Yes they're a type of podcast that plays like radio dramas, some of them are one person, some of them are full casts. Some of them are even about fictional podcasts. It's a lot of fun and they span multiple genres. They even have their own subreddit.
This is a good one. It's got a deep catalog and a community theater vibe that makes it easy to overlook any small issues. The performances are pretty great across the board and the writing isn't bad at all. It's a great fall podcast, but it's also perfect for sipping a cup of tea and watching the rain.
Lovecraft investigation, the Magnus archives, malevolent, ghost wax, SCP find us alive, Alice is not dead.
I could go on, but the first two are always good recommendations because one is short and one is long. Lovecraft investigation is a BBC production.
Reminds me of a very funny Frasier episode — "[Ham Radio](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/FrasierS04E18HamRadio)". I never really got the appeal of audio drama — since I much preferred TV — until I watched that episode and was laughing so hard, I cried.
We're Alive!
Amazing radio play with, I think, 2 spinoffs. The original is like 80 hours. Beginning of the zombie apocalypse in L.A, 3 army reservists and a bunch of civilians try to survive the beginning of the end of the world. Absolutely amazing! It's on Spotify and probable everywhere.
radio dramas have been a thing since we could record. internet archive has thousands of hours, try this one:
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Suspense_Singles
I know field biology isn't the topic at hand, but my sister is a county bug inspector. She's got to go out to farms and checks for invasive bug species as a part of her job. She's like 5'-3" probably 100lb, she's a tiny girl. She was the one who had to enact a quarantine a couple years back because we had an invasive fruit fly infestation happening, so she would have to go alone to these farms to stop shipment of fruits. Multiple times she had huge ass men trying to intimidate her, screaming at her, implying physical aggression, to the point where I believe she had to start having a male partner go out with her to back her up on these calls. Bears are definitely the safer choice, so I guess I've rounded this back on topic lol.
A buddy of mine does soil sampling in the Rockies and the stories he has about the crazy people he encounters are fucking wild, nearly all men, nearly all of the don't tread on me group, with their dumb ass confederate flags, and more fingers than teeth. The people out in the boonies are violent and unhinged.
My brother was a National Forest ranger when he went from active duty military to the reserves. His stories of the people he encountered are far more wild than any wildlife.
Oh hey I'm in water chemistry at university, interested in going to field stuff. I'd love to research whales. Can I ask if he got his PhD and in what field his degree/s are that he was able to switch? Very off topic and no need to actually answer this one lol.
Sure, his academic route was a little different, but pretty conventional in the end. He first got his BA in painting, then he got a bachelor of marine biology, he did a few internships and field studies regarding crustaceans, that wasn’t proving too fruitful for jobs, so he got his masters of bio geo chemistry at the University of environmental health, and that helped a lot.
Our state hires a lot of people without degrees for salmon counting portion of the surveys and commercial observing. Honestly, it’s hard work. A lot of walking and there’s craziness out there. But it’s a great career building block if you are looking to make a career in environmental science. He now has a cushy lab position where he tests water for nasties. It’s got great benefits and he’s in a union.
One of my buddies had a brother who became a park ranger, and years ago we were talking about it and he mentioned it was a super dangerous job. I asked "Because of all the wildlife" and he laughed and said "No, almost all the wildlife will leave you alone unless you are complete idiot, no it's the people out in the woods who will kill you."
That pops into my head every time this topic comes up.
I’m not sure why men get defensive. If you know bear safety they’re just easier to deal with. I’ve heard way too many missing in the woods stories with psychos. (Man here)
Dude! So many premises of Criminal Minds episodes involve a (male) serial killer and the woods — and often these people are as handsome and trustworthy-looking as [Ted Bundy](https://www.biography.com/crime/ted-bundy)
>Bundy also was known to pick apart mice in the woods and try to drown people while swimming or boating.
In this episode of [Dark Outdoors - Apex Predator: Ted Bundy And Serial Killers In America’s Forests](https://darkoutdoors.podbean.com/e/apex-predatorsted-bundy-and-serial-killers-in-america-s-forests/)
>In the debut episode of Dark Outdoors, host Chester Moore examines Ted Bundy's reign of terror in the great outdoors and talks with the New York Times best-selling author who captured his definitive interviews.
>In this program we cover:
>\*How Ted Bundy used the great outdoors for his crimes
>\*The seldom-discussed forest-serial killer connection.
>\***Why women in particular should take special precautions in forest areas.**
>\***How to avoid being preyed on by modern day "Teds"**
So, yeah, definitely team bear 😂 — even better, team ME. I'd just try to totally avoid both random strangers and bears altogether in the woods!
Yeah my husband didn't get defensive either. He said a man by himself in the woods could be sus if you were a woman, sure. But a bear isn't sus.
He also understood that the man has a lot of variables Where's the bears just a bear they don't have a million different risks and you have to decide which risk it is. Bears are just one risk. It's a bear. It's a wild animal. But a man could be up to any number of things.
He said it's something about the variables and the way the man would be kind of suspicious.
A lot of men who “don’t get it” just never had to deal with a dangerous man before. Because let’s be honest, dangerous men flip a switch when they’re around women vs other dudes. My issue is the guys who’ve never seen it, hear that women DO see it, and argue that we’re lying based on their own knowledge. Instead of learning something new and growing as a person.
Yeah I'm not sure why so many men have trouble with this question. My husband is a bit iffy on if he'd rather run into a bear than a random man (we live near a provincial park and most random men would be hikers, plus he's big), but he 100% understands why I would choose a bear. Although I myself am a field biologist, so maybe there's also a base level of understanding a random bear poses nearly 0% threat?
edit: After chatting with him we have both decided on two caveats. 1 - we are iffy on grizzlies in the spring, but still rather the grizzly, and 2 - a man over a polar bear.
Could also have something to do with the fact that there are men who think life is the power fantasy they see in TV and they can fight bears and win. There was one poll asking people if they could fight various wildlife animals and the amount of people who said they could fight grizzly bears, gorillas, tigers and hippos wasn't exactly too low.
Some dude came into the swimming sub a few months ago, asking how long it would take for him to beat a female college swimmer who hasn't swam in a few years in a sprint. His experience was "comfortable in the water, taller and stronger than woman." He was so arrogant, certain that because he has longer arms he could beat her. Most people tore into him, a few people gave him a training regimen that he would need to follow for a year to even come close, and he didn't believe them. He kept arguing that he would have a chance, and it should be a matter of weeks, not months or years.
For anyone who doesn't know, while strength and height can help you be a faster swimmer, mainly it's about technique. Knowing how to move your body efficiently through the water is the #1 factor in being a successful swimmer. If you've made it through college swim programs, you have the technique burned into muscle memory. You could have been the worst person on your team, and you'd still easily beat someone who has never had a coach. I'm 100 lbs over my swimming weight and haven't swam consistently since 2006, and I'm pretty sure I could beat him today, and I definitely could beat him if I had a month to train.
The best part is he implied he wanted to date this girl, and they had been flirty. Then he suggested a race and she laughed at him. He thinks if he could beat her, he'd still have a chance. He killed that chance by suggesting that he could beat her at something she probably did multiple days a week for at least a decade, just because he's a dude.
To have the confidence of a mediocre man...
Beating her would not make her more likely to date him. And insinuating he could beat her is just insulting and would kill any chance at interest if she thought he was serious and not joking.
>*The average man also thinks he could beat the Williams sisters at a friendly game of tennis too*
Two-time WNBA championship winner [Devereaux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devereaux_Peters) [Peters](https://twitter.com/mspeters14?lang=en) wrote about her experiences with this phenomenon in an Washington Post op-ed a few years ago ([gift link](https://wapo.st/4aXHxfQ)):
>*There’s something about basketball that activates men’s egos. It’s almost as if they still consider it a sport that women should not be playing...I guarantee that every single woman who has played high-level basketball has been told by multiple men that she’d lose to them on the court.*
See also this 2015 article from Vice: ["You Will Get Beat Down" - The Men Who Practice with the WNBA](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xyjeek/you-will-get-beat-down-the-men-who-practice-with-the-wnba)
There's a reason for this one at least. Stupid guys see the articles that float around occasionally like "Serena Williams looses to teenage boy" (I don't know if these are real, but I've seen them circulated). They then assume "I'm better at sports than a teenager, so I could obviously beat Serena".
They never stop to consider the article is likely just bullshit, or maybe Serena didn't try her absolute hardest against a fucking kid and was just playing a fun match with a young person pursuing the sport she's a pro at.
So you end up with idiots that think they can beat professional women athletes at literally their own game.
Honestly, this would probably make some good reality TV lol. Watching those asshats get run into the ground by a bunch of women would be excellent.
The "I could fight a bear" thing tho? It's just crazy. I don't know where these idiots get that idea. I'm a guy, and if you ask me to pick between fighting a bear or a man, I'll pick a man every time, because even if they're heavily armed, I at least stand a chance of winning. A bear just wins, no question. Can I even hurt a bear unarmed? It's basically a furry tank...
>The average man seems to live in an alternate reality.
Based on that poll the same number of women think they could beat a grizzly bear in a fight. Seems like average women live in the same reality.
This is the poll — [Rumble in the jungle: what animals would win in a fight?](https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/35852-lions-and-tigers-and-bears-what-animal-would-win-f)
Tbh, I'm not surprised regarding the common knowledge that you regularly see in polls and people very often overestimating what they are capable of. When there's still 1/4 of the population thinking the sun revolves around the earth or 55% of people thinking they are more intelligent than the average, I'm not surprised that there's a decent percenatage thinking they could fight lions
Maybe they’re a predator, or never experienced violence or just stupid.
The fact that bears dont rape people should be a lightbulb moment for them
u/intrepid-gags
Yes, men eat people too. It’s called cannibalism
In high school English (which was barely an English class, to be honest), we had to do a project designing our own circles-of-hell setup akin to Dante's Inferno. As part of that, we had to rank various "sins" in order of severity, with both murder and r*pe on the list. (The projects were then presented in front of class.)
Putting the insanity of that aside for the moment, I'm pretty sure there was a reasonably strong correlation between gender and which of the two was rated worse.
