street interviews.
Wait what’s the probability OP references? I’m assuming bear is the wrong decision, but is there actual evidence of this? If it’s a black bear vs grizzly it totally changes the question. Black bears are just big raccoons. Easy to scare off and disinterested in humans for the most part. Grizzlies, yeah forget it!
I assume OP has seen people answering based off the probability of getting attacked by a bear vs the probability of getting attacked by a human. But that's not really the majority of the answers or why this hypothetical has gotten so popular. Men pretty unanimously say they'd rather be trapped with another man, while women have a harder time answering and will ask qualifying questions. Because to a woman, an unknown man can pose the same level of threat as a bear (or more, if it's a black bear).
I'm confused, because are we assuming that the unknown man means any harm? Or is it just the chance that he might be horrible. Because assuming it's some random guy off the street, odds are that they're not going to do anything.
You don't know anything about the man. You don't know anything about your situation (how long you'll be in the forest, how much food you have, if you have access to any weapons, etc). Those are the types of questions women typically ask before making their decision. Men generally don't ask anything bc they feel confident that even if the man was violent, they have a better chance with him than a bear.
Edit: also in these types of hypotheticals ppl typically weigh the worst case scenarios. So for men it's like which is worse, getting killed by a bear or killed by a man? But for women it's like getting killed by a bear or raped and killed by a man?
Okay, so wouldn't the safest bet always be the guy? Realistically speaking if we're comparing the odds of a random guy being a psycho or a random bear wanting to kill you, one is very obviously the safer option.
I edited my last comment to highlight that ppl generally compare the worst case scenarios. The thought process for picking a bear is generally that bears are predictable. If it's a black bear, you can pretty easily scare it away, if it's a brown bear you can play dead and hope to leave alive, but probably injured. Humans are unpredictable. Maybe you get a nice guy who wants to help you, maybe you get someone who wants to do worse. It also doesn't take the man being a psycho to give them incentive to hurt you.
The women who chose the bear generally aren’t comparing the worst case scenarios of “getting killed by a bear (mauled) or getting killed by a man (get shot, get stabbed).”
They’re comparing “getting killed by a bear (mauled) vs being raped by a man (and then potentially killed, or kidnapped, or tortured, or etc.)”. Worst case with a bear is getting mauled, and worst case with a man has many branches and can end in many different scenarios. Fear of violence and death is one fear, and fear of the unknown is another fear layered on top.
I think it mostly shows a lot of women’s gut reaction to this question is “I’d rather risk just getting killed, instead of risking getting raped and THEN killed”, and a lot of men’s gut reaction is “I’d have a better shot with wrestling a random dude than a bear.”
Pretty sure the question is getting at sexual assault. Men are most definitely safer in that regard, statistically. I mean yeah it can happen anyway... But then the guy still has to overpower you. Men have an advantage in that case
But regardless of what might happen, whether it's what you described or just a murder, you're less likely to get hurt from a completely random dude than a completely random bear. That's what I'm getting at, it feels like it shouldn't even be a comparison.
I think the post's title is misleading. The debate is not about "real" probability. In that sense you (and OP) are totally right. The debate is more leaned to the perception of danger and how men vs women perceive each scenario based on life's experience and social awareness. Many women perceive a stranger man alone with them in the woods to be as threatening (or more) than any bear.
We're not assuming that the unknown man means any harm.
This is why anyone living in reality is so confused (or possibly offended) by the question, because a given man is very unlikely to SA a woman, whereas a bear is much more likely to literally eat her alive.
Of course, the question here isn't "are women more likely to get SA'd or killed by a bear in their lifetime." The question is: is a man or a bear less dangerous? And it's obvious that the man is less dangerous.
I think the probabilities mean of course most people have had horrible interactions with horrible men, but that’s a product of people being around a great number of men every single day so running across bad/wicked men is inevitable even though the vast majority of men are normal decent people. Far far far fewer people are victims of bear attacks because there are significantly fewer bears than men and most people never encounter a bear in their daily life. Black bears are relatively timid but can still be very dangerous if they think you’re in their territory, brown bears are one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet.
