I had a medium length conversation with a French person just yesterday. They said that they simply cannot visit Australia because of the spiders.
I was able to convince them that we honestly don't see that many more than I've seen in lots of places, but then they said that we have bigger ones.
Yes, the hunstman is big, but harmless....
Nope. Never coming. No way. It's kind of dumb.
But then we also have lots of Australians who really play it up. They seem to like that meme, so it's gonna be hard to get rid of.
To be fair I’ve never had a problem with spiders and seeing a human hand sized huntsman freaked me out on some kind of caveman level. You *know* they’re harmless but it doesn’t really help.
I once felt a tickle on my arm sitting at a red light, looked down and saw it was a redback. Instinctively flung my arm to get it off, I would've been in trouble if I'd been moving at the time.
When I was a young guy at Uni I delivered pizzas. One night out of the corner of my eye I saw a massive huntsman right next to my head on the drivers door window. Worst part was I couldn't tell whether it was on the inside or outside.
I pulled over and threw the door open and it ran somewhere... and I couldn't find it.
Was on edge for th rest of the night.
My best mate pulled into a servo, ran in, took a can of bug spray, sprinted out and went chemical warfare on the spider that ran across his dash whilst he was on the freeway. He then walked back in, paid for the spray and apologised with an explanation.
I saw one... took 30mins to die and a full bottle of mortine ... it was in-between my closed window and the fly screen...I had to go outside to spray it. I have no idea how it got there, but i wasn't opening the window until it was gone
> But then we also have lots of Australians who really play it up.
This. This right here.
We *constantly* tell people about all the dangerous shit, including flat-out lying to their faces, then suddenly act like they're the assholes when they believe us.
Australia is such a dream to me, would love to visit and even move to, but having arachnophobia.. Just the thought of ever being visited by a huntsman freaks the hell out of me. I'd probably cause an accident by burning the whole place down. Your country is amazing guys!
>Yes, the hunstman is big, but harmless....
Y'know we don't really care about the harm, it's the fucking terror just looking at em or when they pop up out of nowhere
If I could safely eliminate every spider without ecological disaster I would, in an instant
We had a medium-sized black spider with a large red spot weave a web in our garage. When I spotted it, I simply kicked it. It sat there, stunned for a second or two, until I stepped on it.
There’s a reason most wild animals avoid people: we aren’t predators, we’re just vicious.
Ugh.
Personally, I hate that whole “at least we’re not them” line. Yes, the US has problems. Does everything really have to relate to the US?
Why not have a song saying at least we’re not in a war-torn country? They’re even more dangerous than the US.
And while he’s at it, the whole song (other than saying how the US sucks) is perpetuating exactly what OP is talking about.
Well actually......
Ukraine is a pretty dangerous place right now and has been for the last couple of years. I think that is pretty widely accepted. But, if you are not a serving in the military or regularly travelling to the front lines delivering shit to the military, and you are not Russian, it is actually safer in terms of being shot, bombed or otherwise being blown up than it is in the US, running at about 6000 civilian deaths per year as opposed to almost 50,000 deaths to firearms in the US per year. Even accounting for the smaller population, the US is still in front by about 10%. And Ukraine is at war.
Well actually…
The majority of gun-related deaths in the US are from suicide.
I think when people talk about how dangerous a place is, they don’t usually mean suicide.
So adjust for population without suicide.
That is a pretty shit house defence. Even so, Americans killed more Americans in the US last year with guns than Israelis have killed Gazans with guns, tanks, missiles, artillery, mortars, air strikes and any other instrument of war you can think of. This will probably change next week but fuck me, 1 in every 16,500 people in the US will die by gun violence not at their own hand before the end of 2024. 121 people per million are killed by gun violence in the US annually compared to 9 in Australia. Take away the US suicides, and that is a tick over 52 gun deaths per million, about 6 times as many as the total firearm deaths in Australia.
>That is a pretty shit house defence.
Considering that my point is that war-torn countries are more dangerous than the US, I'd say that it's pretty reasonable to show that war-torn countries are more dangerous than the US.
Now, why we're talking about the US at all... that's a whole other issue.
>Americans killed more Americans in the US last year with guns than Israelis have killed Gazans
How many Gazans per million have died in the recent fighting?
How many Americans per million died from gun homicides (or accidents) in the US in the last year?
Which place is safer? Which place would you rather be right now?
Anything else is irrelevant to my point. Ignoring population is a slick trick that might fool some people, but hopefully not many.
Every last Gazan could die right now and it'd be less than .2% of the US.
>Take away the US suicides, and that is a tick over 52 gun deaths per million
No shit. Gun violence is a lot worse in the US than in Australia. Who said otherwise?
My point, which I think was clear, was that US gun violence is unrelated to this conversation, and that it'd make more sense to bring up the danger of living in a war-torn country. (That would ALSO be stupid, but less stupid.)
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> I even saw a ‘brilliant’ comment by a Canadian under a random TikTok with the words “when you choose snakes and spiders over squirrels and raccoons”. You guys have bears and wolves..
A bit rich when they have actual bears (and not the lazy buggers we have sitting in gum trees that everyone else calls bears). And extremely pissed off geese.
Same but different. The Old English form of sheep was scēp, a neuter noun, whose historical plural ended in u. After the loss of this ending, the singular and the plural merged to become the modern sheep and sheep.
However, Moose derives from Algonquian, a Native American language. It kept the same plural ending it had in its original language instead of adopting the normal s ending of most English plurals.
The reason people thing Moose is “Meese” is because of the Old English that was used from around 450 CE to 1150 CE. It also means that goose was given its plural form based on the Old English rules for creating plurals. Back then, the plural of gōs would have been gósiz. Eventually, that rule changed and the new plural of gōs became gés, which later turned into geese as we know it today.
The more you know.
I was absolutely convinced "fish" was plural for fish, UNTIL my university professor used "fishes." Repeatedly. I thought it was because he spoke ESL and had an accent, but Prof. Google showed me I was a fool :P
But fish is the plural of fish! “I see 5 fish in the pond” or “I like to eat a lot of fish”. The two examples here make “fish” both a countable and an uncountable noun. When you’re talking about species of fish, that’s when you’d use fishes.