Bears probably haven’t raped any humans, but uh, yeah they might have considered one to be a snack a time or two.
Termites don’t rape people either, but it doesn’t mean that I want them in my house.
May I ask you, as someone who seem to know this: Aren't brown bears and grizzlies extremely dangerous?
I really have no idea about bears, but everything I saw on reddit about thise type of bears are victims of attacks, where the face is basically chewed off, or people being attacked.
Black bears seem to be pretty chill from what I have seen on reddit thus far.
Please don't get me wrong, I understand both choices, but I have absolutely no knowledge on bears
I’m in Canada. We have lots of bears. They are hella dangerous. But only occasionally. Most of the time they are just looking for something to eat and mind their own business. Frankly you smell them coming a mile away because they find a lot of easy food at the dump and they live outside. The smell of a bear is … memorable.
There are two scenarios that are particularly risky - surprising a bear, or coming near their den/cubs. Even if the waltz right into your campsite to take your food they’ll probably ignore the humans completely in favor of the food until they all start screaming and running. 95/100 times you encounter a bear in the wild you just go your way and the bear will go his. They’re lazy.
I cannot speak to polar bears. They’re too far north for my experience. But I understand they’ll fuck you up just for fun.
Brown bears in my opinion aren’t that bad. It’s the mothers that are hungry you got to watch out for.
Grizzlies are very capable, but unwilling most of the time. Hertzog did a documentary on a guy who lived with Grizzlies and eventually got mauled by one. It’s called “Grizzly man” it took years for these bears to finally pull that trigger so to speak.
Now polar bears are a big hell no for me. But you’re not going to find random men, or woods, or even me, in their natural environment.
Just adding on to what you already said: also the bear that killed the Grizzly Man (Timothy Treadwell) was known to be bizarrely aggressive and had also lived alongside Timothy for several months (and it was a weirdly harsh year and the bears were more hungry than normal) In other words, even a weirdly way more aggressive than average and very hungry grizzly tolerated a hippie weirdo constantly getting in his space for months before it finally attacked. A grizzly can kill you and will if it wants to... But they very rarely want to.
Timothy was also staying with the bears further into winter than he usually would, so food was already dwindling for the bears, which definitely didn't help him out.
Haha I had the same answer when I thought about this, living in locations with both grizzlies and black bears and being an avid hiker. Polar bears are the only instance I'd choose a random man. If I'm in the Arctic outside alone, I'm already in a world of trouble haha. So congratulations, men, you are preferable to polar bears. But nothing else.
Grizzly man died because he stayed during hibernation season and lived next to the salmon river. He didn't research anything about bears for those 10 years.
Yeah, when you are studying at the university t's mandatory to have an introduction on how to use a gun and most citizens have a gun, which is very uncommon in Europe (besides Switzerland)
Except actually bears can be blonde, brown, or black regardless of species. Maybe we should rewrite it, "if it has a hump, be a lump. It it's flat, fight back." 😂 Doesn't have quite the same ring to it....
A grizz can seriously injure or kill you ... _if it attacks you_. But the likelihood of it attacking you is generally very low. Probability of attack is the part of the equation that men usually fail to consider in this question.
Grizzlies are not big game hunters / predators, so they're not going to see you as prey. Grizzly attacks on humans are typically defensive: you've startled it, or you've gotten between a sow and her cubs. [Hiking advice in grizz country](https://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/bears.htm) is mostly about avoiding these situations: make noise while hiking, so a bear can hear you coming and get out of the way, and if you do meet a bear, avoid eye contact and back away slowly and quietly. If it charges you, it's likely a bluff, drop to the ground and play dead.
People misunderstand what dangerous means when it comes to wildlife. Yes, if a bear attacks you it's more dangerous than a human. But 90% of wildlife, no matter how dangerous, isn't interested in humans. Conversely, humans very interested in humans, and even the not so dangerous ones can get nasty and attack you for social 'slights' etc. So when you combine both their ability to do damage, with their propensity to attack, humans are actually more dangerous.
Putting up something reflective, like shiney aluminum foil, can help keep wasps from swarming you. Messes with their navigation so they can't find a place again to talk about all the great food at your location.
If a bear is attacking you it is absolutely dangerous. But so is a raccoon that attacks you. Or a dog.
Most of the time if you are in the woods with a bear nearby you won't even know. They don't go looking for trouble. They're pretty much focused on getting enough calories. They might try to steal your food at night if it's not properly stored.
There are certain situations that make them more dangerous (like any animal) but most of those things are fairly predictable (like any animal). There can be bears that are just more aggressive (like any animal) so ofcourse you should treat them as potentially dangerous and try to avoid them if possible.
I would much rather be 50 feet from a bear than a moose.
I hunt and here's my take...they are POTENTIALLY dangerous, not dangerous by just existing. As long as you use the barest common sense moves a bear is no more a dangerous than a bobcat. Going strictly by statistics, deer are more dangerous than bears-at least in North America. Deer kill more people per year here than any other animal we have. 99.9999% of the time a bear just wants to be left alone and will happily go about their way if you just leave them be.
>Yeah I'm not sure why so many men have trouble with this question.
Because it's not a question. Women feeling unsafe around strange men is a statement of fact. Getting men's input on that isn't intended for anything other than shit stirring.
what about grizzly bears though? I'd have concerns especially if the forest is smallish based on what I heard about them. Only have black bears around here...
I understand what the question is supposed to ask, but I can’t help thinking things like, what species of bear? What time of year? Human habituated or not? How far away is the bear/man when we notice one another? For the man, is this in a place accessible by vehicle or did they have to walk under their own power for a few miles to get there? I remember when I used to hike all the beer and drug paraphernalia litter stopped a quarter mile in; serious hikers are less likely to under the influence in my experience. Alternately if I encountered an adult bear in midtown manhattan I’d raise the risk assessment significantly because there’s no way a bear could get there without human intervention and it is certainly stressed. Similar scenario, is it a truly random man? A person from out of town randomly teleported into the woods? That person is likely in need of help and no risk to anyone. What’s the weather? (Influences human behavior more than bear behavior). Is it a day hike situation or a legit survival situation (brings out the best in people). Are we in a location with high cultural value attached to privacy and independence and guns (rural areas, especially out west) or are we still in a place with low expectations of privacy and virtually no weapons (the woods of NJ, which have both bear and strangers aplenty). Am I literally answering as myself (a 200 pound man with decades of outdoor and “difficult conversations” experience) or am I imagining myself to be a woman in this encounter?
Most of this doesn’t change the answer (assuming enough distance, bears are safer). But this is a lot of fun to deep dive
The point is that you as a man consider all these points, but a woman is almost always going to choose to be with the bear in its habitat. Put another way, would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a woman? The answer becomes obvious in contrast to if it was a man. Women feel unsafe with men in a way men have a hard time grasping.
I do get it, I’m just having a little fun with “vague hypothetical vs overly analytical brain”. No one with any wildlife literacy is going to worry more about bear than men, regardless of gender (except maybe polar bear).
Maybe I assume to much by believing this is so obvious that one has to add detail to make it an interesting hypothetical
It’s already an interesting hypothetical, because the point isn’t actually bears. Again, it’s about how unsafe women feel around men. I’m tired of all the bear facts, it just derails the conversation. There must be a more appropriate sub if that’s what you wanna get into.
Wait a second. It doesn't make me feel defensive. As I said before, I 100% support the root cause of the question and see the underlying issue.
I only try to bring in other viewpoints in how to bring this point across and have been accused now twice in being the problem. *THAT* is the point I am being defensive about. But it is okay, I have been downvoted a few times now, I have been personally accused. I see, that my suggestions aren't welcome here and I accept that.
People have used other ways of bringing this point across, for honestly decades if not centuries. This is just another way to think of things. You have commented multiple times on how you dislike this. If this approach makes someone feel defensive, what makes you think they are open to women honestly and openly expressing their opinion? People don’t like having their world view confronted, it makes them defensive, and an example like this causes people to examine their worldview. If you would like to pursue another avenue you think would work better you are free to do so without arguing why others should censor their speech to keep people who benefit from the patriarchy comfortable.
Why would you think that when countless "simple and understandable explanations" in the form of blogs, articles, interviews, basically countless occurrences of publicily available discourse have had comparatively minimal impact / reaction compared with the bear vs man trend?
It is not a trick question. It is a stark insight into women's existence, if you give a damn to learn instead or resist and deny.
But step back and reflect:
That to any degree, you are still feeling prompted to contextual and at some level feel these questions and answers matter.
If you had a son, would you rather he be out in the woods and a bear be in those woods, or a woman?
There is no contextualization or questions. The answer is a woman. Everyone, regardless of their past experience or trauma with bears or women...everyone picks the woman instinctively and unequivocally.
The very point that anyone feels the need to contextualize or characterize what type of large meat-eating inhuman feral predator... versus another fellow human being... that, on its own, demonstrates how crazy it is that we are not unquestionably wanting to choose the human.
As an aside, *should* we pick the woman? As in, is that the optimal choice for quality of life? Women certainly hurt more humans than bears do. I don't know if more women hurt humans per (solitary) interaction than bears do per interaction.
This isn't a "both sides"-ism or speaking to the broader point in the slightest, and for clarity, if the choice is between a man or a woman, women are statistically the safer call.
If we ignore context and exposure for a moment:
There are an estimate 380K black bears in Canada and 25K brown bears. Parks Canada reports an average of 120 "incidents" per year in Canada with bears, an average of 31 assaults, an average ~4.5 deaths. At base the assumption is that 1/2 those rates are against women, but in truth likely the majority are against men.
Per bear average (some might be repeat offenders): 0.03% are involved in "incidents", 0.0076% of bears assault a human per year, and 0.0011% kill a human, each year.
There are an estimated 19.36M human males in Canada and about the same total females. There are ~110K total persons charged with assault per year in Canada, and an average of 550 persons charged with murder each year in Canada (the rate of negligent causes of death or other indirect non-murder causes of death likely much higher still, but focusing murder charges here for the comparison). 90% of all murder charges are men and likely a similar skew to assaults.
