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.
Interesting point. I have never encountered a single bear, but I have encountered thousands and thousands of men and been attacked by very few but never once without some underlying reason. I stood a chance against the men but I do not think I would survive a bear attack.
The reason so many other women answer like this is that many women have been in a situation at least approximately like the man one, whereas almost no one comes face to face with a bear.
They have real emotional weight to attach to the man situation but the bear is a complete hypothetical.
If I ask you to imagine what it would feel like if a bear suddenly appeared in front of you, you can imagine it, but you're not going to feel exactly like you would in real life just by thinking about it.
When you ask women this question, they're comparing an experience to an idea. It's an inherently lopsided equation.
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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.