• HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This seems like a slight mischaracterisation:

    the possibility that they could potentially be considered threatening, by a completely uninformed third party nonetheless.

    The statement is actually that the possiblity of men potentially doing something is so high or so severe that the average bear is preferable.

    The rest of your post is opinion though, and if you genuinely believe that the average man is more likely to be dangerous than the average bear, I don’t think it’s possible to change your mind

    • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      If you genuinely believe that the average man is more likely to be dangerous than then average bear… that’s just statistics.

      "The chances of being injured by a bear are approximately 1 in 2.1 million, according to the National Park Service. You are more likely to be killed by a bee than a bear, and way more likely to be killed by another human than by either bear or bee.

      And when bear encounters do happen, they are most often nonviolent. Bears are as afraid of you as you are of them, and bears want to avoid humans at all costs. The most common outcome of a bear encounter is that the bear flees." https://www.idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/bear-attack/

      “One in five women in the United States experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime.” https://www.nsvrc.org/resource/2500/national-intimate-partner-and-sexual-violence-survey-2015-data-brief-updated-release And that’s not counting all sexual assault, and it’s not counting regular violence, just rape.

      If that doesn’t change your mind, I don’t think it’s possible to change your mind because you’re not interested in facts.

      • zeekaran
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        8 months ago

        Your entire post is inaccurate because it takes into account the frequency of being near a bear. Your chance of being injured by a bear greatly increases as you get near a bear.

        • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The article is just about being in a forest. Not like you’re locked in a room with the bear. As my source says, the bear is likely to avoid you if they see you, so proximity doesn’t really matter.

      • HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Thank you for the response. It’s calm and well reasoned. I did some math, and it doesn’t support my position without assumptions, but I’m keeping it because it was effort and I think it’s helpful.

        My main argument is that those stats have massive amount of bias due to the amount of men the average woman encounters vs the amount of bears a woman encounters. I think the actual likelihood of being attacked by a man in an encounter vs a bear is still a lot higher on the bear’s side, but I can’t find stats for that. Assuming a woman encounters 1000 different men a year and 1 bear (which I think is fair), changes my math to 0.008% for the bear vs 0.00014% for the man.

        Taking UK stats. As I’m most familiar with them. 41 homicides were perpetrated by a strangers in 2023. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023#the-relationship-between-victims-and-suspects

        Male population is 29.2 million as of the latest UK census. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/demographics/male-and-female-populations/latest/

        Do the math assuming all homicides were committed by men. Is a 0.00014% chance of a male killing a stranger.

        The US has approx 900,000 wild bears plus maybe another 100,000 brown bears (cannot find a clear source for this). So lets call it an even 1 million. https://wildlifeinformer.com/black-bear-population-by-state/

        According to your article on bears, there have been 4 deaths in the last 50 years. So averaging 0.08 deaths a year.

        Which is 0.000008% chance of a bear having killed a person that year.