Tiny error I think—you say that the 2.26 murders of women per year by men and boys is "substantially less than the bear figure," which is 1.3. Did you mean to say "substantially more"?
Haha! Fair enough. Yes, I agree, as I acknowledge near the start, your likelihood of being killed by a grizzly bear *in a given encounter* is higher than your likelihood of being killed by a human male in a given encounter, but I thought it would be nice to make a contribution to this ongoing public debate, and think through an angle of it that hadn't yet been discussed (danger per entity, rather than danger per encounter). As I say towards the end, my own views would be against placing too much weight on the matter whatever the results, because the whole debate is on stranger danger, which is not the main concern vis a vis violent men and women.
An important aspect of this is the unknowable nature of men. So (1) bear behavior is generally more predictable than men's behavior toward women, and (2) many women experience anxiety when encountering a man in the woods much more often than with bears. This is partly because we encounter more men — ALL of unknown intention — and partly because we don't encounter that many bears. So it's not just the risk of being eaten that is at issue, but the constant risk from so many men.
Bear philosophy always checks the data! (In my day job I have to spend time once in a while looking at a journal called "Empirical Studies of the Arts" so I have some specific knowledge of how rare AND how desirable this is, at least in aesthetics)
Massive debate in Australia right now about domestic violence rates and what can be done. The government has just thrown a billion dollars at the problem, though there's deep scepticism that this will do anything.
Do you still want the data set mentioned in the edit at the begining or have you got it now? Sorry for communicating in comments but DMS only allowed from subscribers.
I suppose it follows, from the deconstruction of ‘stranger danger’ and the over representation of bears among murderers, that the most fearful thing would be a bear who is known intimately to the victim. Yet more reason not to become romantically or sexually entwined with a member of that ungenial genus.
This is a fascinating example of "the two genders" different experiences idea.
The point is that the literal phrasing of the question is not really relevant. Instead, it's parsed so differently.
Men parse it as roughly: "If you HAD to fight for your life against an attacking man or an attacking bear, which one has a better chance of killing you?"
(the obvious answer here is "bear")
Women parse it as roughly: "Which do you worry more about attacking you, a strange man or a strange bear?"
(the obvious answer here is "man" - mindspace, not statistical death rate)
Again, it doesn't matter what's said - that's what's heard.
On the one hand, that ratio ought to be much higher, because the "man or boy" we visualize in the thought experiment is clearly within a range from later adolescent through healthy adult, not a prepubescent child or decrepit old man. Sure, we'd exclude bear cubs too, but like most large mammals, they mature very fast relative to humans.
On the other hand, to get the more reasonable consequentialist calculation, I think we ought to consider how likely the man or boy would protect or otherwise substantially aid the woman, versus the chance the bear would.
In fairness to the bears, men benefit from years of enculturation before they are expected to face down large predators. But when I try to raise a bear cub to protect me at all costs suddenly it's "stealing from the zoo".
Very unlikely. I've had a male stranger take a physical risk to help me just once. I am 70. In situations where there was no risk, I've had a male stranger come to my aid a half dozen times. And those interactions were fraught because of the unknown male problem.
The bear question is actually: "How would you prefer to die?". (I could be pedantic and say it's "How would you prefer to have your life destroyed?", but lets keep it simple).
A lot of, perhaps most, women implicitly understand the question, because they face the threat of an attack, by an overwhelmingly unequal agent they have next to no hope of being able to thwart, every time they step out into the world.
In that sense, you see how both bear and man are the same - they're both attackers women have little hope of being able to fend off. But bear and man differ in one very clear way here…
Compare the ways a bear will kill a woman to the ways a man could kill a woman.
I'm not sure how many variations there are to how a bear will kill a woman, but the number of variations to the way a man could kill a woman are frighteningly numerous - especially when hidden in a forest (method, tools, number and types of steps, length of time, involvement of others).
This is why women describe the question as a "no-brainer", and it takes them a second to respond with: "I choose Bear".
This is wrong. You need to account for encounters as well. Murder, per encounter, per type. Women encounter hundreds to thousands of men a year on average, and they encounter basically zero bears on average.
