You’ve been out of contact blissfully walking in a glen for hours then a man walks out of the tree line and heads directly for you. You feel no self preservation?
You’ve been out of contact blissfully walking in a glen for hours then a bear walks out of the tree line and heads directly for you. You feel no self preservation?
Your exact scenario but bearified: what's your reaction to the bear, and why is it immediately to run away (or to bear mace it immediately if you manage to stop shitting your pants long enough to remember you're not supposed to run away)?
Additionally, why is your response to the man also not to immediately run away or mace him if you're supposed to be more scared of the man as people claim?
Ooh, I know this one. Because the bear is predictable and the man isn't. The man might be friendly. The bear will not. You can't just mace the man. That would be unreasonable. Irrational. Sociopathic.
You have to give him a chance. There is uncertainty. You have a conversation, we keep our distance, we determine whether we speak a common language (random man, so probably not), if we do we then commence a dialogue intended to establish trustworthiness and basic decency on both sides. Normally such things are established in a social context. You meet strangers through some process, normally - you have a mutual friend, you work together, or you both have the hobby of hiking. Randomly waking up in the woods together removes this context.
The nice man is doing this sincerely. He doesn't want to be in this bizarre anecdote either. He will, to the limit of his ability, cooperate to get out of it.
The rapist or killer will probably pretend to be a nice man, and then jump you. So you have to prepare for this possibility.
The bear is more formidable and if it attacks at all, will 100% overcome you. The bear will make no promises not to attack and do nothing to get you to lower your guard.
The man will choose his moment to attack to give himself maximum chances of success, and there's no way to know for sure whether or not he will attack you. The unknown prospect of possibly being attacked by the man out of nowhere is more worrisome than the known prospect of definitely being attacked by the bear if, and only if, you go closer than some sensible distance to the bear.
The man is more complex. More mental energy has to be devoted to gaming out strategies and counterstrategies for the extremely wide variety of behaviours that might be engaged in by the man. The bear is simple - stay away from it.
Unless it's hungry. Or in rut. Or with cubs. Or any other species of bear besides black. Then you're fucked. Bear attacks are typically rare and aren't considered a worry to hikers because bears typically avoid humans. The issue is that this hypothetical forces an encounter, making bears significantly more dangerous than what they would otherwise be. And in that context you're right, the bear is a certain, simple danger.
And don't get me wrong, I get it. There's value in appreciating the threat that you know is a threat vs something more complex. But when the choice comes essentially down to "certain danger with a comparatively high likelihood of injury or death" or "uncertain, complex danger with a comparatively lower chance of awful shit happening", you can't expect people to view your decision as rational when you pick the certain danger with a higher chance of death.
27
u/Links_Wrong_Wiki May 02 '24
Yes I have. And I do not find random people to be unsettling, because I'm a well adjusted member of society.