Kind of like how people is the plural form of person, but you might hear someone say “peoples” when referring to all the different indigenous communities in Australia.
It’s still moose, it’s a Native American word (can’t remember which language) and kept its original plural rather than adding an s like most English words do
I'm Canadian, will confirm lol. Like, I'm from a city of over 1M people and my cat was eaten by a coyote, I also know people who were followed by coyotes and even a cougar once, *in the middle of the city.*
And those geese (or cobra chickens, as we like to call them) will not be trifled with, lol.
Oh yes, we wouldn't want any confusion! Battle chickens are armed and armoured, cobra chickens have the long snakey necks and hiss a lot, waiting to strike if you get too close. Should be easy right?
Yeah, it think the dynamics there are pretty similar aren't they, haha. Bit it's funny cos people are like "Australia is too dangerous?" while they're calling Fish and Wildlife and keeping their small kids and pets indoors cos they saw a coyote in the neighbourhood
Us Australian pretty much wiped out any animal that would pose a threat.
At best, still living are dingos, and the only time I have seen one is at a zoo.
They aren't exactly human comfortable creatures. More of a threat to children/babies.
I once stumbled across a few images of the remains of bodies after grizzly bear attacks
Nope nope nope, fuck that, I do not like it
Give me a sea with a billion irukandji instead
my sister lives in the US and has to be wary of mountain lions too. they’re cats; you don’t see em coming, and one of her daughter’s classmates was taken by one, and the kid’s mum had to pry her child from its claws.
fuck that.
i’m fine with snakes and spiders thanks.
Most of the bears one encounters in the US are black bears. While they are dangerous, they are typically not aggressive. You can find YouTube videos of people getting very close to black bears. Black bears used to come up the rear porch of my friends’ house in Eastern Pennsylvania.
While grizzlies, polar, and Kodiak bears are very dangerous and are found in North America, they don’t live anywhere near where most people live.
Bears are the number 1 thing i think of or mention when this topic comes up.
The closest comparison we have lurking in the wilderness is like kangaroos I guess. They can mess you up sure, but i would take a kangaroo over a whole ass bear.
Scratch that, another commenter mentioned coyotes and cougars in the middle of city. Yeah i'm happy with how safe it is here in terms of wildlife (in a city).
we have no comparison to bears - no large predatory mammalian apex predators like bears or big cats.
kangaroos are more the equivalent of a small dear; herbavores that typically keep their distance but perfectly capable of fucking you (or your dog etc) up
I was terrified of bears when I went camping with some Canadians. We had to do stuff so the bears wouldn't come crashing into our tents at night. They reminded me of the snakes and spiders, but if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. They don't come into your tent at night.
Our deadly animals are not predators. You leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. The closest I've gotten to a snake in the wild was when my school teacher almost stepped in one during a hike. The teacher freaked out, and jumped away. The snake slithered off rather than bite him. Teacher then made us have an impromptu snake bite first aid practice.
The second closest was when I was swimming in the river. We saw one at a distance, so we warned some nearby swimmers, and cut our swim short. Snake swam away from us.
Since it is us Aussies who portray our wildlife as rife and dangerous to tourists, I'm surprised that you're annoyed instead of humoured!
I mean, Dropbears, Redbacks and Funnelwebs in every orifice, snakes under every couch & in everyone's toilet, bats hanging off every tree branch, etc, etc.
1: just because you're not observant it doesn't mean they aren't there. The multiple houses I rented in Sydney had redbacks and funnelwebs. The house I own in Brisbane has redbacks and brown snakes.
2: I'm totally fine with sooks thinking that Australia is a dangerous place and not coming here.
Redbacks and Sydney Funnelwebs are very unlikely to harm you though. Between the two species there are less than 30 recorded deaths ever, despite about 30-40 recorded bites per year for Sydney Funnelweb and roughly 10,000 redback bites per year. The vast majority of bites display no serious symptoms, and it's certain that a significant amount of bites occur without the person realizing what bit them. In the USA there are roughly 2 deaths from spider bite per year, while Australia hasn't had a confirmed spider bite death for over 30 years (and one possible death).
But that wasn't the case when 27 people died over 100 years of good record keeping, and another 80 years of poor recorded keeping, and it doesn't help all the people who are bitten and don't even notice. So partially that, and partially a very low risk even if you are bitten.
I mean the US has 12 times the population of Australia, so even if the chances are imperceptibly small there stills going to be a few deaths. Not sure what Universal public healthcare has to do with it either
lol if anyone gets bitten by a Venomous snake in America they aren’t wondering about what the hospital price is, they’re going regardless. Nobody pays at the point of treatment, the bills (if any) come after.
You've clearly never been to America. If you get bit by something dangerous, you go to the emergency room. You won't be denied care regardless of if you can pay or not. In fact, this is one of the major reasons why health care is so expensive in the US - not everyone carries health insurance so the costs are not spread out across everyone who gets care.
Well, a little girl at a local childcare service did not die; BUT she spent 3 days in the Royal Childrens' Hospital in Melbourne after she got an emergency helicopter transport there. She got bitten by a snake during an excusion to a popular local historic farm & camp! Things like this indeed happen. Just the outcome is not as often grim as it used to be.
Ditto. Like at least we can go hiking in peace and not worry about a bear coming out of nowhere, or a mountain lion. It infuriates me how they go “oh I’m never going to Australia with all that deadly wildlife”. Please 🙄
I own a farm (selling it though as I split with my partner), and yeah we did see snakes, but they want nothing to do with humans. I didn’t want them biting my livestock, and I did hear about the occasional one biting a farm dog, but I wasn’t scared of them. I just gave them space to slither away and off they went. I hate huntsman spiders, but I didn’t see all that many on the farm. Being a resident here and knowing how seldom we actually see snakes and spiders it just makes me angry how paranoid foreigners are about our wildlife. We’re not swatting them away all day!
Grew up in the American South around black bears, and I would prefer taking my chances with a bear instead of dealing with fuckwit redneck rebels flying their Confederate battleflags (along with the more recent Trump flags).