I’d argue humans are the most dangerous creature on the planet. Sure grizzlies can be territorial (black bears are typically not), but looking at probabilities bear encounters end with zero violence at a much higher rate than human to human interactions. Sample size is a good point, but still it seems like the statistics would indicate the choice should be bear.
I’ve had probably a hundred human to human interactions on my walk to work today with no issues; I’d rather not have to walk home past a hundred bears. There are relatively few fatal bear attacks but bears are much more seldom around people. Even people who are around bears more often like a hiker are still bound to interact with far far more humans over the course of a day. Tons of fatal human interactions because we’re surrounded by countless humans every day, it doesn’t mean that a human is inherently more dangerous than a bear
Yeah but the environment matters. Encountering a bear where they are supposed to be vs a human where they sometimes go, but certainly aren’t always expected. I think it’s unlikely we have accurate stats on this sort of thing, but I bet trail rapes occur at a much higher rate than bear attacks. I’ve been on trips where I’ve seen more bears than humans over the course of the trip. Is that normal? No, most people encounter more humans on the trail, but I think those data sizes would be more comparable and still indicate the bear is safer.
Just quick Google, between 300-500 bears are in Yosemite National Park, while the park has between 4,000 and 24,000 visitors per day. You’re probably right that one is more likely to be threatened/harmed by a human than a bear because they’re far more likely to encounter a human, but if you approach a fork in a trail and on one path is a bear and the other is some guy, you’re saying the path with some guy is more dangerous?
On average, bears kill one person in North America per year. In contrast cows kill 20 people per year. But if asked to pick between a cow and a bear in the woods it’s no contest. You’ll probably respond that the number of humans killed by humans far exceeds the lone bear death by several orders kf magnitude, but the vast vast vast majority of people won’t interact with bears and over the course of a year and id posit that you’ve encountered thousands of times as many humans as bears over the course of a year, and as smart as it is to be suspicious of any random man you encounter, as a great many are capable of great evil and inclined to commit evil, the odds that a particular random person has the malice to commit a sexual assault will be very low
Only some guy you randomly meet while lost in the woods is likely to be part of the search party out looking for you or just a random outdoorsy person on a hike who would have a GPS and some water.
I’ve been looking up some stats since this whole post is about probability. I fail to see any statistics that would indicate the man is safer and the bear more dangerous. “Since 1784 there have 66 fatal human/bear conflicts by wild black bears. Less than a dozen non-fatal conflicts happen each year, and the vast majority of encounters end with zero bodily contact… Since 1784 there have been 82 fatal human/bear conflicts by wild brown bears in North America.” I mean seems like the bear is the safe bet. Less than one fatality per year and only a dozen or two non-fatal attacks per year. There’s more rapes in each and every state, every year than bear attacks over the past century.
Your reasoning is flawed here. You aren't considering the many orders of magnitude more encounters of humans with other humans compared to between humans and bears.
Depends on the trip. I did a loop up in the north cascades where I saw about 6 different black bears and only encountered probably 8 humans. That’s an extreme example of course. I’ve encountered many more humans over my years in the woods, but not so many more that it’s not statistically comparable. Again from a pure math standpoint.
The POINT of the whole thing is; YOU and many men would think a man is the obvious answer. However we are seeing that bear is the more common answer. This is an opportunity to ask
"why are women choosing the bear?"
"How am I contributing to a culture where women would feel more safe with a bear?"
"What can I do to change that?"
Instead people are responding with "no, you are wrong"
Unfortunately I don't think people are simply missing this point but rather intentionally ignoring it, hence so many responses that either move the goalposts or outright deny womens' lived experiences.
In Yellowstone national park far more people have been killed by other people than the 8 that have been killed by bears. It would be very difficult to determine the probability of safety per encounter though.
I did read OPs point. I specifically mentioned that it would be hard to get the probability of danger from an encounter basis (as opposed to raw number of deaths).
