I think that you are reading way too much into my whimsical injection of polar bears into the picture. 😆
Having said that, there was an element of my position that was sincere, which was that it should technically matter what bear you run into. However, MagicShel has changed my mind on this with the following comment above:
Without wading into all the technicalities, could we perhaps agree that if you have to say, “what kind of bear tho’,” that we are already in troubling territory?
Of course, all of this to some extent is beside the point because the important thing is not whether the thought experiment is technically valid or not but why women respond to it the way that they do, because if they feel that a random man is likely to be dangerous enough that they would prefer a random bear—and unfortunately violence against women is prevalent enough that this is not such an unreasonable reaction—then that reveals a societal problem that needs to be addressed.
I think that you are reading way too much into my whimsical injection of polar bears into the picture. 😆
Having said that, there was an element of my position that was sincere, which was that it should technically matter what bear you run into. However, MagicShel has changed my mind on this with the following comment above:
Of course, all of this to some extent is beside the point because the important thing is not whether the thought experiment is technically valid or not but why women respond to it the way that they do, because if they feel that a random man is likely to be dangerous enough that they would prefer a random bear—and unfortunately violence against women is prevalent enough that this is not such an unreasonable reaction—then that reveals a societal problem that needs to be addressed.