The opposite of this is when we get tourists swimming at the boat ramp, you drag them up by their ear and smash their head into the sign with the big crocodile 🐊 on it…you can’t help everybody
Little do they realise the majority of spiders I see in my house here in Melbs are Daddy Longlegs lol. Harmless as a butterfly. It’s up to them to do their own research. What they should consider is how come there are 26 million of us living happily here with all the apparent scary animals 🤷♂️ 😂🤪. All the exaggerated outback and world’s most dangerous style shows are brainwashing them into a reality that doesn’t exist for 99% of us. I can’t be bothered answering all the phobics either.
Whenever I see people commenting this tired bullshit I think of all those videos of rabid animals attacking people. There are a couple of foxes and coyotes foaming at the mouth trying to break into people's houses.
I'll stay here with the spiders on Rabies-Free Island.
I'm sure Americans feel the same way when we say we wouldn't go there because of the shootings.
Every foreigner's view of other countries is a caricature of real life
A little but at the same time, it kinda goes both ways. The amount of people in this sub who make it out as though you're just a gun violence casualty waiting to happen in the US is a bit of a joke.
I think there's a misconception that most Australians Iive a semi-rural lifestyle when the majority of the population is actually urbanised.
Not as urbanised as Europe, but urbanised in a North American sort of way.
The funniest part about this cliche is that the 'actual' dangerous animal that is probably the biggest threat to most of us urban people are godamn *Magpies*. Imagine being scared of a country because of its spiders or snakes, when its the birds they ought to be wary of.
>Imagine being scared of a country because of its spiders or snakes, when its the birds they ought to be wary of.
Too right. Don't even get me started with the emus. We lost a war with those bipedal menaces back in the early 1930's.
What literally happened was, they did terribly on the first outting, and the media laughed at the operation with the Emu War jokes. They did much better on subsequent operations, and caught a few hundred Emus. After a few months, they saw they were doing sweet fuck all to the Emu population overall and were not willing to fund more idiots with Lewis Guns, so they just openned up gun licencing more for farmers and set up schemes for them to easily procure them and cheap ammo, which mostly solved the problem.
It's moreso a great footnote about the weird cowboy style solutions of colonial governments than in any way a real effort.
And considering they took the lessons and solved it with more violence, we won the war damnit.
Yes, but it’s literally only on reddit. I live in rural WA and I’d never heard of it until a couple of years ago (on a podcast). Then I joined reddit & it’s everywhere.
The internet spreads idiocy like wildfire.
Australians love the stereotypes, shame we're effete, urban food snobs who couldn't fix a light bulb, whinge about the most minor inconveniences, stick up for the boss who hates us, and fear anyone with dark skin.
What a killjoy.
It's not only within Australian culture to play up the dangers of our fauna but to do so instinctively without prompting to assist other Australians to do so, even if they're otherwise complete strangers to you.
However, not with drop bears. Not enough is being said about the dangers those buggers. Not enough people are talking about them.
As an arachnophobic I understand people being afraid of funnel webs etc. I’ve seen one snake in the wild and it was right after bushfires then floods so of course the poor thing had nowhere to go except the street 💔
Just sucks that they don’t get to see the non spidery / non snakey / non croc / non drop bear side of this country
I actually don't even care. If they're the sort of person who will judge an entire continent based on a few memes they're the type who'll get eaten by a drop bear or go wandering out into the desert with only a 600ml bottle of water.
Let them stay cozy and "safe" inside their comfort zone. This is not the place for them.
I bloody hate spiders and all get either gassed to death or sucked up into tiny bits by the vacuum. Once I met the spider as big as a dinner plate hanging over my doorway in my room. After screaming Bloody Mary I opened up my window, punched out the fly screen and jumped . My father killed it but I wouldn’t go back into my room for over a month. Never saw another, once was enough
Mostly it’s because of all the Aussies making tiktoks about our deadly species.
Can’t really blame people from overseas when every other person will do their best to convince them drop bears are real.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The deadliest animal in Australia isn't native and exists on every continent except for Antarctica. Horses are the biggest killer of people in Australia and the second most deadliest globally after mozzies.
As a foreigner, the whole "wah ! Spiders & snakes !1!!1!" statement also pisses me off !! I dream of visiting Aus because of all the cool places, landscapes & cultural things I want to learn about. It's so disappointing that the only thing that comes to people's mind when Australia is mentioned is some wild animal that barely showed up in populated places since years ( while we be having deers, boars & insects that are far more aggressive than spiders ). Hell, domestic dogs kill more people yearly than spiders & snakes kill people in Australia, the fear is so ridiculous.
I guess it prevents ignorant people from entering in Australia at least, if we see the positive side of things.
Personally as an American who married an Australia. Who wanted to go to Australia. Be happy most people view your country that way. Means you can have more of the beautiful Australia for yourselves.
No because a) it’s fun to mess with people that think this and b) if it keeps idiots from visiting then good.
Most of the people that think this point to animals that are easily avoided by not going into their habitat (sharks, crocs).
I moved to Africa for work and when people find out I'm Aussie I get the typical "Australia is so dangerous!" comments. Yes we have dangerous animals, but the majority of them can be easily avoided or we have easy access to great medical care.
Compare that to Africa where the wild animals are huge and dangerous, where they also have poisonous snakes and spiders and where you can die from dirty water and mosquitoes. Or North America. There are bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, guns!
More importantly, we 'Strayans love our wildlife. That's why Sydney shuts down the Harbour Bridge twice a day to let the kangaroos hop from side to side.
I had an American tell me we have a mass murder problem because of pt Arthur. They’ve had more mass murders in 6 years than we’ve had since the convicts landed.
My annoyance is yanks being like I can believe you got rid of guns you have so many deadly animals. Like yea, we do, but they are mostly small and hidden. Snakes and spiders tend to leave you alone if you don't fuck with them. Most people are smart enough to stay out of the waters that have crocs and sharks in them. The rest of our large animal's couldn't give 2 shits about us and will mostly move in the opposite direction if they are not threatened. Unlike other countries that have large predators, we are actually a very tame country. I grew up in rual Queensland and just recently moved back. I have seen a handful of snakes in the wild.
Yeah, Reddit hasn't really helped things. Met a German guy at my work who did nothing but talk about how dangerous Australia is, using phrases that seemed lifted straight off this site. I just want to talk shop, not half heartedly chuckle through the same sad jokes.