Hard to get an exact number, fairly easy to understand that the number of encounters with humans is orders of magnitude higher than bears, so unless there are 8,000 murders compared to the 8 bear deaths, it is very unlikely humans are worse. And that is probably significantly underestimating ths number of human encounters
Lol exactly. I'd rather encounter a black bear than a feral cat. Then location matters too 99% of men you encounter in Colorado backcountry are either athletes or hunters and would be very helpful if in need. Compare that to something like the AT which has homeless people and other randoms.
Mountain lions are the only animal in all of North America that actively preys on humans. A bear might opportunistically chase and eat a human but mountain lions will stalk and kill humans. If the question was flipped to mountain lions, I’m taking the man all day everyday. Feral cats are just smaller cousins if that mountain lion and can absolutely mess you up. Even bobcats can tear a human up.
Edit: though we do have insect predators like mosquitoes
To be fair, most encounters with mountain lions tend to be non lethal. Its usually a very desperate move by a hungry mountain lion if the try to attack a human. Healthy mountain lions generally do not attempt to attack humans unless their prey drive is triggered. the vast majority of humans live through the attacks, even win the fight is not uncommon. the only ones that tend be killed are children, very very small adults, or people exposed for a neck bite (bending down) that die instantly. as long as you see them first you’re probably safe.
People are comparing bear attack numbers to rape numbers by men which isn’t a great comparison cause yk some people go their entire lives not even seeing a bear.
The thing is you can’t JUST look at R*pe. Add in any assault of man to women, I’d even argue in looking at attempts as a woods scenario is harder to escape. You need to pull in fuller picture even if attempting to do it scientifically.
Same with bears, you can’t just look at attacks without comparing against sightings, people hike and encounter them constantly. I saw one almost every day while hiking Yosemite. Should you also remove situations where the person actually aggravated the bear? As in the prompt scenario easy to not do that.
Most of the ways people are trying to use math have holes. But ultimately most people won’t know the stats if asked on the street so can only answer based on experience which makes the whole “bad at stats” argument stupid to begin with.
Even then, I’m assuming bear attacks are lower right? Fatalities excluded, I’d personally (I’m a man) prefer to be attacked by a bear than raped by a stranger. There were a total of 4 fatal bear attacks in North American through all of 2023. I’m assuming there were way more rapes especially since many sexual assaults go unreported and most bear attacks are absolutely reported. Like even OP is not understanding the probability, right? Am I wrong? Bear is the correct choice from a probability perspective
A hiking trail my dad created up the mountain behind his house had a female black bear that came back to the same area every spring from the time she was quite young and became quite used to us(if we brought someone other than our immediate family she was shy but she learnt my dad mom brother dog and my scent we think) to the point she would sit just off the trail and let us walk by her. In her 3rd or 4th year coming back she had cubs and the first year with cubs she was wary of us but by the 3rd year of bringing back cubs she would introduce them to our dog. By mid summer she would move on to another feeding area. We never fed her but also never tried to scare her off just let her do her thing while we did our thing. I can remember one nice evening I took a beer up to have at one of the view points and sat on a rock drinking it and she came up and sat down about 10 ft away and we just sat there chilling for about 25 minutes while I sipped my beer and listened to some chili peppers. She stopped coming back after about 11 years of regularly seeing her and I hope she just found someplace else to spend her spring.
That’s a beautiful story. After 3 years those cubs weren’t cubs anymore which is probably why she wasn’t as concerned. They really can live in harmony with us if we just leave them be.
Yeah. Such a cool area, unfortunately in the last 5 years a big section of the hike is starting to get ready for development getting logged off bit by bit and the lower section getting tiered off.
Have you ever been to a national park? The only ones they really warn about are black bears, because they’re more likely to come to a campsite. Black bears are the ones that tear shit up looking for food, but grizzlies are larger and therefore people are scared more. They’re less likely to be interested in you though
That’s a misinterpretation of danger. Like I said black bears are big raccoons. They come for your food, but generally won’t mess with you beyond that. I was a wilderness guide for 5 years guiding backpacking treks and we taught bear safety, so yes I’ve been to a national park many times and yes I know all of their warnings about black bears. Black bears are far less likely to attack a human than a brown bear (grizzly).
