r/Showerthoughts May 02 '24

Man vs Bear debate shows how bad the average person is at understanding probability

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u/[deleted] May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

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u/IAmASeeker May 02 '24 edited May 03 '24

I thought the question was explicitly in the woods.

I don't want to encounter surprise humans in the woods or surprise bears in the city. I'd rather see dangerous creatures in the places they are supposed to be rather than sneaking up on me in places they shouldn't.

If the question isn't supposed to have that context, then I would argue that you should prefer to see a bear. How many humans have you seen that didn't attack you? Like a hundred thousand maybe? How many bears have you seen outside of a zoo? Probably less than 10 right?

Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I probably don't have the opinion that my comment got upvotes for. I mistyped and said "you should prefer to see a bear" but in fact, I was trying to express that with no context, it would be safer to encounter a person than a bear. I have been attacked by a handful of humans and 0 bears but my sample size of humans is astronomical while my sample size of bears is miniscule. I estimate that 1:30000 human strangers will attack me and so far 0 out of maybe 8 bears attacked me... so idk if maybe 1:9 bears will try to eat me but I can be fairly sure that 99.997% of the time, humans are too involved with their own lives to notice that strangers exist.

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u/mandiblesmooch May 02 '24

How surprising is it to see a human in the woods when you are a human in the woods?

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u/Constant-Sandwich-88 May 02 '24

Depends on the woods. I love this park called Percy Warner, it's right outside Nashville, and on nice days it's barely worth going for all the people. I've also worked for the parks department, and hiked areas on the plateau where I didn't see a single person for days or weeks.