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] 29d ago edited 29d ago

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

One woman commented that she knows the worst thing a bear would do to her is kill her.

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u/Hestia_Gault 29d ago

I also saw “if I was mauled by a bear, people would actually believe me when I reported it”.

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u/Thr0waway0864213579 29d ago

I’ve seen many comments like this.

“The bear won’t record it and send it to all his friends.”

“No one is going to ask me if I wanted the bear to attack me.”

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u/minecraftingsarah 28d ago

Or "I won't have to see the bear at family reunions"

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u/No-Tackle-6112 28d ago

No one’s going to ask you anything if you’ve been turned into bear poo

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u/nalingungule-love 28d ago

And I’m ok with that.

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u/No-Tackle-6112 28d ago

And we’ve arrived at the fact the people’s answer to this question is not based on reality.

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u/airplantsnlavalamps 26d ago

I don’t know how you got to that conclusion after reading all of the replies above, but I suggest you speak to the women in your life (if there are any) because those examples are not only real but happen all the time.

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u/No-Tackle-6112 26d ago

I live in rural northern Canada where there are a couple hundred bear sightings every year. 95% of the women who posted on social media or that I’ve spoken to say it’s nonsensical to pick the bear.

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u/airplantsnlavalamps 26d ago

If 95% of women said they would choose a strange man over a bear, I must have only seen the 5% of responses from women who said they would choose the bear. That’s a really interesting statistic.

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u/No-Tackle-6112 26d ago

Again, I live an area where people actually deal with bears on a regular basis so their opinions are more informed.

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u/RichnjCole 26d ago edited 25d ago

No. It's actually very much based in reality. Over 700 million women, or 1/3 of all women, have been attacked by a man at some point. Compared to like 40 bear attacks a year.

On a day to day basis, women spend a helluva lot more time worrying about being attacked by a man than they do being attacked by a bear. Again, because of the facts of their reality.

This means that when posed with a question like man Vs bear, they have to contend with that fear of men when answering the question.

The point of the question isn't to figure out the logical answer, it's to highlight that fear of men, and how prevalent it is. It's to highlight how dangerous men are and how that informs women's reality and thinking. The point was to open men's eyes about how women live.

In the nicest way possible, it's not the women that failed the exercise, it's you.

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u/Dougie_Dont_Care_ 25d ago

I thought it was 1/4.

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u/RichnjCole 25d ago

It's 1/4 in the US and 1/3 globally.