domain:firsttoilthenthegrave.substack.com
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
1m ago
Why would changing from yourself to your daughter being in the forest change anything? The bear is far more dangerous in either case (assuming we're talking about an average male human vs average bear) and can't be reasoned with. If anything your daughter is better placed to charm the man and get him to sacrifice himself for her if needs be than you are.
On the other hand if the comparison is between a particularly dumb human vs Yogi Bear then I would go with the bear...
As others have suggested, many women (performatively or genuinely) overestimate the danger men pose, due to a combination of lipstick feminism, movies and television, being meme-susceptible, humble bragging as to being so desirable as to be a constant target for rape, a lifetime of being sheltered away from actually being under real risk of physical harm, perhaps some rape fantasy and hybristophilic wish-fulfillment sprinkled in there.
I’d also posit that on the flipside, women underestimate the danger animals, whether wild or domesticated, pose in general. Or at least, the modal woman underestimates the danger animals pose to her in particular, under the belief that in such situations her Disney Princess powers will kick in and she’ll have immediate rapport with the animals. Hence why defending pitbulls as nanny dogs is female-coded and the countless selfies of young women making a sad face with cuts and scratches after they’ve been mostly gently mauled from getting too cuddly with a dog.
There’s a video that comes to mind but I can’t find, of a girl in a skirt or dress and Uggs getting rammed by a goat or sheep (wait, not that kind of video) because she tried picking up its offspring for a cUtE Insta photo. When she saw the mother coming, she tried evading by daintily kicking up a puff of dirt (“ugh, stupid mother!”) and half-heartedly jogging away with the offspring in her arms before getting chased down in like half a second.
And of course, as always there’s always the whole Who? Whom? aspect, as the bear vs. black man permutation hilariously illustrates.
hydroacetylene
7m ago
On Zulu/Xhosa tribalism- which faction headlines the ANC? Is the general public of the opinion that Zuma’s faction leaving puts the Xhosa nostra firmly in the driver’s seat?
BurdensomeCount
Singapore is the only country that learned the correct lessons from the British Empire.
7m ago
Gay son, not even a contest (and especially so if you have other children who can continue on the bloodline). Being gay isn't a personal or moral failing.
guajalote
8m ago
"If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, good night."
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
9m ago
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"?
Mantergeistmann
10m ago
I challenge anybody reading to name an occasion on which they met a bear they weren't actively going out of their way to meet.
My grandmother had a local bear who liked to sit in her peach tree and eat the fruit. Occasionally would wander up onto her porch. She was more concerned with the deer, since they ate more of her vegetables (up until the bear broke half the peach tree by being too large for the branches. She wasnt pleased by that).
NullHypothesis
15m ago
I believe the rhyme goes as follows:
If it's black fight back.
If it's brown stay down.
If it's white, goodnight. (never really liked this one, although to be fair this is the one you are least likely to encounter so I guess the rhyme doesn't matter too much).
faceh
19m ago
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.
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 against violence towards humans in general, but some are more naturally inclined towards it than others.
celluloid_dream
22m ago
Funny enough, I was hiking in the woods alone last weekend and crossed paths with a woman also hiking alone. She greeted me with a somewhat exaggerated "I'm glad to see you out here!" (I was unaware of bear discourse at the time, so it went over my head).
Anyway, I didn't eat her. She didn't eat me, and we both continued on and didn't die to the best of my knowledge.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
22m ago
How do I capitalize on the fact that the social fabric is fraying at breakneck speed?
I think this is more complicated than that in terms of market strategy. If anything, my feel for the zeitgeist is that this statement is true, but also that the median (Western) human is becoming acutely aware of this fact and it's starting to change behaviors. More than a few friends, even tech oriented ones, have done things like moving to tight-knit rural communities and taking up growing vegetables and raising chickens.
I don't have huge confidence in this, but I think there may be a groundswell of interest in deliberately investing in social fabric. This could conceivably go badly for tech companies: something like "social media is like alcohol: okay in small amounts, but everybody looks down on that guy that drinks beer for breakfast. Abstaining isn't frowned upon." Although I would be interested in something like Facebook was in 2010 that was primarily focused on actual social connections and not "influencers" or anonymous-ish groups.
There may be some business opportunities for explicitly creating Third Spaces, but what shape new ones would have is much less clear. Most of the general examples of those (gyms, coffee shops, bars) aren't in short supply, but also don't feel like they really are establishing communities anymore (or maybe large chains can't do local culture).
NullHypothesis
27m ago
It's funny how so many people online think that's a good response but all it does is serve as yet another example of how poorly so many people understand and use statistics.
slothlikesamwise
Subway Wizard 🔮
30m ago
California is red tribe? Migrant workers aren't picking field corn in the midwest, they are only needed for certain crops.
slothlikesamwise
Subway Wizard 🔮
33m ago
If i might be a bit crass, paraphrasing the same objection over and over doesn't win an argument.
The reason why cannabis legalization worked is that there are only 10.1k DEA employees and they entirely rely on state and local government to be their enforcers, so states could withdraw that support and they'd not be able to fill the void.
The FBI only has 35k employees, not just special agents, and is in a similar situation with a wider breadth of requirements.
It is why nullification has always worked in the US.
BahRamYou
33m ago
I don't know how to take over an existent social media site. They uh, tend to have defenses against that sort of thing.
