this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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There’s this one youtube video that talks about a question like this one (but it’s about a math problem) that I’m going to see if I can find it and paste it here later.
But the conclusion is basically: the question itself is wrong.
The question is straightforward at first glance, but if you think about it, it’s actually vague.
But the question doesn’t provide these details, so we will by default assume these blank spaces by ourselves.
Which means, each person with their own story and background will assume completely different things. A woman that had bad experiences with men will obviously assume that the man will be the worst kind. A man that never had bad experiences with other men will not assume the same.
So all the arguments about this question are between people that are not starting from the same page in the first place. They are screaming at each other because they are arguing their points from different assumptions.
I’ll try to find the video because the guy explains this much better than me, even though the video is about a completely different question.
i feel like the point is that you have to take the uncertainty into consideration. you are gambling on what kind of bear or what kind of man and so the question is, which one, of unspecified danger, would you rather choose?
and so, since there is uncertainty baked in, it's basically demonstrating that women are, generally, more familiar or wary about the dangers of men than bears (there's a lot more one could say here, but this is basically the point i wanted to make)
That’s a fair way to look at it.
For me it’s just that not answering (because the question is vague) OR asking for clarification are also valid responses.
For example, your rewritten question - between an unspecified man or unspecified bear, which would you choose? - is already more clarifying than the original.
You are specifying that it’s a gamble, so the gamble is part of the question. The original question doesn’t say that, so assuming it’s a gamble is yet another assumption that we would need to make to answer it
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Beyond that, the question itself is fundamentally misandrist. Or rather, the fundamental question is prejudiced and this particular version is misandrist.
Bigotry is often obvious and easy to call out, but it can also be subtle at times and sneak up on us. Any time something isolated a particular protected trait (ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc) and tries to make generalizations about then, I find it's often handy to swap things around to see if it is still okay.
Imagine a similar question posed to JK Rowling: would you rather be alone in the woods with a trans woman or a bear? I would fully expect her to answer "the best" and fully expect progressive people to call her transphobic for that, and I would agree.
Not to mention how this question really breaks down on the borders of gender identity and sex. What happens in the bear vs trans-man case? Is it the gender identity that's the "problem" with men or is it the chromosomes?
Imagine a racist asked whether they would rather be alone in the woods with a black person or a bear. The racist might start citing statistics about violent crime and crafting a narrative about how they are rationally correct for fearing black people more than bears. That doesn't make it any less racist or any less wrong. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn't make it any less dehumanizing.
You can do the same with bear vs a lot of things. Bear vs nonbinary person, bear vs Muslim bear vs jew, etc. It's all fucked.
Responding with "not all men" is equally misandrist. It says "yeah sure most men are monsters, but not me! I'm #notlikeothermen".
For me equality is not something we can afford to just pick and choose when to apply or withhold. Prejudice is not some tool that can be used for good or evil depending on whether it's in the right hands or not, but a fundamentally evil part of human nature we all need to fight against for the betterment of the world. Things like this "bear vs man" meme may do a slight bit of good: it might bring some awareness to a tiny subset of uninformed men of the problems that women face and the fear they live their lives with. However, it does a lot more bad to society by perpetuating fear, portraying half of the population as monstrous and sub-human, and sowing division within society. There are better ways of educating and raising awareness without stooping to the tactics of bigots.
Commenting on the math bit, I've always found "order of operation" problems to be stupid and not nearly as clever as some treat them. Order of operations is one of the few things in math that seems like math but really isn't. It's a convention that says if you see these two operations in the same equation, this is the order you do them in. Math is only useful in context and that context is what determines what order the operations should be in, regardless of any conventions. BEDMAS is only useful because it starts with B, and B can make all the rest irrelevant.
Like if you are putting together 50 snack packs and originally start with 3 grapes but have a bunch left over and want to see if you can add 2 more grapes to each pack, you gotta add the 3 and 2 before you multiply the 50, otherwise your result will be useless. Understanding that is far more useful than basically knowing math convention trivia.
I did a math-heavy degree (CS) and the only time I can remember any reference to order of operations was in a compiler class, when talking about how to make write the compiler such that it obeys the order of operations and maybe a reference in physics classes, since physics is very heavy on math word problems.
But so many people waste time arguing about it on fb, as if it matters. Though it can be fun to watch and see some of the crazier answers.
Edit: had a reference to a line I removed, removed the reference.