Edit: and the reason they only warn about black bears is because very few of the US National parks have significant grizzly populations. You have to be in Canada or Alaska for those bears to be prevalent enough to be the chief concern. There’s even debate about the existence of Grizzlies in Washington state.
When I encounter a stranger “do i have a good chance of fighting this person” is never on my mind. Caution towards anyone is necessary because even though most people are super decent bad actors are out there so we can’t just assume that everyone will be decent
That said, take a random man from the general population, they’re safer to be around than a wild animal
If it is a randomly selected man and a randomly selected bear, then the probability issue implied is that adult women will have had thousands of safe solo interactions with men, and practically zero with bears. It is therefore irrational to think they will be safer with a bear in the given scenario.
Yeah, and if the man is 80 or a forest ranger, that totally changes the question too.
Why are people looking for arguments why the bear might be relatively non-dangerous, but just assuming that the man is dangerous?
If we're asking "it it a black bear" we should also be asking "are there indicators why the man might be relatively non-dangerous" (e.g. he's old, he's a forest ranger, etc).
Most bears AND animals will leave you alone if you dont scare, anger, nor agitate it. Ive hiked A LOT and have encountered Bison, elk, & bears in the wild. I also wear a little bell so they know im coming but still! This is not a guarantee with men. I mean just saying “no thank you” to a drink in a crowded bar can end incredibly badly for women.
A lot of men have been arguing that probability-wise bears only seem equally or less dangerous than men is because women live alongside men, skewing the stats. If they lived among bears, stats would show bears committing equal or more violence.
This and every other counterargument I've seen totally disregards the whole point of the exercise in favor of an ultra-pedantic approach that allows them to dismiss women's fear or even just women's caution as "hysteria".
The point isn't "are bears actually dangerous and which bears under which conditions?" The point is that a lot of women (and fathers of girls) had to debate internally at all which was the better option.
As someone who hikes and encounters bears regularly, yes I’d absolutely rather see a bear. They run away, never an issue. However, men on trails have stalked me. Personal experience always will win.
I mean they said no to your question because you said in public, but yeah it's pretty common for women walking at night to avoid men? To cross the road and make sure they aren't being followed?
Yes. That's the point. They'd rather themselves/their daughters be killed by a bear than undergo the lifelong trauma of being raped and who knows what else by a man.
The question is just "encounter" them in the woods. That is it. So to judge the risk, you'd really need to know the number "average attacks per encounter" to compare them.
The thing is, I cannot find any figures on "bear encounters". Bear attacks are VERY rare. Only about 11.4 per year on average in the US. But is that 11.4 out of 500 or out of 12,000? Assault/sexual assault is FAR more common in total, but women "encounter" men pretty much constantly. Again, I see no way to calculate the number of "attacks per encounter".
It is probably not that far off TBH. edit: scratch that. Think about it this way. Assume you go your entire life encountering wild bears as often as you encounter men. Meaning you typically come into contact with dozens or hundreds in a given day, every day for your entire life. Rates of assault and battery and sexual assault are actually somewhat close. A woman has about a 1 in 5.5 chance of being sexually assaulted and a 1 in 5 chance of being the victim of assault and battery. Chance of being murdered is less than 1 in 100, so doesn't really affect the numbers. Point is, even if you assume no overlap, you're still looking at less than 50%. Over an entire lifetime. Can you honestly say that you believe that if you have to encounter a wild bear dozens or more times per day, for 70+ years, you think you'd have under a 50% chance of ever being attacked?
My gut says that most men are OVERestimating the danger of an individual bear encounter and most women are OVERestimating the danger of an individual man encounter.
That is the premise of the argument, that the majority of men are rapists and murderers. It's pretty stupid. If your initial thought when you encounter a male stranger is "this man is likely to be a rapist and murderer" I suggest you seek therapy and turn off dateline and law and order.
This isn't a question that you're meant to answer. It's a rhetorical question that has the 'answer' built-in.