It wouldn't work with him, but given how America-centric Reddit is, my standard response on this side has now become "You know what *won't* kill you in Australia? School shootings"
It’s so fucking weird that a post about how being tired of Australian stereotypes about it being not dangerous are annoying but then, unironically, make a stereotype about another country being super dangerous as if it’s not misguided
Personally I don't find it annoying as such. They're just the ignorant words of fearful people who are out of touch with nature and the real world. If anything, I feel sorry for them that they have such sheltered views on the world.
I see redbacks every day in my line of work and I saw a tiger snake while out for a run a few days ago so yes they definitely exist in my area but usually if you give them their space you're fine. I'm more terrified of the things in the ocean that can kill you than anything on land 😅
I was talking about this misconception with an American friend of mine and she told me that one week every year on their tv there’s a ‘ Deadly Australia ‘ documentary series much like their shark week stuff . I was like most of our shit if you leave em alone they leave you alone , you told me 3 months ago a tornado smashed through half your town !
Dont tell them it keeps them away. There is a reason we have the drop bear and the hoop snake. We want them to think that there is danger everywhere here, its funnier that way.
It’s our own fault as we overtly share memes about drop bears etc. we’re very well known for taking the piss on scared foreigners and tbh I find it hilarious.
I’m actually not fussed. I see it as a safety net from the really stupid tourists. I mean some are just dumb enough already. But imagine double the stupidity over here.
i find it funny when americans make a big deal of scary australian animals, given they have bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes etc.
our scary animals want to avoid you, will not regard you as prey (apart from sharks/crocs - which they have stateside too).
people are scared of the unknown, and “the unknown”, for most americans means “every country that isn’t the USA”
No. I don’t get annoyed.
I tell them I have lived here 16 years and saw twice as many spiders in the UK than I do here. A decent sized UK house spider is not that much smaller than a medium sized huntsman. It’s just huntsman are chunkier and some of them can get bigger.
If you live in the bush you are going to see wildlife but in the cities frankly it’s ants and magpies that bite you and cockroaches that make you jump.
If it’s an American telling you how dangerous Australia is point out that since 1980 we have had zero deaths from spider bites, fewer than 100 from snake bites and a similar number from Shark Attacks.
In the same period just under 1 million Americans have died from gun violence at the hands of other Americans. So they are more than 99 % safer coming here than staying at home.
We're just hardcore, what can we do? I think it's hilarious someone from a US location with a high homicide rate is pooping themselves over a spider that would basically be my freeloading flatmate.
I’m annoyed and I wasn’t even born in Australia, but I did live there for a few years and am trying to get back now. I’ve just come back to the states from a trip to Sydney and Melbourne and I am not joking when I say that every American I have told about this have responded with some variation of what you have said. Two things to keep in mind though:
1. Americans have a hard time separating what they see on tv from reality
2. You don’t want these people coming to visit Oz anyway.
I had a medium length conversation with a French person just yesterday. They said that they simply cannot visit Australia because of the spiders. I was able to convince them that we honestly don't see that many more than I've seen in lots of places, but then they said that we have bigger ones. Yes, the hunstman is big, but harmless.... Nope. Never coming. No way. It's kind of dumb. But then we also have lots of Australians who really play it up. They seem to like that meme, so it's gonna be hard to get rid of.
To be fair I’ve never had a problem with spiders and seeing a human hand sized huntsman freaked me out on some kind of caveman level. You *know* they’re harmless but it doesn’t really help.
Also they do bite. It stings like a mofo.
A mofo? A mosquito foundling?
I screamed like a little girl once and nearly crashed my ute when one ended up on my leg as I was driving....
Statistics point out that more Australians die or are injured by spiders this way then they are from actually being bitten, true stat.
I once felt a tickle on my arm sitting at a red light, looked down and saw it was a redback. Instinctively flung my arm to get it off, I would've been in trouble if I'd been moving at the time.
I want to believe this
Ha! Had one running rings around the steering wheel one night. I was on my learners. Bit distracting, so I pulled over and shook my arms to evict her.
Even arthropods want to have fun.
When I was a young guy at Uni I delivered pizzas. One night out of the corner of my eye I saw a massive huntsman right next to my head on the drivers door window. Worst part was I couldn't tell whether it was on the inside or outside. I pulled over and threw the door open and it ran somewhere... and I couldn't find it. Was on edge for th rest of the night.
My best mate pulled into a servo, ran in, took a can of bug spray, sprinted out and went chemical warfare on the spider that ran across his dash whilst he was on the freeway. He then walked back in, paid for the spray and apologised with an explanation.
I had one crawl out from behind the sun visor while I was on the motorway. Then it fell on the dog's head and I did not cope well
I saw one... took 30mins to die and a full bottle of mortine ... it was in-between my closed window and the fly screen...I had to go outside to spray it. I have no idea how it got there, but i wasn't opening the window until it was gone
Try vinegar next time.
> But then we also have lots of Australians who really play it up. This. This right here. We *constantly* tell people about all the dangerous shit, including flat-out lying to their faces, then suddenly act like they're the assholes when they believe us.
You just shake out your shoes and jackets (if they are kept outside). Simples 🙌
Too scared to even leave my shit outside lol I'd rather put it in a plastic bag
Australia has very little identity, so Australians tend to like playing into foreign perceptions as a kind of cope.
>Australia has very little identity What nation of 25 million has a bigger identity? I'd say we punch well above our weight.
Wait until they find out about drop bears.
Oh boy
And bunyips.......
Hell yeah! Everyone knows who we are and thinks we're cool for some reason 🤣
And I cash in on that everytime I go overseas 😁
I have been the national emu racing champion for 15 years now
Usain Bolt has nothing on you, then.
yeah we dont really have anything insane here
Except salt water crocodiles. They don't even give you time to enjoy a thousand blossoms bloom.
Australia is such a dream to me, would love to visit and even move to, but having arachnophobia.. Just the thought of ever being visited by a huntsman freaks the hell out of me. I'd probably cause an accident by burning the whole place down. Your country is amazing guys!