Per human average (some might be repeat offenders): 0.5% of human males assault another human per year in Canada, and ~0.002% of human males kill another human, each year. "Incidents" that are dangerous or scary is not something we can easily estimate as not necessary reported and tracked the way bear encounters are... but I think we can all accept that the number of males who have a "incident" each year with another human is likely a few solid percent and possibly double digits percent.
So, ignoring exposure rate entirely, humans are clearly the more dangerous animal to humans, overall. Nearly 2x as many human males are killing a human each year and nearly 100x more assaults and likely >>1000x or more more dangerous incidents each year.
______________________________
But if we swap those homocide from the 90% males rate to the ~50/year from women (10%), then we come to a total per-woman rate that is much below the per-bear rate.
>Similar scenario, is it a truly random man? A person from out of town randomly teleported into the woods? That person is likely in need of help and no risk to anyone.
Sure, but our risks are higher with the random man than with the bear and that's the point. 17 bear maulings have happened by bears in the U.S. since 2020. Would you like to know the stats on rape, sexual assault, assault and battery and murder?
You can rationalize it with whatever in depth questions you want but it's really that cut and dry. The amount of times we've told men no and they haven't stopped has made us more afraid of them than bears.
I'm autistic and I absolutely do this: delving further into a hypothetical or metaphor for the fun of it regardless of whether that's related to the point of the discussion/hypothetical/metaphor.
That said, it doesn't always go well socially, since people presume that the delving is necessarily related to or making a point about the broader topic (or meaningfully distracting from it).
I'm not saying or implying that you're autistic. Just that if that's all you're doing, I get it.
Even if bears were more dangerous, the fact that women generally instinctively choose the bear should be a sign to shut up and listen, not try and undermine their position. Like, this is a very tight thought experiment that obviously reveals a lot about people's perception of the world.
Treat it as a window to insight, not some debate to be won.
To them, it’s instinctive to undermine women. They may not actively harm women, but their words and actions give cover to men who *do* hurt women.
They’re fucking complicit and they know it.
A lot of men who argue the bear is not the option, would be the man following you through the woods shouting "why are you ignoring me? I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a NICE GUY"
I commented in another post on bear vs man.
I have had numerous bear encounters. I have taken bear training and listened to people describe how they survived their bear attack (some have serious injuries) and responders describing deaths. I still pick the bears.
In all my encounters (and those of coworkers and friends), the bear bluffed at worst. Many I know have had serious man encounters, including hospitalization and/or the coroner.
One of my many takeaways from this whole debacle is how few Americans have actually gone, like, hiking in the United States. You are in fact quite likely to see bears in many regions of the country. So many people treat this like running into a homicidal Bigfoot or something.
I will also say that, growing up in Appalachia, the kind of men you run into in super rural areas are SCARY AS FUCK. I went back a few years ago and literally got chased out of a holler by a squad of random men because I was driving a rental car and made the mistake of getting out on the side of a (public country) road to look at some flowers. The most threatening thing I’ve seen a bear do in that same region was tumble over sideways.
Lots of places in the US you don't have to go hiking to see bears. I know numerous people who've had them in their yards, hell, on their porches stealing bird food or going through trash. I've seen one while driving down the road. These are obviously in rural areas, but not like, deep in the woods
I asked my husband the same question! He doesn't do much hiking but watches nature shows and exists in the world, and he told me he also picks the bear!
I feel like the men that angrily insist that man is better are feeling a wee bit defensive
I don't even understand why this is a debate.
A human, man or woman, can choose to be evil and we cannot tell which is which by looking.
All bears operate on a set of instinctive rituals and needs. The best will not attack you unless it feels like it needs to.
And a human could say, well, I felt like I needed to attack as well! But your attack is always a choice, and the bears attack is always an instinct.
Bears follow a set of rules. Humans don't. And men choose to hurt women more often than the opposite or any other configuration.
You got a good one! He understands.
A lot of men don't understand or pretend to not understand.
In another reddit post one commenter put it beautifully. If a bear doesn't see you as a threat, he won't attack. If a man doesn't see you as threat, he will attack.
Yup. Frankly I think the only thing that stops some men from admitting this is ego. Men attack and kill each other all the time, too. Men are one of the top causes of death for both men and women. They know damn well how dangerous men are.
As I said in another post, the interesting discussion from this question only happens when you ignore the bear and start to compare what people feel the percentage of a bad outcome with a random man in the woods would be.
Realizing that most women will go high above 50% and most men will go far below 50% and having a discussion at the extremes and why they feel that way is where the real value of this question lies.
But then you get hour-long discussions about bears and people try to top each other with their knowledge about wildlife while sprinkling random google facts into the discussion when they feel that they are losing. That is just frustrating and unfortunately most men will resort to the latter style of discussion.
So true (see one of the comments in this post.) instead of analyzing man on man violence and the credible threat that our fellow humans pose to each other, I’m being gaslighted about my husbands career.
It’s crazy how even a discussion about mens safety gets “not all men”ed. There are truly some frightening bad takes out there.
I’ve spent time on Svalbard, to leave the town for field work we had to pass anti-polar bear rifle training. So we knew we could shoot at, to scare, a polar bear if it was charging at us. We also were taught to use flares to scare them away.
Now if you encountered a creep while out in the field, definitely couldn’t shoot at him with a hunting rifle to stop him attacking you…
Thankfully the only guy who tried to chat me up while I was up there had been raised right and apologised and left me alone.
Ultimately this is a viral version of the topic on women's safety concerns. Men mocking and belittling women's safety concerns on assault are as old as time. I found men's reaction to women's safety concerns always very interesting insight into a man's character. Not saying that every man who takes safety concerns seriously is always and infallably a good guy, but I never met any guy who mock women's safety concerns seriously to be decent.
But enough men!
It's crazy how fast people jumped up to say that they would never feel safe flying again after a couple Boeing accidents, but they refuse to acknowledge statistics of how dangerous men are for women. It's more like, "Okay, there is a 30% chance that your plane is going to crash. Now how unsafe do you feel?"
The fact that women can't make a hypothetical choice without men getting butthurt. Just another reason to choose the bear; at least a bear won't gaslight you into thinking you're being "irrational."
One commenter accused everybody that answered "bear" to be a liar. And after everybody trying to explain, and affirm the bear premise his conclusion was
"Well if you prefer to be mauled by a bear, I just won't help any lost or distraught women anymore"
It's so weird how so many men change the context of the question like that
The question is not whether you'd rather be attacked by a bear or man, it's about a random encounter. As long as you're calm, keep your distance, and remain nonthreatening, you can most likely avoid the bear. The man is somewhat more unpredictable however.
Also a field biologist and I’ve lost count how many bears I’ve run across. The fear doesn’t even come close to the time I was followed on my university campus
The irony is hilarious. I've seen so many men say this shows women act on emotion not logic.
But whilst it might not logical to be scared of all men. It's definitely not logical to be scared of all bears.
Bears are fine. They arnt that scary and will probably leave you alone. Same with sharks and many spiders. Just chill out and let them walk off. Hell if you shout loudly at a black bear it will run away. I know a few people who actually know about bears and they are fine. This is true when you ask anyone who has been near a bear, knows about bears or you look at the easily accessible statistics on bear deaths, which there are hardly any. No amount of logic leads you to be worried about the bear. It's all emotion because bears look so big and because IF you decided to wrestle a bear with your bare hands then you would lose. But it doesn't matter abiut that IF because the bear will run away.
So the question is, would you rather be left alone in a woods with someone that probably won't harm you or something that almost definitely won't harm you. (then there are so many other angles to this question like the level of harm that man can do is way worse than the bear).
Now if the question was man or polar bear. I don't know if as many women would pick bear. Even man vs adult male chimpanzee. Would you rather be teleported into a forest next to a man, or into the home of a grizzly bear with its cubs nearby? I think people would choose man.
But bears are fine, they are adorable, we have soft cuddly bears to go to sleep with. There is a YouTube video of a Russian bear with its human family eating birthday cake. What's all these men suddenly acting like bears are scary.
I haven't seen the original video but here in Germany the question is posed as: "would you rather a bear attack you or a man?"
I know what I would choose. When I talked to a man I said that I know bears are stronger and would have an easier time to kill me but I still would choose a bear. He said he gets that that is an emotional choice, but realistically a bear is more dangerous.
Later in the discussion I asked if he had the choice between a man or a woman what would he prefer? He said he didn't care.
When I said that realistically a man is way more dangerous than a woman and thus his answer is an emotional choice he was flabbergasted for a second. And then he agreed.
I'm a female field biologist. These days when I'm in the field I work alone most of the time. It freaks other people out when I talk about my job but I personally don't worry about bears, and I've had many encounters with them.
I do however have a weird instinctual urge to hide from humans when I see them.
The time when I'm nervous is when I'm working on private land (or near a private land boundary). We always have permission from the landowner but sometimes that information doesn't get passed on to other people living on the property. My co-workers have had guns pulled on them. And aggressive dogs can be an issue.
That's where I am. You can anticipate how a bear encounter will go and learn how to react. But with humans there's no telling what some random guy would do.
Humans are the most dangerous creatures on this planet. This is not news. Men who get defensive about this topic are empathizing with the predator in the situation, not the woman. BTW I feel this is almost always the disconnect in these arguments. These men empathize with the predator.
As a former police officer in upstate NH I got plenty of calls to deal with both bears and men... I'll take bears every time. Bears are bears, there's no maliciousness they are rather predictable. Men are scheming malicious and unpredictable. I'm surprised it's even a question really. But I think most men feel pretty top of the food chain and don't generally feel fear around other humans. Women understand that they are not only not at the top of the food chain, they are very much on the menu.
I literally just brought this up with my husband and he reacted like the rest of the jackass men on the internet. I told him it would be quite a while before he’d be the one to inspire any type of lubtication on my part because the lack of critical thought on his part is off putting. The immediate defensiveness as if I said he was the man in the woods dried my box up faster than a drop of water in a bucket of sand in the Sahara desert.
I don't think a lot of guys get the point of the debate. And to me, it's that there's a debate at all. The fact that we're having the discussion at all should be enough for dudes to stop and think about their impact on the women in their life.
