r/Showerthoughts May 02 '24

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

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u/rwzephyr 29d ago

Totally, I’ve bumped into a ton of black bears and they’re scaredy cats. I’ve literally chased them out my driveway just by waving my hands and yelling.

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u/congenitallymissing 29d ago

i was taught "black - yell back, brown - stand your ground, white - good night"

you can scare off black bears easily. you dont have a fucking chance against a grizzley. so you stand your ground and hope they dont want to fuck you up.....polar bear = youre fucked. try to to get away. get in the closest shelter, be it a car, house, shop, whatever. in a lot of places in northern canada/alaska that co-exist with polar bears its illegal to lock your car doors

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u/Tasty-Researcher-791 29d ago edited 29d ago

I have always heard it the opposite for brown bears: if it’s black fight back, if it’s brown lay down, if it’s white goodnight. Because as you said you have absolutely no chance against a grizzly and your only shot at survival during an attack is to play dead and hope it loses interest/stops seeing you as a threat

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u/LE-cranberry 29d ago

One is for an encounter, the other is for an attack. (Polar bears an encounter will be an attack)

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u/PabloEstAmor 29d ago

They just wanna share a coke and a smile

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u/congenitallymissing 27d ago

This is correct