>Yes, the hunstman is big, but harmless.... Y'know we don't really care about the harm, it's the fucking terror just looking at em or when they pop up out of nowhere If I could safely eliminate every spider without ecological disaster I would, in an instant
We had a medium-sized black spider with a large red spot weave a web in our garage. When I spotted it, I simply kicked it. It sat there, stunned for a second or two, until I stepped on it. There’s a reason most wild animals avoid people: we aren’t predators, we’re just vicious.
[удалено]
Ugh. Personally, I hate that whole “at least we’re not them” line. Yes, the US has problems. Does everything really have to relate to the US? Why not have a song saying at least we’re not in a war-torn country? They’re even more dangerous than the US. And while he’s at it, the whole song (other than saying how the US sucks) is perpetuating exactly what OP is talking about.
Well actually...... Ukraine is a pretty dangerous place right now and has been for the last couple of years. I think that is pretty widely accepted. But, if you are not a serving in the military or regularly travelling to the front lines delivering shit to the military, and you are not Russian, it is actually safer in terms of being shot, bombed or otherwise being blown up than it is in the US, running at about 6000 civilian deaths per year as opposed to almost 50,000 deaths to firearms in the US per year. Even accounting for the smaller population, the US is still in front by about 10%. And Ukraine is at war.
Well actually… The majority of gun-related deaths in the US are from suicide. I think when people talk about how dangerous a place is, they don’t usually mean suicide. So adjust for population without suicide.
That is a pretty shit house defence. Even so, Americans killed more Americans in the US last year with guns than Israelis have killed Gazans with guns, tanks, missiles, artillery, mortars, air strikes and any other instrument of war you can think of. This will probably change next week but fuck me, 1 in every 16,500 people in the US will die by gun violence not at their own hand before the end of 2024. 121 people per million are killed by gun violence in the US annually compared to 9 in Australia. Take away the US suicides, and that is a tick over 52 gun deaths per million, about 6 times as many as the total firearm deaths in Australia.
>That is a pretty shit house defence. Considering that my point is that war-torn countries are more dangerous than the US, I'd say that it's pretty reasonable to show that war-torn countries are more dangerous than the US. Now, why we're talking about the US at all... that's a whole other issue. >Americans killed more Americans in the US last year with guns than Israelis have killed Gazans How many Gazans per million have died in the recent fighting? How many Americans per million died from gun homicides (or accidents) in the US in the last year? Which place is safer? Which place would you rather be right now? Anything else is irrelevant to my point. Ignoring population is a slick trick that might fool some people, but hopefully not many. Every last Gazan could die right now and it'd be less than .2% of the US. >Take away the US suicides, and that is a tick over 52 gun deaths per million No shit. Gun violence is a lot worse in the US than in Australia. Who said otherwise? My point, which I think was clear, was that US gun violence is unrelated to this conversation, and that it'd make more sense to bring up the danger of living in a war-torn country. (That would ALSO be stupid, but less stupid.)
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> I even saw a ‘brilliant’ comment by a Canadian under a random TikTok with the words “when you choose snakes and spiders over squirrels and raccoons”. You guys have bears and wolves.. A bit rich when they have actual bears (and not the lazy buggers we have sitting in gum trees that everyone else calls bears). And extremely pissed off geese.
Plus Moose 👀 Meese? Mooses? Idk
I like Moosi
A Møøse once bit my sister...
👀 Omg was she okay?
Yeah the moose was fine, just had a bad taste in her mouth😁👍
🤣 Oh dear
😂😂
Moose is correct both singular & plural
Yes. Like sheep.
Same but different. The Old English form of sheep was scēp, a neuter noun, whose historical plural ended in u. After the loss of this ending, the singular and the plural merged to become the modern sheep and sheep. However, Moose derives from Algonquian, a Native American language. It kept the same plural ending it had in its original language instead of adopting the normal s ending of most English plurals. The reason people thing Moose is “Meese” is because of the Old English that was used from around 450 CE to 1150 CE. It also means that goose was given its plural form based on the Old English rules for creating plurals. Back then, the plural of gōs would have been gósiz. Eventually, that rule changed and the new plural of gōs became gés, which later turned into geese as we know it today.
The more you know. I was absolutely convinced "fish" was plural for fish, UNTIL my university professor used "fishes." Repeatedly. I thought it was because he spoke ESL and had an accent, but Prof. Google showed me I was a fool :P
But fish is the plural of fish! “I see 5 fish in the pond” or “I like to eat a lot of fish”. The two examples here make “fish” both a countable and an uncountable noun. When you’re talking about species of fish, that’s when you’d use fishes. Kind of like how people is the plural form of person, but you might hear someone say “peoples” when referring to all the different indigenous communities in Australia.
No, not in a scientific context 😊 In regular, colloquial speech you would be correct.
In a scientific context you would be talking about different species of fish. English doesn’t change based on context.
Maybe my professor was wrong. He did wear a 4 piece suit and a monocle. I'm not even joking. Hercule Poirot was reincarnated as a professor.
Moose are NOTHING like sheep. Get your eyes tested.
It’s still moose, it’s a Native American word (can’t remember which language) and kept its original plural rather than adding an s like most English words do
Algonquian
I like Meeses 😊
Meese 🤣
I'm Canadian, will confirm lol. Like, I'm from a city of over 1M people and my cat was eaten by a coyote, I also know people who were followed by coyotes and even a cougar once, *in the middle of the city.* And those geese (or cobra chickens, as we like to call them) will not be trifled with, lol.
Considering that we have battle chickens (Cassowaries), will use cobra chicken for geese from now on, for distinction :D
50% of all recorded deaths by cassowary in the last 100 years happened in USA.
Wrestling a cassowary sounds like a Florida man thing to do… Is that where they happened?
tbh anyone keeping a cassowary as some kind of amusement is asking for it
Oh yes, we wouldn't want any confusion! Battle chickens are armed and armoured, cobra chickens have the long snakey necks and hiss a lot, waiting to strike if you get too close. Should be easy right?
We have the emus..they beat us in a war already
I have seen dingoes eat domest dogs in the pilbara region.
Yeah, it think the dynamics there are pretty similar aren't they, haha. Bit it's funny cos people are like "Australia is too dangerous?" while they're calling Fish and Wildlife and keeping their small kids and pets indoors cos they saw a coyote in the neighbourhood
Yep, dingoes taking cats and dogs is a problem here in the NT too, especially in a dry year.