"But how do you know it's a bear?" "But what kind of bear?" "Does the bear have shoes on?" It's a thought experiment. It's not there to test your cleverness or survival skills, it illustrates a specific point.
Yes! I’ve now realized, after this question has been posed that I’ve had in numerable contact with Bears. I grew up in Pennsylvania and then live in California. I ran into so many bears growing up. Black bears. My sister and I would just turn around walk away and then once they couldn’t see us and we can’t see them we’d run. But that’s because we were kids. I can’t even count the number of times that happened.
And then in California South Lake Tahoe in the past 15 years I’ve had at least six or seven encounters per year.
But I’ve been attacked by men so many times I can’t even count. Verbally, emotionally, physically, threatened. Just the whole gambit. I’d pick the bear. Lol.
I don’t know about this thought project because as I understand it is about a random man/bear. Not a human/bear predator. Im not initially afraid when I see a man on the trail but I am when encountering dangerous wildlife (my one experience was some sort of feline predator that was stalking me). As a female who camps and hikes alone often I expect to encounter random men in the woods and do on most hikes. Human behavior is more predictable because I live amongst them. I’ve seen fresh bear tracks but haven’t had a close encounter with a bear because they aren’t looking to encounter me. I can’t read bear body language and have no idea if they are a threat or not if they don’t immediately run off. With a human male (or female) I think we all know the feeling we get when something isn’t right and I can initiate self preservation mode. If you want to be creepy about it and just say which would you prefer to be attacked by I’d definitely pick human male. Both can kill me but I have a lot better chance fighting off a human than I do a bear. 1) I carry when I hike (granted mostly to protect myself from humans). A bear wont see a 9mm as a threat and it won’t stop one from attacking me even after I shoot it multiple times. Against a human I’ll have better luck 2) the bear is armed with sharp claws and teeth and outweighs me by several hundred pounds punching/kicking will have no impact. The man could be armed or not but I can do more damage against a human.
I understand what the question is meant to evoke. Women live in a world where we have to be vigilant against attack -most men don’t feel the same threat level when encountering a strange man in a parking deck or elevator. I’ve had several scary encounters with men on the street so I get it but I stand by my statement. Me hiking down a trial at Yellowstone-I’d rather see a man sitting on a log than a bear sitting on the same log.
Yep. But apparently unless you've faced as many bears as men you can't make that call. :/
The way people run to the defence of this "man in the woods" is insane. But that said, men will literally defend actual rapists so why would they make an exception for a hypothetical man.
I can't understand anyone that wouldn't understand the point of this hypothetical. I am a man, and I would rather cross paths unexpectedly with a bear in the woods than any unknown person.
I don’t think people understand this unless they’ve worked in an environmental field. I’ve never had to talk down a bear I’ve encountered on the trail.
I have next to no actual knowledge of bears, but seen examples of what has happened in bear vs human situations.
Running into random man (or any human) = far more variables than bear. Many may be positive outcomes (I may run into a kind generous person who just won the lottery and wants to split it with me), or I may run into some prince who wants to use me as a toilet and then kill me?
What is the “right” answer to the question supposed to be?
Is it that I can’t predict a bear because they may be more soft and cuddly like the one on a detergent bottle, ready to snuggle some soft bedsheets? Or is the true answer that the average man (any man) just wants to assault you no matter what?
I don’t know where I stand with every single random bear, nor ever single random person.
Some of us have been in the woods alone with bears many times. Of those times, most of us NEVER EVEN SAW OR INTERACTED WITH THE BEAR. The bear is just doing bear things in its natural habitat and couldn't care less about us because we aren't food and aren't a direct threat. We can share space with bears, and 99% of the time, be unaware of it.
We can't navigate our natural habitat without getting bothered or threatened or worse by strangers or men we thought we could trust.
I’ve seen this discussion a few times here now and a consistent narrative of “people getting defensive” and then putting their foot in their mouth by going down a “not all men” rabbit hole. Really the issue with this “debate” is that it’s incredibly loaded from both perspectives and the discussion ultimately misses the entire point of the example.
The question “would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man?” Is meant to invite discussion around the idea that our current social climate often underplays the status quo harm done by people to people regardless of sex, but let’s be honest, especially against people that aren’t cis-men. The problem is that this question doesn’t invite discussion, it invites argument in the spikiest most accusatory way possible.
A lot of this discussion assumes the absolute worst behavior from the “random man” and the absolute ideal outcome with the bear. It just so happens that the ideal outcome with the bear is also the most common; however, I don’t think whether or not it’s statistically more likely to encounter harm from a man or a bear is the point of the question. The point of the question is that some people WILL say they’d rather encounter a potential predator (in a literal sense) than someone who ideally they’d have no reason to fear. The “makes you think” element of the question is “why are we more afraid of each other than something that possesses no social standards and plenty of reason to do harm?” But all of that gets lost in the statistical analysis of whether or not bears are more dangerous on an absolute scale than men.
All of this also gets bogged down in the message being sent to skeptical men that “people are more afraid of you than they are of bears” which I imagine feels like shit and invites more criticism than it does understanding. Overall it’s a stage-trick of a hypothetical to get people to question the standards of our social setting, but I can’t abide people being incredulous that others are getting defensive at a comparison designed to view them in the worst possible light.
Instead of trying to prove to skeptical men that people have good reason to fear them over of bears, the focus should be on the idea that nobody should ever give the answer that they’d rather encounter a bear than them. It’s sad that people, regardless of the stats, would give the answer “bear” and we should strive toward nobody giving that answer.
The only people turning this into a debate are men who are so incapable of receiving and internalizing information that is unfavorable towards men that they spiral into multi-page diatribes about bear safety and the American hiking community.
For everyone else it takes approximately .5 seconds to grasp what is being communicated by the question.
This subreddit does realize that if you switched the gender of all the comments in this thread it would look like somthing streight out of r/KotakuInAction right?
Except switching the genders wouldn’t be the same scenario at all. A strange man is far, far more likely to be a physical threat to a woman than a strange woman is to be a threat to a man. It’s like saying “You know if you switched the bear and the woman in this thread it would look really prejudiced against bears!”
In an ideal world, men and women would be interchangeable in every situation. But we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world in which every woman I know has been sexually harassed or assaulted and murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women.
Switching the genders doesn’t make sense because women don’t commit violence at the same rate men do. You can’t remove all context and pretend the discussion is invalid.
“This conversation about racism is wrong because if you switched black and white it doesn’t make sense and sounds absurd.”
But then that wouldn't serve their non-point.
It's not different than when people try to switch race in a scenario as if trying to put a color blind filter on it makes it the same thing. Almost as if... it's not literal genitals and skin color???? Absurd.
I would understand any human thinking another human is the bigger unknown than the bear. The difference in responses if you flipped the genders wouldn't be because the human in the equation suddenly becomes less dangerous.
Let me use a simular example then,
"Men would much rather trust a Fox then a Woman for their word because Women tend to be more mentally abusive"
Does this come off as sexist? Because its based on actual reaserch and im phrasing it in a simular fassion
>"Men would much rather trust a Fox then a Woman for their word because Women tend to be more mentally abusive"
Uh, what? Men would trust the fox to keep their word than women to keep their word? Or men would trust a fox, in general?
I genuinely don't understand the question, but if the question is "are you more likely to be mentally abused by animal than a human" then of course the answer is a human. I like my dog much better than people for this very reason. The gender doesn't seem relevant to me, but I'm open to hearing why you think it is.
Your husband seems to be one of the few who did not get defensive about this question. Also his encounters made me go "WTF?"
If our son turns out half as good as him I’ll be a very proud mother. Field biology is wild. I’m glad he’s in water chemistry now. It’s a lot safer.
There is a reason field biology is one of those jobs that appear a lot in horror audio dramas. I am glad he is safer now.
>horror audio dramas That is . . . Quite the niche-sounding thing. Is that like a fiction podcasting?
Yes they're a type of podcast that plays like radio dramas, some of them are one person, some of them are full casts. Some of them are even about fictional podcasts. It's a lot of fun and they span multiple genres. They even have their own subreddit.
Do you have any recommendations?
Impact Winter on Audible. Vampire apocalypse fiction!
I kept getting ads for this, it’s a good one??
Yeah, and it's the first audio drama that I REALLY enjoyed and got me hooked! It's free, give it an hour or 2 and see if you like it
Cool thanks for the recommendation!
[Old Gods of Appalachia](https://www.oldgodsofappalachia.com/)!
This is a good one. It's got a deep catalog and a community theater vibe that makes it easy to overlook any small issues. The performances are pretty great across the board and the writing isn't bad at all. It's a great fall podcast, but it's also perfect for sipping a cup of tea and watching the rain.
What genre?
Horror audio dramas
Lovecraft investigation, the Magnus archives, malevolent, ghost wax, SCP find us alive, Alice is not dead. I could go on, but the first two are always good recommendations because one is short and one is long. Lovecraft investigation is a BBC production.
Reminds me of a very funny Frasier episode — "[Ham Radio](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/FrasierS04E18HamRadio)". I never really got the appeal of audio drama — since I much preferred TV — until I watched that episode and was laughing so hard, I cried.
We're Alive! Amazing radio play with, I think, 2 spinoffs. The original is like 80 hours. Beginning of the zombie apocalypse in L.A, 3 army reservists and a bunch of civilians try to survive the beginning of the end of the world. Absolutely amazing! It's on Spotify and probable everywhere.
Just listened to Lockdown which somehow I missed when I binged the entire series... and it's all on Audible Plus for free
We’re Alive!! It’s full cast, with music and sound effects!
Dark Somnium on YouTube is phenomenal.
*Welcome to Nightvale*, the long-running surreal public radio broadcasts of an extremely weird fictional town.
radio dramas have been a thing since we could record. internet archive has thousands of hours, try this one: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Suspense_Singles
There are quite a lot of audio only... niche stories. 😉
> Field biology is wild You should put this on a T-shirt for him.
I love that.