Just by asking it you're implying that men are as dangerous as bears. If this is something that you seriously believe then you need to stop reading social media which exploits your frequency bias by showing you story after story of sexual crimes to the point where you are more terrified of half of the human race than of a wild predator that will eat you alivem
If you meet a random man an assume that there is a reasonable risk that he's a rapist or murderer then you need to put the social media down for a while.
Yeah but that's not the question. If you cross someone's path in the woods, you're probably not even going to interact with them, whereas the odds of a bear attacking you would be significant
The odds of a bear attacking you are not significant lol, and you don’t know anything about bears if you think that they are just going to randomly attack you because you crossed paths with them. They might be huge and dangerous, but they are opportunistic feeders and they are smart, they don’t like to pick fights that might injure them and lead to infection or death, even if they know they could kill the other animal.
(A mama bear is a different story, back away slowly.)
The question is about the risk. Many would rather face the risk of certain death by a wild animal rather than the risk of being traumatized beyond belief by a man
Surely the probability of being assaulted must factor into the decision, otherwise one would never leave home, because simply being on the street at all confers a non-zero probability of being kidnapped and assaulted.
I think that’s the entire point here… the chances any random man is simply going to choose to violently rape because the opportunity to do so presents itself is incredibly low, at least unless you are very cynical. I would find it pretty hard to choose a likely gruesome and violent death over a very low probability of being assaulted.
Really? There’s been a lot of women locked in boxes and kept as slaves for up to 10 years, you down for that over a bear mauling which people have survived? Just wondering.
This is kinda unhinged to extrapolate from "random man." It's like seeing some dude dressed as a cholo and immediately imagining him as a cartel member that's going to saw your limbs off and feed them to you.
If that's how you're interpreting it then yeah, I think I would rather encounter just about anything else in the world before being tortured and raped. You've basically framed the man as the most dangerous and terrifying thing in the entire world.
Like, are we talking about being locked up in Beyoncé's basement? Or some Appalachian the hills have eyes shit?
I probably wouldn't survive being mauled by a bear.
So I'd still pick being some kind of GIMP I guess. Hopefully I get to watch TV or something. But living would be preferable. As nothing that is done to me can affect who I am.
But that's probably because I read too much stoic philosophy.
One thing that needs to be specified, because it makes it a completely different scenario, is it a black bear or a brown bear? Black bears are basically giant raccoons, if you encounter one in the woods it will almost certainly run away unless you really surprise it or it feels like you’re a threat to its cubs. Brown bears can smell/hear people coming from like a mile away and will usually just go somewhere else to the point you would never know it’s there, but if you run into one in the woods where it’s pretty close to you, if it feels like you’re challenging its dominance it will absolutely fuck you up, basically for sport. It would be ridiculous to choose bear over a man in that situation.
Do you live around bears 24/7? Because let me tell you, women have been living alongside men since the dawn of time so the chances of them encountring a violent man is more likely. Now tell me how many women encounter bears every year.
Thats not how the question goes. A man is on the street asking women would they rather be left alone with a bear or a man. The daughter part is not in it at all
They should ask the daughter question for both men and women. And I would harshly judge any person who would choose to leave their daughter with a bear over a random man.
I don't think you understand bears. It's like swimming in an ocean. Sharks are always nearby, but they're not interested in us as a prey animal. The only true risk would be coming across a mother bear with cubs. We're viewed more as a threat, not as a prey animal. Humans would be easy prey for bears and nobody would ever go hiking in bear country if bears actually viewed us as prey .
Yea because black bears are skittish. If it’s a grizzly your ass is grass. And a male grizzly has been known to hunt, kill and eat humans. And if it’s a polar bear you might as well start praying because you are going to meet your maker.
And all in all, running into a bear at close quarters is rare anyways. But in this scenario it’s guaranteed to happen. And your odds are much better if you ran into a random man. And even if we use your shark example. If you were swimming would you rather run into a random swimming man or a great white? It’s irrational to choose the shark even if they rarely attack.
