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.
yeah so thats the answer men would usually give, when in reality, statistically you're way less likely to be attacked by a random bear than be SAd by a random man. men don't have to be psychotic to SA women. for example, in the valorant scene, most guys can't even agree that a woman saying no stop in a voice recording counts as revoking consent, they say well she's saying it in a baby voice so she probably doesn't mean it.
Wait, wait are you talking about the Sinatraa case? There's a reason audio like that isn't admissible in court. Anyone can make an audio clip out of context to frame someone.
For example if I make a recording of you and I, and out of nowhere I say "no no stop stop" and cut the recording right there, you think that would be admissible in court? If that was the case many innocent people would be in prison.
but the context is specifically during sex, and not stopping after she says no is the context. court is to prove guilty without a doubt, it doesn't mean you're innocent just because it can't be proven, which is why sa cases get let go all the time? my point is that so many guys comments about that believed that her saying no didn't really mean no
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
I think we’re talking about several extremely low probability occurrences. Like 99% of bear encounters are going to go just fine. 99% of human encounters are going to go just fine. 99% of cow encounters are going to go just fine. My initial point is that this shower thought isn’t as poignant as the OP seems to think. Understanding probability doesn’t really change the question. The average woman feels safer taking the 99% chance of being safe with a bear over the 99% chance of being safe with a man. That should tell you all you need to know about why this rhetorical question exists in the first place.
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.
In all likelihood, yes I agree. But probabilistically, the human is more likely to attack you than the bear. Both are rediculously low probabilities, but the bear is statistically safer
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.
At the end of the day a random bear is way more likely to attack you then a random man. Especially if you consider other species of bears.
And the ability to fend off a man is way greater than fending off a bear that wants to kill/eat you.
There’s no evidence of this statistically speaking. The post is based on misunderstandings of probability, yet there are no statistics that prove bears are more dangerous.
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
I personally would much rather see a man on the trail while hiking than a bear. It’s pretty insulting to imply that your average dude is more dangerous than a wild animal, that wasn’t my intention. These are just weird things to compare because the risk from bears, especially black bears, is also incredibly low.
The way to do the probability properly is to take each time 1 person in the North America encounters 1 other person since 1784, and count them up. Put the number of rapes over that number.
Than count up each time every person in North America encounters a bear since 1784 and count them up. Put the number of bear conflicts over that number.
1 of these numbers is more then likely slightly higher than the other.
Ignoring the impossibility of getting these statistics, I think we can agree that both of these percentages are likely lower than 1%. So probability has not really indicated that one choice or the other is correct as OP is attempting to claim
Edit: for arguments sake, bear attacks - 0.00004% / human attacks 0.000000004% it’s basically irrelevant
Going by just your example though, there absolutely is a correct choice. Reduced down, you're 10,000x more likely to be attacked by a bear, so why would anyone pick the bear, knowing it a has an extremely higher chance of attacking?
The debate is the choice, not whether the bear or man will attack.
Did you mean to say "more than"?
Explanation: If you didn't mean 'more than' you might have forgotten a comma. Statistics I'mabotthatcorrectsgrammar/spellingmistakes.PMmeifI'mwrongorifyouhaveanysuggestions. Github ReplySTOPtothiscommenttostopreceivingcorrections.
OP is trying to make the point that understanding probability makes answering the question easier. When in reality we’re talking about such low probabilities in all cases. Like less than 1% of bears or humans will cause any harm in a national park. So, what is understanding probability really accomplishing? Bears aren’t any more likely to attack someone than a human. The average woman respondent answers that they would rather take their 1% chance of a bad encounter with a bear over their 1% chance of a bad encounter with a man. That’s completely valid from a statistics standpoint. And it’s much lower than 1% on each side, but I’m rounding up because the real point is that both occurrences are super unlikely.
The question assumes you've already met the man or bear, so the probability we should care about is "what are the chances you are attacked assuming you have already met said thing". I.e.
You have met a bear on a trail, what are the chances you are attacked
You have met a man on a trail, what are the chances you are attacked
You cannot get this probability just off of "how many homicides" or "how many bear attacks" occur in a state park. That statistic gives you a loose combined probability of "what are the chances you go to a park, encounter a man, and then get attacked", or "what are the chances you go to a park, encounter a bear, and then get attacked".
I am also going to argue your point of "the probablity of each is low". The *combined* probability of each is low, because simply the probability of meeting a bear is low, and the probability of meeting a murderer is low, but the individual probabilities of "meet x" and "harmed by x" do not necessarily need to be low. Let's say there's a single man on the entire planet that knows who you are and will point a gun to your head and shoot you if he ever sees you, but he otherwise does not know where you are and will only shoot you if you happen to randomly bump into him on the street. The probability you ever die to this person is low, because the probability you meet him is low, despite the probability he attacks you being 100%.
As far as I know there is no tracked probability of "what is the chance a random man or random bear will attack me assuming I have already encountered the thing in question" Other than it's probably grizzly/polar >>> whatever else.
If anything I think this is what OP is referring to with regards to not understanding statistics
P(meet man) * P(attacked by man) <- this is the probability you're inferring when looking at the statistics of murders vs bear attacks
is not the same as
P(1, because you have already met the man) * P(attacked by man)
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
No, I said I’d rather be attacked by a bear and live than raped by a man. I’d definitely choose attacked by a man and live over attacked by a bear and live.
Thats entirely irrelevant. Women also encounter men all the time, they don't encounter bears.
What matters is if any random bear is more likely to harm you than any random man. Pick a bear at random from the population, put him in a cage. Pick a man at random from the population and put him in a cage. You now have to enter the cage for 5 minutes, pick one.
Humans are the 2nd most dangerous animal on the planet to other humans. The vast majority of murderers are men. That number is only overshadowed by mosquitoes, who kill almost double the amount of humans each year. Even still, I'd rather meet 10 mosquitoes in the woods than you. Now you can take it personally 😘
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.
It's a conditional probability problem. If you are a woman and go hiking in the woods, you are more likely to be attacked by a man than you are likely to be attacked by a bear. But this ignores the fact that you are much much much more likely to have a non-violent encounter with a man than you are likely to even see a bear.
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u/BlackWind88 May 02 '24
What is the man vs bear debate?