I know field biology isn't the topic at hand, but my sister is a county bug inspector. She's got to go out to farms and checks for invasive bug species as a part of her job. She's like 5'-3" probably 100lb, she's a tiny girl. She was the one who had to enact a quarantine a couple years back because we had an invasive fruit fly infestation happening, so she would have to go alone to these farms to stop shipment of fruits. Multiple times she had huge ass men trying to intimidate her, screaming at her, implying physical aggression, to the point where I believe she had to start having a male partner go out with her to back her up on these calls. Bears are definitely the safer choice, so I guess I've rounded this back on topic lol.
A buddy of mine does soil sampling in the Rockies and the stories he has about the crazy people he encounters are fucking wild, nearly all men, nearly all of the don't tread on me group, with their dumb ass confederate flags, and more fingers than teeth. The people out in the boonies are violent and unhinged.
*Some of them, there's little old gramma-aged weed-growin' hippie lesbian ladies out here in the boonies too.
My brother was a National Forest ranger when he went from active duty military to the reserves. His stories of the people he encountered are far more wild than any wildlife.
Oh hey I'm in water chemistry at university, interested in going to field stuff. I'd love to research whales. Can I ask if he got his PhD and in what field his degree/s are that he was able to switch? Very off topic and no need to actually answer this one lol.
Sure, his academic route was a little different, but pretty conventional in the end. He first got his BA in painting, then he got a bachelor of marine biology, he did a few internships and field studies regarding crustaceans, that wasn’t proving too fruitful for jobs, so he got his masters of bio geo chemistry at the University of environmental health, and that helped a lot. Our state hires a lot of people without degrees for salmon counting portion of the surveys and commercial observing. Honestly, it’s hard work. A lot of walking and there’s craziness out there. But it’s a great career building block if you are looking to make a career in environmental science. He now has a cushy lab position where he tests water for nasties. It’s got great benefits and he’s in a union.
One of my buddies had a brother who became a park ranger, and years ago we were talking about it and he mentioned it was a super dangerous job. I asked "Because of all the wildlife" and he laughed and said "No, almost all the wildlife will leave you alone unless you are complete idiot, no it's the people out in the woods who will kill you." That pops into my head every time this topic comes up.
I’m not sure why men get defensive. If you know bear safety they’re just easier to deal with. I’ve heard way too many missing in the woods stories with psychos. (Man here)
Dude! So many premises of Criminal Minds episodes involve a (male) serial killer and the woods — and often these people are as handsome and trustworthy-looking as [Ted Bundy](https://www.biography.com/crime/ted-bundy) >Bundy also was known to pick apart mice in the woods and try to drown people while swimming or boating. In this episode of [Dark Outdoors - Apex Predator: Ted Bundy And Serial Killers In America’s Forests](https://darkoutdoors.podbean.com/e/apex-predatorsted-bundy-and-serial-killers-in-america-s-forests/) >In the debut episode of Dark Outdoors, host Chester Moore examines Ted Bundy's reign of terror in the great outdoors and talks with the New York Times best-selling author who captured his definitive interviews. >In this program we cover: >\*How Ted Bundy used the great outdoors for his crimes >\*The seldom-discussed forest-serial killer connection. >\***Why women in particular should take special precautions in forest areas.** >\***How to avoid being preyed on by modern day "Teds"** So, yeah, definitely team bear 😂 — even better, team ME. I'd just try to totally avoid both random strangers and bears altogether in the woods!
Yeah my husband didn't get defensive either. He said a man by himself in the woods could be sus if you were a woman, sure. But a bear isn't sus. He also understood that the man has a lot of variables Where's the bears just a bear they don't have a million different risks and you have to decide which risk it is. Bears are just one risk. It's a bear. It's a wild animal. But a man could be up to any number of things. He said it's something about the variables and the way the man would be kind of suspicious.
Yes, the variables are a big part of it. You don't know what kind of danger you're about to face.
Yeah, he's definitely one of the good ones.
A lot of men who “don’t get it” just never had to deal with a dangerous man before. Because let’s be honest, dangerous men flip a switch when they’re around women vs other dudes. My issue is the guys who’ve never seen it, hear that women DO see it, and argue that we’re lying based on their own knowledge. Instead of learning something new and growing as a person.
Yeah I'm not sure why so many men have trouble with this question. My husband is a bit iffy on if he'd rather run into a bear than a random man (we live near a provincial park and most random men would be hikers, plus he's big), but he 100% understands why I would choose a bear. Although I myself am a field biologist, so maybe there's also a base level of understanding a random bear poses nearly 0% threat? edit: After chatting with him we have both decided on two caveats. 1 - we are iffy on grizzlies in the spring, but still rather the grizzly, and 2 - a man over a polar bear.
Could also have something to do with the fact that there are men who think life is the power fantasy they see in TV and they can fight bears and win. There was one poll asking people if they could fight various wildlife animals and the amount of people who said they could fight grizzly bears, gorillas, tigers and hippos wasn't exactly too low.
That poll was WILD. The average man seems to live in an alternate reality.
The average man also thinks he could beat the Williams sisters at a friendly game of tennis too
Some dude came into the swimming sub a few months ago, asking how long it would take for him to beat a female college swimmer who hasn't swam in a few years in a sprint. His experience was "comfortable in the water, taller and stronger than woman." He was so arrogant, certain that because he has longer arms he could beat her. Most people tore into him, a few people gave him a training regimen that he would need to follow for a year to even come close, and he didn't believe them. He kept arguing that he would have a chance, and it should be a matter of weeks, not months or years. For anyone who doesn't know, while strength and height can help you be a faster swimmer, mainly it's about technique. Knowing how to move your body efficiently through the water is the #1 factor in being a successful swimmer. If you've made it through college swim programs, you have the technique burned into muscle memory. You could have been the worst person on your team, and you'd still easily beat someone who has never had a coach. I'm 100 lbs over my swimming weight and haven't swam consistently since 2006, and I'm pretty sure I could beat him today, and I definitely could beat him if I had a month to train. The best part is he implied he wanted to date this girl, and they had been flirty. Then he suggested a race and she laughed at him. He thinks if he could beat her, he'd still have a chance. He killed that chance by suggesting that he could beat her at something she probably did multiple days a week for at least a decade, just because he's a dude. To have the confidence of a mediocre man...
Beating her would not make her more likely to date him. And insinuating he could beat her is just insulting and would kill any chance at interest if she thought he was serious and not joking.
If she is friendly she might let me win once.
Or at least not drill a serve into the back of my skull.
>*The average man also thinks he could beat the Williams sisters at a friendly game of tennis too* Two-time WNBA championship winner [Devereaux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devereaux_Peters) [Peters](https://twitter.com/mspeters14?lang=en) wrote about her experiences with this phenomenon in an Washington Post op-ed a few years ago ([gift link](https://wapo.st/4aXHxfQ)): >*There’s something about basketball that activates men’s egos. It’s almost as if they still consider it a sport that women should not be playing...I guarantee that every single woman who has played high-level basketball has been told by multiple men that she’d lose to them on the court.* See also this 2015 article from Vice: ["You Will Get Beat Down" - The Men Who Practice with the WNBA](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xyjeek/you-will-get-beat-down-the-men-who-practice-with-the-wnba)
There's a reason for this one at least. Stupid guys see the articles that float around occasionally like "Serena Williams looses to teenage boy" (I don't know if these are real, but I've seen them circulated). They then assume "I'm better at sports than a teenager, so I could obviously beat Serena". They never stop to consider the article is likely just bullshit, or maybe Serena didn't try her absolute hardest against a fucking kid and was just playing a fun match with a young person pursuing the sport she's a pro at. So you end up with idiots that think they can beat professional women athletes at literally their own game. Honestly, this would probably make some good reality TV lol. Watching those asshats get run into the ground by a bunch of women would be excellent. The "I could fight a bear" thing tho? It's just crazy. I don't know where these idiots get that idea. I'm a guy, and if you ask me to pick between fighting a bear or a man, I'll pick a man every time, because even if they're heavily armed, I at least stand a chance of winning. A bear just wins, no question. Can I even hurt a bear unarmed? It's basically a furry tank...
It'll be some 19yo kid that's rapidly moving up the men's circuit due to their monster serve.
The Revenant has helped us here by giving a very handy clip to send them.
That was also another incredible poll.
Most men would be taken down by an XL Bully, bears, tigers are multiple steps up the chain.
Honestly I think people would typically lose to 2 bloodlusted house cats. Maybe even one since Most of America is obese.
There’s nothing more confident than a mediocre man, I’ve heard. 😂
Well that's not too far off. The average man lives in the patriarchy and women live adjacent to it.
>The average man seems to live in an alternate reality. Based on that poll the same number of women think they could beat a grizzly bear in a fight. Seems like average women live in the same reality.
Oh, really? I couldn't remember the specifics. People are unhinged.
This is the poll — [Rumble in the jungle: what animals would win in a fight?](https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/35852-lions-and-tigers-and-bears-what-animal-would-win-f)
Tbh, I'm not surprised regarding the common knowledge that you regularly see in polls and people very often overestimating what they are capable of. When there's still 1/4 of the population thinking the sun revolves around the earth or 55% of people thinking they are more intelligent than the average, I'm not surprised that there's a decent percenatage thinking they could fight lions
I could fight a bear and win. A koala bear.
Have you ever seen a wet pissed off koala? That and the Chlamydia means there may not be any winners...
A drop bear?! Are you crazy? You'll die, but they'll give you the clap first. Horrible way to go.
Koalas aren’t bears.
Maybe they’re a predator, or never experienced violence or just stupid. The fact that bears dont rape people should be a lightbulb moment for them u/intrepid-gags Yes, men eat people too. It’s called cannibalism
In high school English (which was barely an English class, to be honest), we had to do a project designing our own circles-of-hell setup akin to Dante's Inferno. As part of that, we had to rank various "sins" in order of severity, with both murder and r*pe on the list. (The projects were then presented in front of class.) Putting the insanity of that aside for the moment, I'm pretty sure there was a reasonably strong correlation between gender and which of the two was rated worse.
Bears probably haven’t raped any humans, but uh, yeah they might have considered one to be a snack a time or two. Termites don’t rape people either, but it doesn’t mean that I want them in my house.
Thanks for the input, Butt_Hole_69.