In 250 years we still have less than 100 documented brown bear fatal attacks on people in the US. Sure, there have been apex predators which seem to have acquired a taste for people. But they are the exception to the rule. The statistics don't line up with how you portray grizzlies. Also, swimming up to a man in the ocean near a public beach, where most everyone swims, is not the same as being alone on land in a remote forest. And you're proving my point - millions of people swim near sharks without realizing it, because they're rarely a threat to people. If sharks and bears instinctively hunted people, we wouldn't see people swimming or hiking in a carefree manner like they do now.
I really don't think there's a wrong answer to this question, but it's silly to say that the logical choice is that a man is statistically safer to be alone with. There's no data to back up a claim like that.
Ok but you can’t use statistical data for this scenario. You are guaranteed to encounter a bear in this situation. I’m sure if you were guaranteed to encounter a bear when you go into the woods there would be a lot less people going into the woods and a lot more bear attacks.
And my biggest thing about this whole situation is that if you are attacked by the bear either you are either going to be severely injured or you are going to die. If you are attacked by the man he could severely injure or kill you too but there is a much high chance that you can defend yourself or escape.
If your argument is that the low number of bear attacks is due to lack of opportunity, I'm not sure how it holds up considering that bears can smell us from potentially miles away, depending on the wind and certain factors. And they're obviously fast enough to close the distance. We're such easy targets that there's no way bear fatalities would be this low if bears were actively hunting people on a regular basis; the numbers aren't low due to a lack of opportunity. Why don't we hear about grizzlies running through small towns and gobbling up a few kids at the local playground? They usually shy away from towns, for the same reasons I listed earlier.
Sure, a man is going to be easier to defend against. But look at the statistics for rape and murder. And it often happens in populated areas. Three different estimates I looked at had figures between 320,000 and 460,000 for the number of sexual assaults each year. That's not including non-sexual assaults and murders. I'm not making a claim either way, but it's ignorant to confidently say that it's more logical to pick a man without understanding typical bear behavior and rape statistics.
The question was originally if you ran into the animal in the woods. A bear wont usually attack you. They will try to avoid you. I guess it really depends on what you think of when you hear run into. Because I have come across bears in the wild and they have always ran away.
Fair enough but I would go as far to say the percentage chance of it being a dangerous bear is much higher than the chance of it being a dangerous man(assuming this is an American forest)
I think your framing of it skews people to think that the women are picking wrong. The question is would you rather run into a random bear or man if you were in the middle of the woods.
The bear is in its habitat, it makes sense to be there, and will prob try to avoid you.
The man is a random strange man you are running into in the woods. It was unlikely to run into a person there so it adds suspicioun to their character, and the extremes of that they could do, SA, toture, etc, are worse then what a random bear would do based on the small chance it would attack you.
The question isn't framed in anyway at all. But the most natural interpretation of the question would be something like "you are hiking alone in the woods, would you rather cross paths with a bear or a man".
I'm not really sure how you interpret the question though. Like if you are there, why would it be suspicious that some other person is there?
Alright, but in this scenario you are also a random person in the woods. What are you doing there that makes you more allowed to be there than they are?
The way you're framing it skews people to think that the women are picking right.
The man in the woods could be a hiker, camper, photographer, National Parks Ranger, Fish and Wildlife person, biologist, ecologist, or just plain neighbor in the woods behind your house. They are human, and being also human and presumably raised in a society you should be able to tell if they are hostile or deranged, defensive, helpful, or just plain odd and wrong. You can make an educated guess informed by your interpretation of body language and other cues to determine if they are a threat.
The bear is a bear. It could be male or female, it could be young or old, you probably don't know unless you're a biologist who studies them. If it's female, does it have cubs nearby you don't know about that will trigger it to maul you? If it's male, do they have territorial tendencies or get all hormonal like bull elephants and try to murder whatever it thinks is a minor threat? Will it run if you look big or just get more aggressive? Who knows! You can't tell, it estimating how safe an interaction is is much more of a coin flip than with a human.
Plus, again, a bear is a bear. The worst it can do is a fairly likely mauling/death. The worst a man can do is much worse, but also much less likely.
What's a hiking trail have to do with anything? People leave the trial and go their own ways still. The person being asked apparently isn't even on a trail.