Our research question is: "Which is more likely to kill you if you live in the US and are a woman? A random grizzly bear or a random man (or boy)?". Encounter rate is irrelevant for this. We are not asking which is more dangerous or any such thing.
Why are the 150,000,000 extra men relevant in determining the probability that any given one of them will murder any given women, when any given women won’t encounter them in the entirety of their lives? As well, for any given man, any given woman may have 20,000 encounters with them before the murder occurs (I’m certain this happens frequently).
Last time I checked....Humans live purposefully away from bear environments. The idea that a woman who got lost in the woods or was fucking stupid enough to go meet a bear is likely to not have a great outcome. If bears are so easily less violent on average than a man, then start domesticating them as pets etc. and see how many people get mauled to death. Fucking retards.
The ods of being killed by a random man in a forest or similar depopulated are much, much smaller than by a bear.
The vast majority of women murdered by men are murdered by men they know. Violent relationships, passionate killings and the such. If you randomly choose a man out of the average, the ods of him being a predator are very small.
I feel the numbers are not being read within context.
Men are remarkably predatory towards women and it's a side of themselves they tend to conceal from other men. So, to be blunt, how would a random guy have any sense of that? I personally have encountered a lot of bears in my life and I just walk away and everything is fine. (I was once mugged by a bear, but in the end she just wanted the bag of garbage I was carrying and I gave it to her.) With men, there's no telling what they will do.
What a flawed way to think of it. First off, black bears also kill. Second, where did you get your "stat" from? Was it based on random women getting killed by a random male in the woods? If not, then why even make a post about it? If people mainly live in urban areas, which they do, and you are basing your statistic on that for men killing women, then you would need to have all bears roaming around the cities and suburbs too, which isn't a thing. So your metric of trying to measure that is flawed. Have 20 different women one at a time come face to face with a brown bear in the woods versus 20 individual women come face to face with a random man in the woods and see which group would do the worst.
Of the 3730 women killed by men or boys (estimated), how many are killed by strangers or nearly strangers, ie in acts of one-off bear-like violence? (as opposed to a bear turning on its keeper, for example) Probably under a 1000, which again (just as the 'per encounter' calculation) makes this comparison utterly factually preposterous (though obviously culturally very meaningful).
It's my understanding that many women in abusive relationships go from one abusive relationship to another. I thought women were strong and powerful and equal to men. Isn't it infantalizing to assume they need to be "rescued"?
What about the responsibility of women to get out of abusive relationships and stay out? Why is it my responsibility as a taxpayer to provide government funded ways to help them all?
Man or woman, some people find themselves in situations that are difficult to exit on one's own, be it poverty, gambling, abuse (including chain abuse), or something else. (In case of abuses, it's statistically more often women, but it's not _categorically_ about what's between their legs or in their chromosomes or whatever.) And generally, it is considered worthwhile to try and help them out, regardless (or, at least, partially regardless) of whether getting into those situation was their own fault - although this is an often-found point of contention with certain kinds of conservatives. You _could_ consistently reject helping out those who are in an abyss due to their own decisions, but then it's not about whether women are equal to men.
I understand and appreciate that - especially given that it has happened in my own family. But I do not believe in or support blanket programs, especially at a federal level, for dealing with this sort of problem. These issues are very personal issues and the smaller the level for dealing with it, the more likely real answers will be found and real help given. So the only level of support I would be willing to give money to would be local. The further away you get from that, the more abuses (speaking of abusive relationships) of power and the more "project creep" there will be.
As soon as these types of programs start paying attention to the abuses men suffer from in relationships, as well as the abuses of the state against men in divorce and custody, then I'll start caring about the gravity of the issue. Until then, I think the best answers are family/local answers and larger institutions can only make this matter worse, and probably already have.
Tiny error I think—you say that the 2.26 murders of women per year by men and boys is "substantially less than the bear figure," which is 1.3. Did you mean to say "substantially more"?
Anyways, interesting post!
Thanks!