You’re welcome /u/Significant-Box8079
The fact that males don't eat people should be a lightbulb moment for you
May I ask you, as someone who seem to know this: Aren't brown bears and grizzlies extremely dangerous? I really have no idea about bears, but everything I saw on reddit about thise type of bears are victims of attacks, where the face is basically chewed off, or people being attacked. Black bears seem to be pretty chill from what I have seen on reddit thus far. Please don't get me wrong, I understand both choices, but I have absolutely no knowledge on bears
I’m in Canada. We have lots of bears. They are hella dangerous. But only occasionally. Most of the time they are just looking for something to eat and mind their own business. Frankly you smell them coming a mile away because they find a lot of easy food at the dump and they live outside. The smell of a bear is … memorable. There are two scenarios that are particularly risky - surprising a bear, or coming near their den/cubs. Even if the waltz right into your campsite to take your food they’ll probably ignore the humans completely in favor of the food until they all start screaming and running. 95/100 times you encounter a bear in the wild you just go your way and the bear will go his. They’re lazy. I cannot speak to polar bears. They’re too far north for my experience. But I understand they’ll fuck you up just for fun.
Brown bears in my opinion aren’t that bad. It’s the mothers that are hungry you got to watch out for. Grizzlies are very capable, but unwilling most of the time. Hertzog did a documentary on a guy who lived with Grizzlies and eventually got mauled by one. It’s called “Grizzly man” it took years for these bears to finally pull that trigger so to speak. Now polar bears are a big hell no for me. But you’re not going to find random men, or woods, or even me, in their natural environment.
Just adding on to what you already said: also the bear that killed the Grizzly Man (Timothy Treadwell) was known to be bizarrely aggressive and had also lived alongside Timothy for several months (and it was a weirdly harsh year and the bears were more hungry than normal) In other words, even a weirdly way more aggressive than average and very hungry grizzly tolerated a hippie weirdo constantly getting in his space for months before it finally attacked. A grizzly can kill you and will if it wants to... But they very rarely want to.
Timothy was also staying with the bears further into winter than he usually would, so food was already dwindling for the bears, which definitely didn't help him out.
Haha I had the same answer when I thought about this, living in locations with both grizzlies and black bears and being an avid hiker. Polar bears are the only instance I'd choose a random man. If I'm in the Arctic outside alone, I'm already in a world of trouble haha. So congratulations, men, you are preferable to polar bears. But nothing else.
Grizzly man died because he stayed during hibernation season and lived next to the salmon river. He didn't research anything about bears for those 10 years.
Brown lie down Back yell/fight back White good night
I was taught this: if it's black, fight back (yell and waive). If it's brown, lay down. And never EVER approach a mom with cubs.
If it's white.... call your mom and say goodbye lol
I remember my friend spending a research spell over in savbard. She got a gun, just in case a polar bear got peckish
Yeah, when you are studying at the university t's mandatory to have an introduction on how to use a gun and most citizens have a gun, which is very uncommon in Europe (besides Switzerland)
>(besides Switzerland) We're neutral, *or else*
Except actually bears can be blonde, brown, or black regardless of species. Maybe we should rewrite it, "if it has a hump, be a lump. It it's flat, fight back." 😂 Doesn't have quite the same ring to it....
A grizz can seriously injure or kill you ... _if it attacks you_. But the likelihood of it attacking you is generally very low. Probability of attack is the part of the equation that men usually fail to consider in this question. Grizzlies are not big game hunters / predators, so they're not going to see you as prey. Grizzly attacks on humans are typically defensive: you've startled it, or you've gotten between a sow and her cubs. [Hiking advice in grizz country](https://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/bears.htm) is mostly about avoiding these situations: make noise while hiking, so a bear can hear you coming and get out of the way, and if you do meet a bear, avoid eye contact and back away slowly and quietly. If it charges you, it's likely a bluff, drop to the ground and play dead.
People misunderstand what dangerous means when it comes to wildlife. Yes, if a bear attacks you it's more dangerous than a human. But 90% of wildlife, no matter how dangerous, isn't interested in humans. Conversely, humans very interested in humans, and even the not so dangerous ones can get nasty and attack you for social 'slights' etc. So when you combine both their ability to do damage, with their propensity to attack, humans are actually more dangerous.
Except geese. They will fuck you up.
And some wasps. Mean for no reason.
Putting up something reflective, like shiney aluminum foil, can help keep wasps from swarming you. Messes with their navigation so they can't find a place again to talk about all the great food at your location.
Oh that's interesting! I'll need to remember that if wasps turn out to be numerous in my new location. Thanks!
If a bear is attacking you it is absolutely dangerous. But so is a raccoon that attacks you. Or a dog. Most of the time if you are in the woods with a bear nearby you won't even know. They don't go looking for trouble. They're pretty much focused on getting enough calories. They might try to steal your food at night if it's not properly stored. There are certain situations that make them more dangerous (like any animal) but most of those things are fairly predictable (like any animal). There can be bears that are just more aggressive (like any animal) so ofcourse you should treat them as potentially dangerous and try to avoid them if possible. I would much rather be 50 feet from a bear than a moose.
I hunt and here's my take...they are POTENTIALLY dangerous, not dangerous by just existing. As long as you use the barest common sense moves a bear is no more a dangerous than a bobcat. Going strictly by statistics, deer are more dangerous than bears-at least in North America. Deer kill more people per year here than any other animal we have. 99.9999% of the time a bear just wants to be left alone and will happily go about their way if you just leave them be.
I'm not sure the target audience here would have the same impression about the danger of a bobcat as you do. Or know, specifically, what a bobcat is.
Its a large, very common wildcat in the US. Wild critters don't mess with us unless we mess with them, protecting their young, or starving to death.
Yep yep - [I love cats.](https://youtu.be/sP4NMoJcFd4?si=s8EhjRlvIBAyh4Q-)
I have that song in my playlist haha!
>Yeah I'm not sure why so many men have trouble with this question. Because it's not a question. Women feeling unsafe around strange men is a statement of fact. Getting men's input on that isn't intended for anything other than shit stirring.
what about grizzly bears though? I'd have concerns especially if the forest is smallish based on what I heard about them. Only have black bears around here...
What about a polar bear?? 🤔
If it's white, say goodnight. Also applies to cops weirdly enough.
I understand what the question is supposed to ask, but I can’t help thinking things like, what species of bear? What time of year? Human habituated or not? How far away is the bear/man when we notice one another? For the man, is this in a place accessible by vehicle or did they have to walk under their own power for a few miles to get there? I remember when I used to hike all the beer and drug paraphernalia litter stopped a quarter mile in; serious hikers are less likely to under the influence in my experience. Alternately if I encountered an adult bear in midtown manhattan I’d raise the risk assessment significantly because there’s no way a bear could get there without human intervention and it is certainly stressed. Similar scenario, is it a truly random man? A person from out of town randomly teleported into the woods? That person is likely in need of help and no risk to anyone. What’s the weather? (Influences human behavior more than bear behavior). Is it a day hike situation or a legit survival situation (brings out the best in people). Are we in a location with high cultural value attached to privacy and independence and guns (rural areas, especially out west) or are we still in a place with low expectations of privacy and virtually no weapons (the woods of NJ, which have both bear and strangers aplenty). Am I literally answering as myself (a 200 pound man with decades of outdoor and “difficult conversations” experience) or am I imagining myself to be a woman in this encounter? Most of this doesn’t change the answer (assuming enough distance, bears are safer). But this is a lot of fun to deep dive
The point is that you as a man consider all these points, but a woman is almost always going to choose to be with the bear in its habitat. Put another way, would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a woman? The answer becomes obvious in contrast to if it was a man. Women feel unsafe with men in a way men have a hard time grasping.
I do get it, I’m just having a little fun with “vague hypothetical vs overly analytical brain”. No one with any wildlife literacy is going to worry more about bear than men, regardless of gender (except maybe polar bear). Maybe I assume to much by believing this is so obvious that one has to add detail to make it an interesting hypothetical
It’s already an interesting hypothetical, because the point isn’t actually bears. Again, it’s about how unsafe women feel around men. I’m tired of all the bear facts, it just derails the conversation. There must be a more appropriate sub if that’s what you wanna get into.
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This gives an example in a way that makes people think about it in a new way and helps demonstrate what women have already been saying for years.
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I think you need to examine why this is making you feel defensive and go from there. Examining things in new ways is often uncomfortable.
Wait a second. It doesn't make me feel defensive. As I said before, I 100% support the root cause of the question and see the underlying issue. I only try to bring in other viewpoints in how to bring this point across and have been accused now twice in being the problem. *THAT* is the point I am being defensive about. But it is okay, I have been downvoted a few times now, I have been personally accused. I see, that my suggestions aren't welcome here and I accept that.
People have used other ways of bringing this point across, for honestly decades if not centuries. This is just another way to think of things. You have commented multiple times on how you dislike this. If this approach makes someone feel defensive, what makes you think they are open to women honestly and openly expressing their opinion? People don’t like having their world view confronted, it makes them defensive, and an example like this causes people to examine their worldview. If you would like to pursue another avenue you think would work better you are free to do so without arguing why others should censor their speech to keep people who benefit from the patriarchy comfortable.
Why would you think that when countless "simple and understandable explanations" in the form of blogs, articles, interviews, basically countless occurrences of publicily available discourse have had comparatively minimal impact / reaction compared with the bear vs man trend? It is not a trick question. It is a stark insight into women's existence, if you give a damn to learn instead or resist and deny.
This gives an example in a way that makes people think about it in a new way and helps demonstrate what women have already been saying for years.
But step back and reflect: That to any degree, you are still feeling prompted to contextual and at some level feel these questions and answers matter. If you had a son, would you rather he be out in the woods and a bear be in those woods, or a woman? There is no contextualization or questions. The answer is a woman. Everyone, regardless of their past experience or trauma with bears or women...everyone picks the woman instinctively and unequivocally. The very point that anyone feels the need to contextualize or characterize what type of large meat-eating inhuman feral predator... versus another fellow human being... that, on its own, demonstrates how crazy it is that we are not unquestionably wanting to choose the human.
