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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   26057 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 29, 2024

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If I, as a male, want to be a bit cheeky, I can actually agree that a random bear is less dangerous to an American woman than a random male.

Statistically speaking, if the male is chosen COMPLETELY at random from all living males, then the odds are more likely you're getting a middle aged guy from Asia (esp. China), India, or Africa. I really have no direct frame of reference for what I expect such males to do in this situation, but the stereotypes are concerning.

Cursory Google search shows there are about 200,000 brown bears in the world, and around 800,000 black bears. Then presumably negligible numbers of Pandas, Koalas, and Polar bears, along with more exotic types.

So odds are that the randomly chosen bear is a relatively less dangerous black bear vs. the "will attack you instantly" brown bear.

So playing the odds, I might say yeah, a given woman is better off with a randomly selected bear in most cases, vs. a randomly selected male human.

But if we restrict the question to American males, and we specify that the bear WILL be one of the more dangerous varieties, I think the answer is clear.

American males

Uh huh... so what kind of American males?

If I, as a male, want to be a bit cheeky, I can actually agree that a random bear is less dangerous to an American woman than a random male.

I call it as absolute bullshit theorizing. And I as an avid hiker I have a proof living in Slovakia, a country full of Brown bears and where we have huge problems with them - including severe injuries and fatal attack in last few months. It actually created quite a controversy, maybe I will make a top level post about that. Just for context, here is a footage of brown bear strolling in a mountain town in broad daylight last month and how such encounter looks like - including encounter with women with strollers. And notice a considerable difference compared to encountering a random male.

If you told some random female hiker in Slovakia that you saw a random a male hiker on a trail she is about to take, she would look at you incredulously. Of course there are male hikers, she meets them all day every day. If you told her that you actually saw a brown bear chilling on the top of the hill, she (or me for that matter) would certainly change our plans. Don't fuck with bears, they are very dangerous and highly unpredictable animals.

The answer women give has nothing to do with actually assessing any kind of danger. At best they are stupid and ignorant, but more likely there is some kind of social game they play. Something along the lines of how even hideous women rate themselves as perfect 10 out of 10 if asked publicly.

India

most rape stories on European women in India are of multiple assailants; Indian men (in large part due to worse nutrition) do not have height and strength advantage over Euro women than Euro men have.

Yes, there's certainly an argument that a well-fed and generally fit European female has less to fear from many of the individual males of certain populations on a sheer physical prowess angle, compared to most grown bears. If she can run faster and further that's all she really needs.

I can understand why that argument ("those men can't rape you, they're too small/weak") wouldn't be comforting in this context, though.

in context of comparison with bear which can eat you alive?

It certainly is a vague question, and vagueness does seem to be a requirement for things to go viral since people can interpret things in so many different ways.

What's interesting is how people choose to interpret the question.

To be counter-pedantic, I'd argue the bear still has the worst odds. Plenty of women go abroad alone to dangerous countries like India. Sure there are some examples of women getting raped/killed there, but plenty more aren't. And they encounter a huge number of foreign men before those negative events occur. Most men who commit crimes also tend to be on the younger side. If I recall, stats showed 3% of young boys have violent tendencies, most of which are raised out of it. Even if I was generous and gave black bears a 0% chance to attack, that's a 20% chance of a dangerous encounter. I would not say 20% of men across the world would choose to assault/rape/attack a lone female. And even actual criminals don't commit crimes all the time.

I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.

Plenty of women go abroad alone to dangerous countries like India. Sure there are some examples of women getting raped/killed there, but plenty more aren't.

If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed by a third party.

THAT much, I will grant, is reason for concern for the woman.

I would not say 20% of men across the world would choose to assault/rape/attack a lone female. And even actual criminals don't commit crimes all the time.

I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.

Really, my concern is that I don't know to what extent all men, everywhere on the planet, are actually socially trained against any sort of violence against women... and have enough to lose that they care about that social training. I could see it being higher than 20% who would in theory be dangerous to an unaccompanied female. But the error bars on that estimate are large.

But I can say for damn sure that a tiny handful of bears is trained not to be violent towards humans in general, but some are more naturally inclined towards it than others.

If the questions specifies that they're in the woods, this presents a situation where the male in question can reasonably expect not to be observed.

That is a fair point but I will still have to disagree with you that greater than 20% of men when given the opportunity will have a near 100% chance of committing rape/assault on a lone woman.

I'm not quite willing to say 20% of men would not, purely on the evolutionary argument that assault and rape were a common element of our ancestral environment.

On the evolution argument, the child has to survive to pass on their offspring. Babies and pregnant women are extremely vulnerable. The genes that foster safety in groups and willingness to cooperate will outpace the genes that might make a man rape/assault someone. There could be an argument for tribes taking women as a prize after some kind of war/battle, but that's distinct from just an early caveman just raping/assaulting any woman.

The genes that foster safety in groups and willingness to cooperate will outpace the genes that might make a man rape/assault someone.

Right, but in this situation, as stated in the question, there are no groups to cooperate with or intervene, the male's behavior is based solely on whatever he himself chooses to do in the absence of any observers, and thus no immediate social consequences.

I am going to argue that in the ancestral environment, if a random male happens across a random female, both complete strangers to the other, in the middle of the woods, nobody else around, rape WAS probably a common outcome. And this would eventually lead to general norms that women shouldn't travel anywhere alone.

I have seen decent evidence that many males of certain cultures are willing to engage in violence against females even in the full view of other people. Can't say what that percentage is with precision, but I'd have to assume a higher percentage would willingly engage in violence if there were no observers.

I think I will stipulate that the number has to be <50%, but 3% is probably the absolute lower bound.

But we built society to heavily punish males who do such things. Therefore there was evolutionary pressure against “randomly rape women”

I still remember the blue/gold dress discourse.

Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?

No, but it was a good example of people not being aware of how human perception works, and thus jumping right to "these people have to be lying to me" rather than "there's something weird about that dress."

I don't recall anyone claiming that the other side was lying.

Was I the only person on the planet that went with "huh, that's a cool optical illusion"?

Was there another way to view it besides a cool optical illusion? Was there some crazy blue/gold dress controversy that I wasn't aware of?

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