I usually like your ideas, but this one is a good example of lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Now calculate per "minutes spent within 100 foot radius of bear vs human male"
Haha! Fair enough. Yes, I agree, as I acknowledge near the start, your likelihood of being killed by a grizzly bear *in a given encounter* is higher than your likelihood of being killed by a human male in a given encounter, but I thought it would be nice to make a contribution to this ongoing public debate, and think through an angle of it that hadn't yet been discussed (danger per entity, rather than danger per encounter). As I say towards the end, my own views would be against placing too much weight on the matter whatever the results, because the whole debate is on stranger danger, which is not the main concern vis a vis violent men and women.
An important aspect of this is the unknowable nature of men. So (1) bear behavior is generally more predictable than men's behavior toward women, and (2) many women experience anxiety when encountering a man in the woods much more often than with bears. This is partly because we encounter more men — ALL of unknown intention — and partly because we don't encounter that many bears. So it's not just the risk of being eaten that is at issue, but the constant risk from so many men.
Bear philosophy always checks the data! (In my day job I have to spend time once in a while looking at a journal called "Empirical Studies of the Arts" so I have some specific knowledge of how rare AND how desirable this is, at least in aesthetics)
BEARPRICISM
Massive debate in Australia right now about domestic violence rates and what can be done. The government has just thrown a billion dollars at the problem, though there's deep scepticism that this will do anything.
What if the solution is bear bribery?
Human author: This is a terrible idea.
BEAR CO-AUTHOR: DIS IS A GREAT IDEA. GIVE DA BEAR FOOD. BEAR NEED FOOD.
Do you still want the data set mentioned in the edit at the begining or have you got it now? Sorry for communicating in comments but DMS only allowed from subscribers.
Oh thankyou for offering! I got a copy.
I suppose it follows, from the deconstruction of ‘stranger danger’ and the over representation of bears among murderers, that the most fearful thing would be a bear who is known intimately to the victim. Yet more reason not to become romantically or sexually entwined with a member of that ungenial genus.
But bears are underrepresented
This is a fascinating example of "the two genders" different experiences idea.
The point is that the literal phrasing of the question is not really relevant. Instead, it's parsed so differently.
Men parse it as roughly: "If you HAD to fight for your life against an attacking man or an attacking bear, which one has a better chance of killing you?"
(the obvious answer here is "bear")
Women parse it as roughly: "Which do you worry more about attacking you, a strange man or a strange bear?"
(the obvious answer here is "man" - mindspace, not statistical death rate)
Again, it doesn't matter what's said - that's what's heard.
On the one hand, that ratio ought to be much higher, because the "man or boy" we visualize in the thought experiment is clearly within a range from later adolescent through healthy adult, not a prepubescent child or decrepit old man. Sure, we'd exclude bear cubs too, but like most large mammals, they mature very fast relative to humans.
On the other hand, to get the more reasonable consequentialist calculation, I think we ought to consider how likely the man or boy would protect or otherwise substantially aid the woman, versus the chance the bear would.
In fairness to the bears, men benefit from years of enculturation before they are expected to face down large predators. But when I try to raise a bear cub to protect me at all costs suddenly it's "stealing from the zoo".
Very unlikely. I've had a male stranger take a physical risk to help me just once. I am 70. In situations where there was no risk, I've had a male stranger come to my aid a half dozen times. And those interactions were fraught because of the unknown male problem.
The bear question is actually: "How would you prefer to die?". (I could be pedantic and say it's "How would you prefer to have your life destroyed?", but lets keep it simple).
A lot of, perhaps most, women implicitly understand the question, because they face the threat of an attack, by an overwhelmingly unequal agent they have next to no hope of being able to thwart, every time they step out into the world.
In that sense, you see how both bear and man are the same - they're both attackers women have little hope of being able to fend off. But bear and man differ in one very clear way here…
Compare the ways a bear will kill a woman to the ways a man could kill a woman.
I'm not sure how many variations there are to how a bear will kill a woman, but the number of variations to the way a man could kill a woman are frighteningly numerous - especially when hidden in a forest (method, tools, number and types of steps, length of time, involvement of others).
This is why women describe the question as a "no-brainer", and it takes them a second to respond with: "I choose Bear".
