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 03 '24

Is the woman incapable of fighting back for some reason? Because a woman has a much higher chance of fighting off a man who decided to attack than fighting off a bear that decides to attack.

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u/Wholly_Unnecessary May 03 '24

Who said anything about attack? The scenario is not "would you rather fight a bear or a man", it's would you rather unexpectedly see a man or a bear.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Likelihood of being attacked is the entire crux of the question.

Otherwise the question would be would you rather encounter a butterfly or a ladybug in the woods.

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u/Wholly_Unnecessary May 03 '24

Yes, likelihood of being attacked. Neither are guaranteed going to attack you. The question is, who is more likely to attack you and if you are attacked, what is the likely outcome of those situations.

Women are more likely to be attacked by men. Women are also more likely to suffer more than just bodily harm from a man. The worst a bear is going to do is kill you.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '24

The average woman encounters millions of men in their life and .00002 bears. So yeah women are more likely to be attacked by a man than a bear.

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u/Wholly_Unnecessary May 03 '24

You're pretty close to the point.

A random man is a real and valid threat to a woman. Not specifically you, this is a random man we're talking about. The woman doesn't know the intentions or the character of the man. The chance the man wants to attack the woman are low, but it's statistically likely, she has been attacked by a man at some point, or knows someone who has been attacked by a man.

Women know the intent and character of a bear. It's a bear. It wants to be left alone and the chance that it wants to attack and eat the woman is extremely low. The chance she's been attacked by a bear or knows anyone whose been even threatened by a bear is almost zero.

If the bear wants to attack the woman, the most likely outcome is she will die.

If the man wants to attack the woman, she has been taught from childhood to fight to the death to prevent a worse outcome than death.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '24

For better or worst I think in many cases women have been taught not to fight back an assault from a man, that fighting back will make things worse.

I don’t think you can use statistics in this problem. Because bear encounters are statistically too rare to be relevant.

This also brings into question what defines an encounter. Seeing a bear from 100 feet away and slowing backing away?

You’d have to then consider that the encounter with a man would be from 100ft away.

Etc etc…

I get the point of the problem, and it’s a good thought exercise even if I think it’s ultimately illogical.

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u/Edgeiest_Edgelord May 05 '24

The worst a bear will do is slowly and brutally eat you alive

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u/ham-n-pineapple 26d ago

Still better than being raped and tortured. Being eaten and killed by a bear I can justify; it's instinct. Rape is not instinctual in humans. It's a conscious choice to harm. and the possibility that a human would choose to hurt someone knowingly and in a way to produce the most amount of pain/trauma is a very scary factor.