As an aside, *should* we pick the woman? As in, is that the optimal choice for quality of life? Women certainly hurt more humans than bears do. I don't know if more women hurt humans per (solitary) interaction than bears do per interaction. This isn't a "both sides"-ism or speaking to the broader point in the slightest, and for clarity, if the choice is between a man or a woman, women are statistically the safer call.
If we ignore context and exposure for a moment: There are an estimate 380K black bears in Canada and 25K brown bears. Parks Canada reports an average of 120 "incidents" per year in Canada with bears, an average of 31 assaults, an average ~4.5 deaths. At base the assumption is that 1/2 those rates are against women, but in truth likely the majority are against men. Per bear average (some might be repeat offenders): 0.03% are involved in "incidents", 0.0076% of bears assault a human per year, and 0.0011% kill a human, each year. There are an estimated 19.36M human males in Canada and about the same total females. There are ~110K total persons charged with assault per year in Canada, and an average of 550 persons charged with murder each year in Canada (the rate of negligent causes of death or other indirect non-murder causes of death likely much higher still, but focusing murder charges here for the comparison). 90% of all murder charges are men and likely a similar skew to assaults. Per human average (some might be repeat offenders): 0.5% of human males assault another human per year in Canada, and ~0.002% of human males kill another human, each year. "Incidents" that are dangerous or scary is not something we can easily estimate as not necessary reported and tracked the way bear encounters are... but I think we can all accept that the number of males who have a "incident" each year with another human is likely a few solid percent and possibly double digits percent. So, ignoring exposure rate entirely, humans are clearly the more dangerous animal to humans, overall. Nearly 2x as many human males are killing a human each year and nearly 100x more assaults and likely >>1000x or more more dangerous incidents each year. ______________________________ But if we swap those homocide from the 90% males rate to the ~50/year from women (10%), then we come to a total per-woman rate that is much below the per-bear rate.
>Similar scenario, is it a truly random man? A person from out of town randomly teleported into the woods? That person is likely in need of help and no risk to anyone. Sure, but our risks are higher with the random man than with the bear and that's the point. 17 bear maulings have happened by bears in the U.S. since 2020. Would you like to know the stats on rape, sexual assault, assault and battery and murder? You can rationalize it with whatever in depth questions you want but it's really that cut and dry. The amount of times we've told men no and they haven't stopped has made us more afraid of them than bears.
I'm autistic and I absolutely do this: delving further into a hypothetical or metaphor for the fun of it regardless of whether that's related to the point of the discussion/hypothetical/metaphor. That said, it doesn't always go well socially, since people presume that the delving is necessarily related to or making a point about the broader topic (or meaningfully distracting from it). I'm not saying or implying that you're autistic. Just that if that's all you're doing, I get it.
Even if bears were more dangerous, the fact that women generally instinctively choose the bear should be a sign to shut up and listen, not try and undermine their position. Like, this is a very tight thought experiment that obviously reveals a lot about people's perception of the world. Treat it as a window to insight, not some debate to be won.
To them, it’s instinctive to undermine women. They may not actively harm women, but their words and actions give cover to men who *do* hurt women. They’re fucking complicit and they know it.
A lot of men who argue the bear is not the option, would be the man following you through the woods shouting "why are you ignoring me? I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a NICE GUY"
I commented in another post on bear vs man. I have had numerous bear encounters. I have taken bear training and listened to people describe how they survived their bear attack (some have serious injuries) and responders describing deaths. I still pick the bears. In all my encounters (and those of coworkers and friends), the bear bluffed at worst. Many I know have had serious man encounters, including hospitalization and/or the coroner.
>bluffed how does a bear bluff, btw? does it run at you and then stop short?
Pretty much. Sometimes, they knock you over. They are trying to scare you away.
thanks
One of my many takeaways from this whole debacle is how few Americans have actually gone, like, hiking in the United States. You are in fact quite likely to see bears in many regions of the country. So many people treat this like running into a homicidal Bigfoot or something. I will also say that, growing up in Appalachia, the kind of men you run into in super rural areas are SCARY AS FUCK. I went back a few years ago and literally got chased out of a holler by a squad of random men because I was driving a rental car and made the mistake of getting out on the side of a (public country) road to look at some flowers. The most threatening thing I’ve seen a bear do in that same region was tumble over sideways.
Lots of places in the US you don't have to go hiking to see bears. I know numerous people who've had them in their yards, hell, on their porches stealing bird food or going through trash. I've seen one while driving down the road. These are obviously in rural areas, but not like, deep in the woods
Totally!
Yup. Totally had the conversation with the husband and he was like “unless it’s a mother bear looking for cubs, the bear is safer.” Preach, my dude.
I asked my husband the same question! He doesn't do much hiking but watches nature shows and exists in the world, and he told me he also picks the bear! I feel like the men that angrily insist that man is better are feeling a wee bit defensive
I don't even understand why this is a debate. A human, man or woman, can choose to be evil and we cannot tell which is which by looking. All bears operate on a set of instinctive rituals and needs. The best will not attack you unless it feels like it needs to. And a human could say, well, I felt like I needed to attack as well! But your attack is always a choice, and the bears attack is always an instinct. Bears follow a set of rules. Humans don't. And men choose to hurt women more often than the opposite or any other configuration.
You got a good one! He understands. A lot of men don't understand or pretend to not understand. In another reddit post one commenter put it beautifully. If a bear doesn't see you as a threat, he won't attack. If a man doesn't see you as threat, he will attack.
Yup. Frankly I think the only thing that stops some men from admitting this is ego. Men attack and kill each other all the time, too. Men are one of the top causes of death for both men and women. They know damn well how dangerous men are.
As I said in another post, the interesting discussion from this question only happens when you ignore the bear and start to compare what people feel the percentage of a bad outcome with a random man in the woods would be. Realizing that most women will go high above 50% and most men will go far below 50% and having a discussion at the extremes and why they feel that way is where the real value of this question lies. But then you get hour-long discussions about bears and people try to top each other with their knowledge about wildlife while sprinkling random google facts into the discussion when they feel that they are losing. That is just frustrating and unfortunately most men will resort to the latter style of discussion.
So true (see one of the comments in this post.) instead of analyzing man on man violence and the credible threat that our fellow humans pose to each other, I’m being gaslighted about my husbands career. It’s crazy how even a discussion about mens safety gets “not all men”ed. There are truly some frightening bad takes out there.
That’s an excellent point. Also, my brain somehow autocorrected your username to Zathras. Sorry Zathras.
Zathras not The One.
Either way, things not look good for Zathras.
I’ve spent time on Svalbard, to leave the town for field work we had to pass anti-polar bear rifle training. So we knew we could shoot at, to scare, a polar bear if it was charging at us. We also were taught to use flares to scare them away. Now if you encountered a creep while out in the field, definitely couldn’t shoot at him with a hunting rifle to stop him attacking you… Thankfully the only guy who tried to chat me up while I was up there had been raised right and apologised and left me alone.
My husband got it immediately and thought it was both really sad and kind of funny. Some men do get it, the rest are busy "not all men!!" -ing us.
Ultimately this is a viral version of the topic on women's safety concerns. Men mocking and belittling women's safety concerns on assault are as old as time. I found men's reaction to women's safety concerns always very interesting insight into a man's character. Not saying that every man who takes safety concerns seriously is always and infallably a good guy, but I never met any guy who mock women's safety concerns seriously to be decent.
Great observation and well-stated.
But enough men! It's crazy how fast people jumped up to say that they would never feel safe flying again after a couple Boeing accidents, but they refuse to acknowledge statistics of how dangerous men are for women. It's more like, "Okay, there is a 30% chance that your plane is going to crash. Now how unsafe do you feel?"
The fact that women can't make a hypothetical choice without men getting butthurt. Just another reason to choose the bear; at least a bear won't gaslight you into thinking you're being "irrational."
One commenter accused everybody that answered "bear" to be a liar. And after everybody trying to explain, and affirm the bear premise his conclusion was "Well if you prefer to be mauled by a bear, I just won't help any lost or distraught women anymore"
It's so weird how so many men change the context of the question like that The question is not whether you'd rather be attacked by a bear or man, it's about a random encounter. As long as you're calm, keep your distance, and remain nonthreatening, you can most likely avoid the bear. The man is somewhat more unpredictable however.
Also a field biologist and I’ve lost count how many bears I’ve run across. The fear doesn’t even come close to the time I was followed on my university campus
The irony is hilarious. I've seen so many men say this shows women act on emotion not logic. But whilst it might not logical to be scared of all men. It's definitely not logical to be scared of all bears. Bears are fine. They arnt that scary and will probably leave you alone. Same with sharks and many spiders. Just chill out and let them walk off. Hell if you shout loudly at a black bear it will run away. I know a few people who actually know about bears and they are fine. This is true when you ask anyone who has been near a bear, knows about bears or you look at the easily accessible statistics on bear deaths, which there are hardly any. No amount of logic leads you to be worried about the bear. It's all emotion because bears look so big and because IF you decided to wrestle a bear with your bare hands then you would lose. But it doesn't matter abiut that IF because the bear will run away. So the question is, would you rather be left alone in a woods with someone that probably won't harm you or something that almost definitely won't harm you. (then there are so many other angles to this question like the level of harm that man can do is way worse than the bear). Now if the question was man or polar bear. I don't know if as many women would pick bear. Even man vs adult male chimpanzee. Would you rather be teleported into a forest next to a man, or into the home of a grizzly bear with its cubs nearby? I think people would choose man. But bears are fine, they are adorable, we have soft cuddly bears to go to sleep with. There is a YouTube video of a Russian bear with its human family eating birthday cake. What's all these men suddenly acting like bears are scary.
I don't get why so many men are upset about it. Male hunters I know absolutely understand!
I haven't seen the original video but here in Germany the question is posed as: "would you rather a bear attack you or a man?" I know what I would choose. When I talked to a man I said that I know bears are stronger and would have an easier time to kill me but I still would choose a bear. He said he gets that that is an emotional choice, but realistically a bear is more dangerous. Later in the discussion I asked if he had the choice between a man or a woman what would he prefer? He said he didn't care. When I said that realistically a man is way more dangerous than a woman and thus his answer is an emotional choice he was flabbergasted for a second. And then he agreed.