This is wrong. You need to account for encounters as well. Murder, per encounter, per type. Women encounter hundreds to thousands of men a year on average, and they encounter basically zero bears on average.
Our research question is: "Which is more likely to kill you if you live in the US and are a woman? A random grizzly bear or a random man (or boy)?". Encounter rate is irrelevant for this. We are not asking which is more dangerous or any such thing.
Why are the 150,000,000 extra men relevant in determining the probability that any given one of them will murder any given women, when any given women won’t encounter them in the entirety of their lives? As well, for any given man, any given woman may have 20,000 encounters with them before the murder occurs (I’m certain this happens frequently).
Last time I checked....Humans live purposefully away from bear environments. The idea that a woman who got lost in the woods or was fucking stupid enough to go meet a bear is likely to not have a great outcome. If bears are so easily less violent on average than a man, then start domesticating them as pets etc. and see how many people get mauled to death. Fucking retards.
The ods of being killed by a random man in a forest or similar depopulated are much, much smaller than by a bear.
The vast majority of women murdered by men are murdered by men they know. Violent relationships, passionate killings and the such. If you randomly choose a man out of the average, the ods of him being a predator are very small.
I feel the numbers are not being read within context.
Men are remarkably predatory towards women and it's a side of themselves they tend to conceal from other men. So, to be blunt, how would a random guy have any sense of that? I personally have encountered a lot of bears in my life and I just walk away and everything is fine. (I was once mugged by a bear, but in the end she just wanted the bag of garbage I was carrying and I gave it to her.) With men, there's no telling what they will do.
What a flawed way to think of it. First off, black bears also kill. Second, where did you get your "stat" from? Was it based on random women getting killed by a random male in the woods? If not, then why even make a post about it? If people mainly live in urban areas, which they do, and you are basing your statistic on that for men killing women, then you would need to have all bears roaming around the cities and suburbs too, which isn't a thing. So your metric of trying to measure that is flawed. Have 20 different women one at a time come face to face with a brown bear in the woods versus 20 individual women come face to face with a random man in the woods and see which group would do the worst.
Of the 3730 women killed by men or boys (estimated), how many are killed by strangers or nearly strangers, ie in acts of one-off bear-like violence? (as opposed to a bear turning on its keeper, for example) Probably under a 1000, which again (just as the 'per encounter' calculation) makes this comparison utterly factually preposterous (though obviously culturally very meaningful).
Yeah, I talk about that towards the end- how the whole discussion has made people focus far too much on stranger danger.
No need to assume it's a stranger.
It's my understanding that many women in abusive relationships go from one abusive relationship to another. I thought women were strong and powerful and equal to men. Isn't it infantalizing to assume they need to be "rescued"?
What about the responsibility of women to get out of abusive relationships and stay out? Why is it my responsibility as a taxpayer to provide government funded ways to help them all?
Man or woman, some people find themselves in situations that are difficult to exit on one's own, be it poverty, gambling, abuse (including chain abuse), or something else. (In case of abuses, it's statistically more often women, but it's not _categorically_ about what's between their legs or in their chromosomes or whatever.) And generally, it is considered worthwhile to try and help them out, regardless (or, at least, partially regardless) of whether getting into those situation was their own fault - although this is an often-found point of contention with certain kinds of conservatives. You _could_ consistently reject helping out those who are in an abyss due to their own decisions, but then it's not about whether women are equal to men.
I understand and appreciate that - especially given that it has happened in my own family. But I do not believe in or support blanket programs, especially at a federal level, for dealing with this sort of problem. These issues are very personal issues and the smaller the level for dealing with it, the more likely real answers will be found and real help given. So the only level of support I would be willing to give money to would be local. The further away you get from that, the more abuses (speaking of abusive relationships) of power and the more "project creep" there will be.
As soon as these types of programs start paying attention to the abuses men suffer from in relationships, as well as the abuses of the state against men in divorce and custody, then I'll start caring about the gravity of the issue. Until then, I think the best answers are family/local answers and larger institutions can only make this matter worse, and probably already have.