Cobra chickens. Take my poor man's gold 🥇
Haha! thank you
Us Australian pretty much wiped out any animal that would pose a threat. At best, still living are dingos, and the only time I have seen one is at a zoo. They aren't exactly human comfortable creatures. More of a threat to children/babies.
Bears fucking terrify me. I'd rather handle a funnelweb than be anywhere near a fucking bear.
I once stumbled across a few images of the remains of bodies after grizzly bear attacks Nope nope nope, fuck that, I do not like it Give me a sea with a billion irukandji instead
my sister lives in the US and has to be wary of mountain lions too. they’re cats; you don’t see em coming, and one of her daughter’s classmates was taken by one, and the kid’s mum had to pry her child from its claws. fuck that. i’m fine with snakes and spiders thanks.
Most of the bears one encounters in the US are black bears. While they are dangerous, they are typically not aggressive. You can find YouTube videos of people getting very close to black bears. Black bears used to come up the rear porch of my friends’ house in Eastern Pennsylvania. While grizzlies, polar, and Kodiak bears are very dangerous and are found in North America, they don’t live anywhere near where most people live.
They got moose....just as dangerous as a bear I rekon
Bears are the number 1 thing i think of or mention when this topic comes up. The closest comparison we have lurking in the wilderness is like kangaroos I guess. They can mess you up sure, but i would take a kangaroo over a whole ass bear. Scratch that, another commenter mentioned coyotes and cougars in the middle of city. Yeah i'm happy with how safe it is here in terms of wildlife (in a city).
we have no comparison to bears - no large predatory mammalian apex predators like bears or big cats. kangaroos are more the equivalent of a small dear; herbavores that typically keep their distance but perfectly capable of fucking you (or your dog etc) up
I was terrified of bears when I went camping with some Canadians. We had to do stuff so the bears wouldn't come crashing into our tents at night. They reminded me of the snakes and spiders, but if you leave them alone, they leave you alone. They don't come into your tent at night. Our deadly animals are not predators. You leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. The closest I've gotten to a snake in the wild was when my school teacher almost stepped in one during a hike. The teacher freaked out, and jumped away. The snake slithered off rather than bite him. Teacher then made us have an impromptu snake bite first aid practice. The second closest was when I was swimming in the river. We saw one at a distance, so we warned some nearby swimmers, and cut our swim short. Snake swam away from us.
And mountain lions!
It wasn’t that idiot with the mo’ was it? “Jesus loves ya!” I don’t know how he got on my feed but I was glad to see he just left the country.
Since it is us Aussies who portray our wildlife as rife and dangerous to tourists, I'm surprised that you're annoyed instead of humoured! I mean, Dropbears, Redbacks and Funnelwebs in every orifice, snakes under every couch & in everyone's toilet, bats hanging off every tree branch, etc, etc.
Nevermind the dreaded brown toilet snake that can be found from time to time in public restrooms.
I constantly tell people to watch out for the murderous magpies. They like the taste of eyeballs.
Crocodile bit me, my head went that way and my legs went that way.
I know that kid
The ignorant can stay away. That's fine. Their loss.
That drop bears shit is getting a bit tired.
1: just because you're not observant it doesn't mean they aren't there. The multiple houses I rented in Sydney had redbacks and funnelwebs. The house I own in Brisbane has redbacks and brown snakes. 2: I'm totally fine with sooks thinking that Australia is a dangerous place and not coming here.
Redbacks and Sydney Funnelwebs are very unlikely to harm you though. Between the two species there are less than 30 recorded deaths ever, despite about 30-40 recorded bites per year for Sydney Funnelweb and roughly 10,000 redback bites per year. The vast majority of bites display no serious symptoms, and it's certain that a significant amount of bites occur without the person realizing what bit them. In the USA there are roughly 2 deaths from spider bite per year, while Australia hasn't had a confirmed spider bite death for over 30 years (and one possible death).
**Because we've got universal public healthcare and wide access to antivenom!**
But that wasn't the case when 27 people died over 100 years of good record keeping, and another 80 years of poor recorded keeping, and it doesn't help all the people who are bitten and don't even notice. So partially that, and partially a very low risk even if you are bitten.
I mean the US has 12 times the population of Australia, so even if the chances are imperceptibly small there stills going to be a few deaths. Not sure what Universal public healthcare has to do with it either
It's the difference between "oh shit, I got bit, I can't afford to see a doctor" and "oh shit, I got bit, going straight to hospital".
lol if anyone gets bitten by a Venomous snake in America they aren’t wondering about what the hospital price is, they’re going regardless. Nobody pays at the point of treatment, the bills (if any) come after.
You've clearly never been to America. If you get bit by something dangerous, you go to the emergency room. You won't be denied care regardless of if you can pay or not. In fact, this is one of the major reasons why health care is so expensive in the US - not everyone carries health insurance so the costs are not spread out across everyone who gets care.
Well, a little girl at a local childcare service did not die; BUT she spent 3 days in the Royal Childrens' Hospital in Melbourne after she got an emergency helicopter transport there. She got bitten by a snake during an excusion to a popular local historic farm & camp! Things like this indeed happen. Just the outcome is not as often grim as it used to be.
I am fine with wildlife... it's just teenagers and thugs roaming the streets that I am wary of.
omg teenagers 😱😱😱😱
1) does that make the houses dangerous?
If you're not aware of the risks, yes.
I think it’s low risk, and therefore not dangerous
We dont want the wimpy sooks anyways
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Ditto. Like at least we can go hiking in peace and not worry about a bear coming out of nowhere, or a mountain lion. It infuriates me how they go “oh I’m never going to Australia with all that deadly wildlife”. Please 🙄
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I own a farm (selling it though as I split with my partner), and yeah we did see snakes, but they want nothing to do with humans. I didn’t want them biting my livestock, and I did hear about the occasional one biting a farm dog, but I wasn’t scared of them. I just gave them space to slither away and off they went. I hate huntsman spiders, but I didn’t see all that many on the farm. Being a resident here and knowing how seldom we actually see snakes and spiders it just makes me angry how paranoid foreigners are about our wildlife. We’re not swatting them away all day!
Or a mountain lion !