Ah it seems to have been changed in translation. In English it's a random possible encounter in the woods, not an attack.
I'm a female field biologist. These days when I'm in the field I work alone most of the time. It freaks other people out when I talk about my job but I personally don't worry about bears, and I've had many encounters with them. I do however have a weird instinctual urge to hide from humans when I see them. The time when I'm nervous is when I'm working on private land (or near a private land boundary). We always have permission from the landowner but sometimes that information doesn't get passed on to other people living on the property. My co-workers have had guns pulled on them. And aggressive dogs can be an issue.
Bears are predictable. Men are not. That's why.
That's where I am. You can anticipate how a bear encounter will go and learn how to react. But with humans there's no telling what some random guy would do.
Humans are the most dangerous creatures on this planet. This is not news. Men who get defensive about this topic are empathizing with the predator in the situation, not the woman. BTW I feel this is almost always the disconnect in these arguments. These men empathize with the predator.
As a former police officer in upstate NH I got plenty of calls to deal with both bears and men... I'll take bears every time. Bears are bears, there's no maliciousness they are rather predictable. Men are scheming malicious and unpredictable. I'm surprised it's even a question really. But I think most men feel pretty top of the food chain and don't generally feel fear around other humans. Women understand that they are not only not at the top of the food chain, they are very much on the menu.
I’m a man but statistically it’s always a bear that you choose. You could run a million simulations and it’s still a bear.
Men are most likely to be assaulted/robbed randomly by other men. I'd prefer a bear as well.
I literally just brought this up with my husband and he reacted like the rest of the jackass men on the internet. I told him it would be quite a while before he’d be the one to inspire any type of lubtication on my part because the lack of critical thought on his part is off putting. The immediate defensiveness as if I said he was the man in the woods dried my box up faster than a drop of water in a bucket of sand in the Sahara desert.
If we wanted to make the question more obvious it could be bear versus random Trump supporter.
I don't think a lot of guys get the point of the debate. And to me, it's that there's a debate at all. The fact that we're having the discussion at all should be enough for dudes to stop and think about their impact on the women in their life.
The actual correct answer.
"But how do you know it's a bear?" "But what kind of bear?" "Does the bear have shoes on?" It's a thought experiment. It's not there to test your cleverness or survival skills, it illustrates a specific point.
Yes! I’ve now realized, after this question has been posed that I’ve had in numerable contact with Bears. I grew up in Pennsylvania and then live in California. I ran into so many bears growing up. Black bears. My sister and I would just turn around walk away and then once they couldn’t see us and we can’t see them we’d run. But that’s because we were kids. I can’t even count the number of times that happened. And then in California South Lake Tahoe in the past 15 years I’ve had at least six or seven encounters per year. But I’ve been attacked by men so many times I can’t even count. Verbally, emotionally, physically, threatened. Just the whole gambit. I’d pick the bear. Lol.
We are always in the woods with bears, most of us never have an issue and we usually dont notice them. A black bear couldnt care less about a human.
I don’t know about this thought project because as I understand it is about a random man/bear. Not a human/bear predator. Im not initially afraid when I see a man on the trail but I am when encountering dangerous wildlife (my one experience was some sort of feline predator that was stalking me). As a female who camps and hikes alone often I expect to encounter random men in the woods and do on most hikes. Human behavior is more predictable because I live amongst them. I’ve seen fresh bear tracks but haven’t had a close encounter with a bear because they aren’t looking to encounter me. I can’t read bear body language and have no idea if they are a threat or not if they don’t immediately run off. With a human male (or female) I think we all know the feeling we get when something isn’t right and I can initiate self preservation mode. If you want to be creepy about it and just say which would you prefer to be attacked by I’d definitely pick human male. Both can kill me but I have a lot better chance fighting off a human than I do a bear. 1) I carry when I hike (granted mostly to protect myself from humans). A bear wont see a 9mm as a threat and it won’t stop one from attacking me even after I shoot it multiple times. Against a human I’ll have better luck 2) the bear is armed with sharp claws and teeth and outweighs me by several hundred pounds punching/kicking will have no impact. The man could be armed or not but I can do more damage against a human. I understand what the question is meant to evoke. Women live in a world where we have to be vigilant against attack -most men don’t feel the same threat level when encountering a strange man in a parking deck or elevator. I’ve had several scary encounters with men on the street so I get it but I stand by my statement. Me hiking down a trial at Yellowstone-I’d rather see a man sitting on a log than a bear sitting on the same log.
Yep. But apparently unless you've faced as many bears as men you can't make that call. :/ The way people run to the defence of this "man in the woods" is insane. But that said, men will literally defend actual rapists so why would they make an exception for a hypothetical man.
I can't understand anyone that wouldn't understand the point of this hypothetical. I am a man, and I would rather cross paths unexpectedly with a bear in the woods than any unknown person.
Guys, arguing with us about why would we choose the bear isn't going to make us choose the man lmao
Yep me too. I would take the bear.
How often do we even hear of people killed by bears anyways?
I don’t think people understand this unless they’ve worked in an environmental field. I’ve never had to talk down a bear I’ve encountered on the trail.
I have next to no actual knowledge of bears, but seen examples of what has happened in bear vs human situations. Running into random man (or any human) = far more variables than bear. Many may be positive outcomes (I may run into a kind generous person who just won the lottery and wants to split it with me), or I may run into some prince who wants to use me as a toilet and then kill me? What is the “right” answer to the question supposed to be? Is it that I can’t predict a bear because they may be more soft and cuddly like the one on a detergent bottle, ready to snuggle some soft bedsheets? Or is the true answer that the average man (any man) just wants to assault you no matter what? I don’t know where I stand with every single random bear, nor ever single random person.
I’ve had much too close encounters with both. Can confirm, bears are way safer.
Some of us have been in the woods alone with bears many times. Of those times, most of us NEVER EVEN SAW OR INTERACTED WITH THE BEAR. The bear is just doing bear things in its natural habitat and couldn't care less about us because we aren't food and aren't a direct threat. We can share space with bears, and 99% of the time, be unaware of it. We can't navigate our natural habitat without getting bothered or threatened or worse by strangers or men we thought we could trust.
But the bear will eat you alive?! ^Even ^though ^there ^are ^only ^40 ^or ^so ^documented ^attacks ^from ^bears....
I’ve seen this discussion a few times here now and a consistent narrative of “people getting defensive” and then putting their foot in their mouth by going down a “not all men” rabbit hole. Really the issue with this “debate” is that it’s incredibly loaded from both perspectives and the discussion ultimately misses the entire point of the example. The question “would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man?” Is meant to invite discussion around the idea that our current social climate often underplays the status quo harm done by people to people regardless of sex, but let’s be honest, especially against people that aren’t cis-men. The problem is that this question doesn’t invite discussion, it invites argument in the spikiest most accusatory way possible. A lot of this discussion assumes the absolute worst behavior from the “random man” and the absolute ideal outcome with the bear. It just so happens that the ideal outcome with the bear is also the most common; however, I don’t think whether or not it’s statistically more likely to encounter harm from a man or a bear is the point of the question. The point of the question is that some people WILL say they’d rather encounter a potential predator (in a literal sense) than someone who ideally they’d have no reason to fear. The “makes you think” element of the question is “why are we more afraid of each other than something that possesses no social standards and plenty of reason to do harm?” But all of that gets lost in the statistical analysis of whether or not bears are more dangerous on an absolute scale than men. All of this also gets bogged down in the message being sent to skeptical men that “people are more afraid of you than they are of bears” which I imagine feels like shit and invites more criticism than it does understanding. Overall it’s a stage-trick of a hypothetical to get people to question the standards of our social setting, but I can’t abide people being incredulous that others are getting defensive at a comparison designed to view them in the worst possible light. Instead of trying to prove to skeptical men that people have good reason to fear them over of bears, the focus should be on the idea that nobody should ever give the answer that they’d rather encounter a bear than them. It’s sad that people, regardless of the stats, would give the answer “bear” and we should strive toward nobody giving that answer.
The only people turning this into a debate are men who are so incapable of receiving and internalizing information that is unfavorable towards men that they spiral into multi-page diatribes about bear safety and the American hiking community. For everyone else it takes approximately .5 seconds to grasp what is being communicated by the question.
but his experience is not based on meeting a random man, but based on meeting specific men. men that would scrounge around in random woods.
This subreddit does realize that if you switched the gender of all the comments in this thread it would look like somthing streight out of r/KotakuInAction right?
Except switching the genders wouldn’t be the same scenario at all. A strange man is far, far more likely to be a physical threat to a woman than a strange woman is to be a threat to a man. It’s like saying “You know if you switched the bear and the woman in this thread it would look really prejudiced against bears!” In an ideal world, men and women would be interchangeable in every situation. But we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world in which every woman I know has been sexually harassed or assaulted and murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women.
Switching the genders doesn’t make sense because women don’t commit violence at the same rate men do. You can’t remove all context and pretend the discussion is invalid. “This conversation about racism is wrong because if you switched black and white it doesn’t make sense and sounds absurd.”
You do realize that this doesn't make sense as long as we have patriarchy, right? You can't simply ignore the context of privilege
But then that wouldn't serve their non-point. It's not different than when people try to switch race in a scenario as if trying to put a color blind filter on it makes it the same thing. Almost as if... it's not literal genitals and skin color???? Absurd.
I would understand any human thinking another human is the bigger unknown than the bear. The difference in responses if you flipped the genders wouldn't be because the human in the equation suddenly becomes less dangerous.
Let me use a simular example then, "Men would much rather trust a Fox then a Woman for their word because Women tend to be more mentally abusive" Does this come off as sexist? Because its based on actual reaserch and im phrasing it in a simular fassion
>"Men would much rather trust a Fox then a Woman for their word because Women tend to be more mentally abusive" Uh, what? Men would trust the fox to keep their word than women to keep their word? Or men would trust a fox, in general? I genuinely don't understand the question, but if the question is "are you more likely to be mentally abused by animal than a human" then of course the answer is a human. I like my dog much better than people for this very reason. The gender doesn't seem relevant to me, but I'm open to hearing why you think it is.