In theory we could create an infinite number of new social media sites, and present each one as if it was real and legit. Each one just has to lure in one sucker. Sort of like shitcoins in the crypto space.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
35m ago
we're kind of fucked if we don't resolve the sex war.
Well, not fucked, really.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
37m ago
You can poke fun at women two, though it's different kinds of jokes.
Not if there are any around.
NullHypothesis
37m ago
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.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
39m ago
I have a great deal more empathy for all the poor bastards I've advised to quit smoking over the years when I had found myself cold-turkeying a rather strong nicotine addiction. A puff on my vape once I got home hit harder than sex.
(I had to catch a flight, and vapes are illegal to carry aboard here, I still refuse to smoke actual fucking cigarettes, so all I did was suffer rather grumpily for the better part of a week)
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
42m ago
Most people would be repulsed by the idea, presented so badly. Far better to take over an existent social media site and flood it with the higher quality of bots.
Improved quality of discourse, and let's face it, once you finetune them out of their ability to say the n-word, most people would barely notice.
rokmonster
Lives under a rok.
43m ago
That's a good question, but I don't know anything about Japan.
Also, I somewhat dispute that the gender war has "turned hot" in Korea. I think this "gender war" mostly journos trying to make a big issue about gender, for the reasons outlined in the second half of my grandparent comment. Surveys in 2021 showed that in every demographic surveyed, "inequality between men and women" was considered less of a problem in 2021 than in 2016. Also, if you are not terminally online you won't notice any gender war. (But Korean society does tend to be terminally online, so most people are aware of some feminist/anti-feminist drama. )
NullHypothesis
48m ago
To be honest, I wasn't sure if I should post this topic either, since at the end of the day it's just one of many hundreds of viral internet trends indicating the battle of the sexes. People will say anything on the internet to get clout, there are hundreds of ragebait topics being discussed. Plus are TikTok/internet trends indicative of general trends in the population?
What made this trend more interesting is that it's gotten so viral to the point that there are now journalists and news articles that are using this to push the "women's lives are so hard" narrative, and we have a few actual polls now to get a better understanding of what the split is. So at this point it's not just a stupid viral TikTok trend, it's a question that is being used to push an agenda.
Is that perhaps the reason why people may give men the benefit of the doubt in the case of an ambiguous he-said-she-said situation, but not give such benefit to a bear? Do men not deserve such a benefit over bears, because, you know, they're actual people and bears are not?
I've always had a problem with women complaining about how no one would believe them if they cry rape/sexual assault. I think it's similar to when people said people didn't vote for Hillary Clinton during 2016 just because she was a woman. Well yes, but people also did vote for her solely because she was a woman. #BelieveAllWoman was (and still is?) a thing, the biggest high-profile case I remember in recent times was the case between Amber Heard and Johhny Depp. Plenty of people automatically believed her story, just as plenty of people automatically doubted her. We didn't know the facts so the most unbiased stance should be "I don't know, let's wait for some evidence before concluding." Well based on the evidence, the jury did find Amber Heard liable of defamation and that he did not abuse or assault Amber Heard.
People should give men the benefit of the doubt because of the mantra "innocent before proven guilty". Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. Yet the mere accusation can destroy a man's livelihood and his reputation. There are plenty of examples you can find that have impacted everyday average men. Women have plenty of reason to falsely accuse men, whether it be an act of revenge, some way to get clout, and so on. And women tend to overdramatize their experiences. Men face harassment online more often than women, but women are more upset about it. There was also that video of a woman walking through New York to show how much catcalling/harassment she got and all it did was show how it wasn't much of anything at all... (and also, how the men doing the "problematic" activity was a certain demographic of men, specifically black/latino but it's racist to point that out). Or that one journalist that wrote an article complaining about catcalling... only a few years later to then write an article complaining about how nobody would catcall her anymore and how she misses it (can't find the source atm).
If a bear is falsely accused, well nobody really suffers from that. If a man is falsely accused, there is an actual victim in that false statement. Which is why the appropriate response should be to hear out their case, and if it sounds like an actual crime is investigated, then a police report should be filed and the situation investigated. Surely spending a few hours at the police station and getting some justice is better than spending days/weeks/months suffering and letting the criminal go free?
If a woman told her friend she was raped/assaulted, in reality, it's likely 80 - 99% of her friends would automatically believe her unless she did such a horrible job of telling the story that it would cause reason for doubt. Most people's automatic response is to believe, not to doubt. But because some people might dare question the story, it's a huge problem.
srf0638
1hr ago
"If you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never, under any circumstances, go on long hikes alone. Don’t take short hikes alone, either – or, for that matter, go anywhere alone. And avoid at all costs such foolhardy activities as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with deadly germs. Wear wool next to the skin. Insure every good and chattel you possess against every conceivable contingency the future might bring, even if the premiums half-cripple the present. Never cross an intersection against a red light, even when you can see all roads are clear for miles. And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to be a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time."
(Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker)
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
1hr ago
Part of what makes it obviously artificial is that hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race, in the US census. So someone can be both hispanic and white, or hispanic and black, or even hispanic and Asian American Pacific Islander! And it was chosen like that because black activists didn't want to lose any influence from black spanish speakers choosing to identify as hispanic over black.
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