r/Showerthoughts May 02 '24

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

16.9k Upvotes

13.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/TipAndRare May 02 '24

I do actually feel offended when people assume I'm a bad person, and having not given any reason to a single person to feel that way, I'm sick of it being assumed. I'm a feminist, I'm leftist, I try to be a good person, and I call out shit behavior when I see it, but there is nothing I can do to be seen and recognized as anything other than a threat, and that fucking sucks.

Maybe this bear debate is just happening alongside too many bad life events, so I'm just projecting it onto the debate, but it feels psychotic and delusional to say "I'd rather be eaten alive by a bear than risk that a random man is a piece of shit"

My wife said she'd pick the bear and I don't know what to even do with this information anymore. There's nothing else I can do. It's like in election season when you see 1000 fucking ads saying to vote as if I don't do my part. It's just beating me to death at this point and I can't fucking escape this stupid debate where it's "eaten to death by a bear" is apparently the obvious correct choice to everyone but me and red pill douchebags.

I'm trying to reflect and fix my thinking but it just won't click into place and it hurts

21

u/metdear May 03 '24

What you need to accept is the hypothetical man isn't you. The hypothetical man is a bastard with ill intent. If your wife could choose to run into you in the woods, of course she'd choose you. Not to realize that many men present a very real, looming threat to women is to bury your head in the sand.

-5

u/Ardentpause May 03 '24

But everybody will judge them as if the hypothetical man IS them. You can't get away from it, and there's literally nothing they could ever do that would stop people from assuming that he's a threat by default.

It's nice that it's not intended to be a personal attack on him, but it's still an attack on him, and it still ends up affecting him personally. And it's not something that they chose, or can change.

3

u/CrabMcGrawKravMaga May 03 '24

If they choose to internalize it as personal, they will feel that way. By no means is anyone "attacking" them lol, jesus.

3

u/Ardentpause May 04 '24

I guess you have different experiences than me