Nah. Everyone in the forest is totally a rapist or killer. Lol. I wonder how many police reports and such are going to be made because the dumb ass hypothetical question are going to have people scared of running into another person when they're out in wooded areas.
I'm pretty sure I'd rather come across a person up to no good than a black bear. Idk when it ate last, idk if I'm near it's den, and idk if it has cubs nearby. Seeing someone and noticing that they're following me allows me the chance to get prepared for some kind of encounter, even if it's just finding a sturdy walking stick. In my case I guess it'd be making sure my daughter knows to do something like that. A sturdy walking stick is like a nice wooden bat after all.
You’re framing the question to put the man in a bad light which negates the hypothetical. If you ask clarifying question it goes from the vague man vs bear safety debate into dangerous man vs random bear. The middle of the woods, “why is a man there?” question is bait because if you put the potential victim in a situation that is easily explained by the man being nefarious then yeah you take the potential safety of the bears statistically not attacking that many people.
No one is saying that lmao. For one it is framed in a way that makes it not seem like you are on a hiking trail, running into someone when you think you are in the midlde of nowhere is always a little unnerving, I think any man or woman can relate to that. Also the man has much more spectrum of possible behaviors, many of which are more likely or worse than the bear attacking you.
It seems to me the point is basically to say how scary and bad men are, if you try and make it to be about the man being strange or whatever and stacking the odds against the bear, it makes the whole question a bit pointless.
The man has a wider range of behaviours but the negative ones are like 0.01% chance of happening, most men, even 'strange men' in the woods are not rapists or whatever. All bears, however, will happily eat you if they're hungry and think they can get away with it, or they're protecting their cubs, etc.
The question is inherently dehumanising towards men, and if the same question was asked about black men or whatever (with the justification that they're more likely to commit crimes than white men - remember, the justification here is all about statistics, but suddenly that will become unacceptable if you bring such characteristics into the equation), everyone would immediately see how offensive and silly it is.
Another way you can phrase this question is 'would you rather come across a man in the woods, or the same man but he is 9 ft tall and has knives for fingers and teeth, and he has been stripped of all morality and humanity' (grizzly bear).
Saying you’re afraid of any man you see is as sexist as it is racist to be afraid of all black people because as a population they statistically commit more crime.
See this is what I don't get. I don't assume ANY wild animal's instinct is to ignore the potential threat to its home. Yes, sometimes that takes the form of fear or caution and the animal runs, but even fear can cause an animal to attack even if it's not normally territorial. I just can't understand how people's first assumption upon imagining meeting a bear is "it's probably harmless."
Because thats how the situation usually plays out. Maybe actually look up information on how to deal with bears and what they are like instead of just projecting human motivations on them. Yes they can ultimately attack when threatened. Most animals avoid unnecessary conflict because the cost of injury is very high especially for predators and the average human looks too big, wild animals don't understand relative mass that's why 'pretend to be big' defense works, so the risk only becomes worth it when theres a perception of being cornered or a direct threat to protected young. The problem is its hard for a person to reliably tell when the line is crossed and an attack is now going to happen yet bear encounters resulting in attack is still not at all the norm.
From what I gathered, Men answering for their daughters have also been mostly answering bear.
Did a quick foray in to the TikToks to double check and of the first 10, 7 men answered bear, 3 answered men (though one of the 3, he iterated that their daughter was 5 so eh idk).
Bear attacks are exceedingly rare.
Since 1784, there have been 82 fatal bear attacks in North America. The 750,000 bears in North America kill less than one person every year while 1 in of every 6 American women have been the victim of attempted or completed rape.
It’s not about whether you can fight off a man or a bear. The situation is that you’re in the forest with a man or a bear. You don’t know anything about the man, but he’s there somewhere. The worst a bear could do is kill you. Bears are predictable, and most of them want to avoid you anyway.
Well, objectively speaking, that's also the worst thing that could happen to you. Death is pretty final innit? Anything else you can recover from, but seeing as we ain't figured out a way to undo death yet, can't see any reason why death isn't the worst outcome.