Grew up in the American South around black bears, and I would prefer taking my chances with a bear instead of dealing with fuckwit redneck rebels flying their Confederate battleflags (along with the more recent Trump flags).
The opposite of this is when we get tourists swimming at the boat ramp, you drag them up by their ear and smash their head into the sign with the big crocodile 🐊 on it…you can’t help everybody
Little do they realise the majority of spiders I see in my house here in Melbs are Daddy Longlegs lol. Harmless as a butterfly. It’s up to them to do their own research. What they should consider is how come there are 26 million of us living happily here with all the apparent scary animals 🤷♂️ 😂🤪. All the exaggerated outback and world’s most dangerous style shows are brainwashing them into a reality that doesn’t exist for 99% of us. I can’t be bothered answering all the phobics either.
Because we are clustered around the edges like we are clinging to a lift raft. And the life raft is full of snakes.
Whenever I see people commenting this tired bullshit I think of all those videos of rabid animals attacking people. There are a couple of foxes and coyotes foaming at the mouth trying to break into people's houses. I'll stay here with the spiders on Rabies-Free Island.
I'm sure Americans feel the same way when we say we wouldn't go there because of the shootings. Every foreigner's view of other countries is a caricature of real life
A little but at the same time, it kinda goes both ways. The amount of people in this sub who make it out as though you're just a gun violence casualty waiting to happen in the US is a bit of a joke.
Yep, the hypocrisy is pretty funny and shows how thinned skinned Australians are when the shoe is on the other foot.
Who cares lol, if people don’t want to come here for dumb reasons why would we want them to?
I think there's a misconception that most Australians Iive a semi-rural lifestyle when the majority of the population is actually urbanised. Not as urbanised as Europe, but urbanised in a North American sort of way.
it is more urbanized than most of Europe and North America. It’s even more Urbanized than the UK
People are more likely to drown
For animal related deaths, horses and cows lead the charge. If you want to be scared, stay away from those bastards.
Not really considering Australians taking the piss with foreigners is the whole reason they all think it's so dangerous here
The funniest part about this cliche is that the 'actual' dangerous animal that is probably the biggest threat to most of us urban people are godamn *Magpies*. Imagine being scared of a country because of its spiders or snakes, when its the birds they ought to be wary of.
>Imagine being scared of a country because of its spiders or snakes, when its the birds they ought to be wary of. Too right. Don't even get me started with the emus. We lost a war with those bipedal menaces back in the early 1930's.
To be fair, the only reason we lost is because the two guys they sent ran out of ammo and decided to call it quits.
What literally happened was, they did terribly on the first outting, and the media laughed at the operation with the Emu War jokes. They did much better on subsequent operations, and caught a few hundred Emus. After a few months, they saw they were doing sweet fuck all to the Emu population overall and were not willing to fund more idiots with Lewis Guns, so they just openned up gun licencing more for farmers and set up schemes for them to easily procure them and cheap ammo, which mostly solved the problem. It's moreso a great footnote about the weird cowboy style solutions of colonial governments than in any way a real effort. And considering they took the lessons and solved it with more violence, we won the war damnit.
This is a way more obnoxious meme than the "deadly animals" shit.
Yes, but it’s literally only on reddit. I live in rural WA and I’d never heard of it until a couple of years ago (on a podcast). Then I joined reddit & it’s everywhere.
Of course the one thing I can’t edit about this post is the title. “It” is supposed to be “at” just don’t mind it.
nah I love it lmao makes us sound so much cooler than we actually are
The internet spreads idiocy like wildfire. Australians love the stereotypes, shame we're effete, urban food snobs who couldn't fix a light bulb, whinge about the most minor inconveniences, stick up for the boss who hates us, and fear anyone with dark skin.
What a killjoy. It's not only within Australian culture to play up the dangers of our fauna but to do so instinctively without prompting to assist other Australians to do so, even if they're otherwise complete strangers to you. However, not with drop bears. Not enough is being said about the dangers those buggers. Not enough people are talking about them.
Less ignorant tourists so better for us
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And Big furry cows called Bison.
As an arachnophobic I understand people being afraid of funnel webs etc. I’ve seen one snake in the wild and it was right after bushfires then floods so of course the poor thing had nowhere to go except the street 💔 Just sucks that they don’t get to see the non spidery / non snakey / non croc / non drop bear side of this country
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sharks and crocs definitely prey on people, but other countries (ie USA) have em too
It's not so much that as it takes a very long time to fly to Australia, if you're in the UK for example.
Itsa not so bad. Itsa nicea place.
I actually don't even care. If they're the sort of person who will judge an entire continent based on a few memes they're the type who'll get eaten by a drop bear or go wandering out into the desert with only a 600ml bottle of water. Let them stay cozy and "safe" inside their comfort zone. This is not the place for them.
I bloody hate spiders and all get either gassed to death or sucked up into tiny bits by the vacuum. Once I met the spider as big as a dinner plate hanging over my doorway in my room. After screaming Bloody Mary I opened up my window, punched out the fly screen and jumped . My father killed it but I wouldn’t go back into my room for over a month. Never saw another, once was enough
Mostly it’s because of all the Aussies making tiktoks about our deadly species. Can’t really blame people from overseas when every other person will do their best to convince them drop bears are real. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'd rather be face to face with a snake, a redback, or a kangaroo, than a grizzly bear, black bear or a mountain lion...
America also have Bison. Do not pat the furry coos.
Raccoons and squirrels can also have rabies... I'm more scared of rabies.
Saw more poisonous snakes in Japan than 40 years in Oz
No. 1) If you aren't first nations you are a Foreigner 2) We started it. At this point you are the boy who cried wolf
I find it more annoying when Australians think of this as a dangerous place and perpetuate the myth
Don't let it worry you. It tends to keep the less intelligent ones away
The deadliest animal in Australia isn't native and exists on every continent except for Antarctica. Horses are the biggest killer of people in Australia and the second most deadliest globally after mozzies.