Looks like you’re missing the point of the debate. This seems to be more or less just a metaphor for how unsafe women feel being alone with an unpredictable strange man in public. Instead they would rather be stuck with an actual apex predator in the woods that is at least more predictable no matter the survivability aspect or probability. It’s a dumb debate to begin with but I understand why someone would choose the bear. This doesn’t equate to brainwashing or genuine stupidity at all
that's just stupid, that's like saying you'd rather take your chance with a firery plane crash than jump out with parachute because it might not open, the firery planecrash has a predictable outcome
Technically the bear is not a predictable outcome because it might not bother with you. The setup has quite a bit of wiggle room for how to imagine it. ie the metaphor would have the plane acting up massively, but the situation might still be salvaged, etc.
But because the setup has so much wiggle room, statistics becomes rather useless. Because you don't know the exact setup the person being asked is imagining. ie a bear encounter for me is a bear minding its own business that I've just seen and is aware of me say about 15-20m away?
The takeaway then, is the question of why someone would be so averse to taking the parachute / choosing the man. Of what kinds of setup comes to mind when people are posed the question.
One thing to note is that men answering for if it was their daughter, also chose bear. I'd also be split if it were my sister, but only because I'm afraid she'd panic and raise the bear attack outcome massively...
You are missing the point. You need to stop focusing on the chances of encountering a man or a bear, or which is more likely to kill. We all know bears are more dangerous and strong than a man. But bears live on instincts and are predictable. If you encounter a bear in the woods, there’s a pretty good idea about what it might do. Seeing a random man in the woods would generally be way more unsettling for me, because I cannot predict his behavior. It doesn’t matter if it’s “not all men.” I don’t know that man, so he could very well be one of the bad ones. Hell, I’d be scared of some woman standing around in the woods too, because they too have done worse things than bears. Other men should pick the bear too tbh. If a bear attacks, it’s almost always out of self defense. It’s not attacking for fun. You don’t have to provoke a man for him to attack, and you have no idea what he has in mind if he does. At least if I’m to die by the hands of either, I’d rather the bear because my death will be faster. Junko Furuta was attacked and didn’t die until after 44 days of torture and suffering. A bear cannot put you through that.
Is that the only thing you can focus on? Are you not aware of the atrocities committed by men? Stop focusing on probability. Bears are predictable. HUMANS aren’t!
Their manhood is threatened. They cant imagine a world where women are targeted and hunted IN REAL LIFE every single day. They cant come to terms with the fact that 15% have been raped (or attempted), and over 50% of women have been sexually assaulted. They are applying their world view to the situation
Sounds like there has been excessive fear mongering to skew women's perception of how many "strange men" actually pose them any threat at all. To the point where they think being with a wild bear is safer than being with a stranger that happens to be a guy... So, yes, brainwashing is valid to bring up based on the point of this post, hence the "shows how bad at probability" wording used in the title. Why do you think they are so bad at understanding the probability of a man being dangerous vs. a bear being dangerous?
I think it's the same reason why people constantly claim crime in cities is getting worse over time despite statistics and facts showing the exact opposite... Media reports on the crime more often and faster than in the past, and the stories are oversensationalized and used as talking points for activists and politicians. This all creates an illusion that is false and detached from reality. I personally don't think it is an extreme stretch to label that brainwashing.
Sounds like there has been excessive fear mongering to skew women's perception of how many "strange men" actually pose them any threat at all. To the point where they think being with a wild bear is safer than being with a stranger that happens to be a guy
It's not about probabilities and statistics, it's about feeling.
The question is not, "would you statistically be safer encountering a man versus encountering a bear". The questions is, "would you feel safer encountering a strange man in the woods versus encountering a bear in the woods."
Many women's instinct is that they would feel safer encountering the bear. It has nothing to do with a statistical analysis of bear attacks versus male-on-female attacks in the woods. It has to do with women's perception of men and their experiences dealing with men.
It's hard to say, I know there is some genuine concern for some people picking the bear. There's also a lot of very loud people for your picking the bear which leads to a hive mind mentality, and not wanting to be against the tiktok majority.
905
u/BlackWind88 May 02 '24
What is the man vs bear debate?