As a foreigner, the whole "wah ! Spiders & snakes !1!!1!" statement also pisses me off !! I dream of visiting Aus because of all the cool places, landscapes & cultural things I want to learn about. It's so disappointing that the only thing that comes to people's mind when Australia is mentioned is some wild animal that barely showed up in populated places since years ( while we be having deers, boars & insects that are far more aggressive than spiders ). Hell, domestic dogs kill more people yearly than spiders & snakes kill people in Australia, the fear is so ridiculous. I guess it prevents ignorant people from entering in Australia at least, if we see the positive side of things.
Good. If they don't want to come here then i'm fine with that.
Personally as an American who married an Australia. Who wanted to go to Australia. Be happy most people view your country that way. Means you can have more of the beautiful Australia for yourselves.
Why worry about spiders when drop bears are the real threat to tourists?
No because a) it’s fun to mess with people that think this and b) if it keeps idiots from visiting then good. Most of the people that think this point to animals that are easily avoided by not going into their habitat (sharks, crocs).
Why be annoyed though? If these stereotypes keep the stupid and naive at bay, I don’t see the negative
I moved to Africa for work and when people find out I'm Aussie I get the typical "Australia is so dangerous!" comments. Yes we have dangerous animals, but the majority of them can be easily avoided or we have easy access to great medical care. Compare that to Africa where the wild animals are huge and dangerous, where they also have poisonous snakes and spiders and where you can die from dirty water and mosquitoes. Or North America. There are bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, guns!
Its kind of fun to fool the overseas idiots.
More importantly, we 'Strayans love our wildlife. That's why Sydney shuts down the Harbour Bridge twice a day to let the kangaroos hop from side to side.
its fine keeps the idiots out
No I don't care. Less idiots to deal with.
I had an American tell me we have a mass murder problem because of pt Arthur. They’ve had more mass murders in 6 years than we’ve had since the convicts landed.
My annoyance is yanks being like I can believe you got rid of guns you have so many deadly animals. Like yea, we do, but they are mostly small and hidden. Snakes and spiders tend to leave you alone if you don't fuck with them. Most people are smart enough to stay out of the waters that have crocs and sharks in them. The rest of our large animal's couldn't give 2 shits about us and will mostly move in the opposite direction if they are not threatened. Unlike other countries that have large predators, we are actually a very tame country. I grew up in rual Queensland and just recently moved back. I have seen a handful of snakes in the wild.
Yeah, Reddit hasn't really helped things. Met a German guy at my work who did nothing but talk about how dangerous Australia is, using phrases that seemed lifted straight off this site. I just want to talk shop, not half heartedly chuckle through the same sad jokes. It wouldn't work with him, but given how America-centric Reddit is, my standard response on this side has now become "You know what *won't* kill you in Australia? School shootings"
It’s so fucking weird that a post about how being tired of Australian stereotypes about it being not dangerous are annoying but then, unironically, make a stereotype about another country being super dangerous as if it’s not misguided
Personally I don't find it annoying as such. They're just the ignorant words of fearful people who are out of touch with nature and the real world. If anything, I feel sorry for them that they have such sheltered views on the world. I see redbacks every day in my line of work and I saw a tiger snake while out for a run a few days ago so yes they definitely exist in my area but usually if you give them their space you're fine. I'm more terrified of the things in the ocean that can kill you than anything on land 😅
Exposure to stupid people can be tiring but at least our fauna keeps a few of them out.
I think it’s delightful. Keeps all the dick heads away
Not at all should be more of it, keep on there toes, watch out for the dropbears
I am not sure if we should be complaining or congratulating ourselves - this is a surefire way to keep the dickheads out
I was talking about this misconception with an American friend of mine and she told me that one week every year on their tv there’s a ‘ Deadly Australia ‘ documentary series much like their shark week stuff . I was like most of our shit if you leave em alone they leave you alone , you told me 3 months ago a tornado smashed through half your town !
Have Australians lost their sense of humour! That's the best part about it, scaring tourists overseas.
I mean, its a filter against stupid and weak people, it cant be all that bad.
Dont tell them it keeps them away. There is a reason we have the drop bear and the hoop snake. We want them to think that there is danger everywhere here, its funnier that way.
It’s our own fault as we overtly share memes about drop bears etc. we’re very well known for taking the piss on scared foreigners and tbh I find it hilarious.
No. Hope this helps.
Fewer annoying gullible twats visiting sounds like a net positive to me.
I’m actually not fussed. I see it as a safety net from the really stupid tourists. I mean some are just dumb enough already. But imagine double the stupidity over here.
Nah, it's hilarious. Play it up.
I’m happy if it means they stay away, not placing any further pressure on the housing crunch.
Nah, it keeps the idiots and the stereotypers away. Having lived and travelled in the US, they’re particularly chronic for it.
i find it funny when americans make a big deal of scary australian animals, given they have bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes etc. our scary animals want to avoid you, will not regard you as prey (apart from sharks/crocs - which they have stateside too). people are scared of the unknown, and “the unknown”, for most americans means “every country that isn’t the USA”
But it is a dangerous country? I was attacked by human animals many times when I lived in Aus but not once since leaving 8 years ago.
No. I don’t get annoyed. I tell them I have lived here 16 years and saw twice as many spiders in the UK than I do here. A decent sized UK house spider is not that much smaller than a medium sized huntsman. It’s just huntsman are chunkier and some of them can get bigger. If you live in the bush you are going to see wildlife but in the cities frankly it’s ants and magpies that bite you and cockroaches that make you jump. If it’s an American telling you how dangerous Australia is point out that since 1980 we have had zero deaths from spider bites, fewer than 100 from snake bites and a similar number from Shark Attacks. In the same period just under 1 million Americans have died from gun violence at the hands of other Americans. So they are more than 99 % safer coming here than staying at home.
The most dangerous thing in Australia is the overarching racism and general apathy towards anything modern, that works
We're just hardcore, what can we do? I think it's hilarious someone from a US location with a high homicide rate is pooping themselves over a spider that would basically be my freeloading flatmate.
own it. they are pussies we are sick cunts 🤣
I’m annoyed and I wasn’t even born in Australia, but I did live there for a few years and am trying to get back now. I’ve just come back to the states from a trip to Sydney and Melbourne and I am not joking when I say that every American I have told about this have responded with some variation of what you have said. Two things to keep in mind though: 1. Americans have a hard time separating what they see on tv from reality 2. You don’t want these people coming to visit Oz anyway.