The battlefield is an Olympic sized swimming pool that is 6 feet deep. A fully grown polar bear (9 feet tall) faces off against a fully grown female Great White Shark.
At market close, I will create a poll that lasts for 1 week and use that for question resolution. A tie will resolve to 50%.
For context, this question is a long running question from the Chasing Scratch golf podcast. They have posed this question to many over the years and it seems to be very split but most people firmly believe their side is right.
Make your arguments in the comments, I'm curious to see what Manifold thinks.
Update 2026-05-31 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The Great White Shark in this market is considered to be a fully grown female (females are larger than males). This will be specified on the poll question at resolution.
Update 2026-05-31 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - The fight is to the death — the bear will not attempt to leave the pool
Trading will be disabled after the poll drops at market close; the poll will run for 1 week and its results will determine resolution
Update 2026-06-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Both animals fight with aggression (each immediately sees the other as a threat) but with natural intelligence/strategy typical of their species — neither blindly rushes the other. Neither animal will attempt to flee the pool.
Update 2026-06-01 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The polar bear will not attempt to leave the pool — leaving the pool is not an option for the bear.
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Video shows angler freeing great white shark after surprise catch at Nantucket
and a polar bear couldn't take one of these? Really?
@traders The poll is up. Cast your votes and make your arguments. /Zeolite/who-do-you-think-would-win-in-a-fig
@Jack1 As far as I'm aware it doesnt meet any criteria that would make it unranked. But if mods think it should be thats fine.
Guidelines for ranked/unranked describe a few criteria:
Its not self-referential, resolves based on a separate poll after close.
Not about leagues.
Not purely random.
Resolution criteria isnt known by only me or friends.
It is predicting something (result of Manifold poll on question)
Could resolve either way.
Is there something in particular you think should make it unranked?
@Jack1 That seems like it probably could be a valid reason to unrank these types of markets but as far as I've seen it hasn'tdone so in the past.
For instance, after a quick search I found this market:
/Nightsquared/will-manifold-think-trumps-threat-t
It doesn't show an Unranked tag for me and is essentially the same type of resolution with a poll fully determining resolution.
Like I said I dont feel strongly that it has to be ranked, but the guidelines and past practice seem to imply that it should.
@Jack1 And maybe its just been applied inconsistently and all of these should be Unranked by default.
@Jack1 just to be clear, unsure if it should be mandatory, not taking either side on whether it is best practise
The muscle mass of the largest known polar bear is around 300kg, and most of the mass of a polar bear is fat. The muscle mass of a great white shark is 1750kg, which represents 85% of its body weight.
It's not even close. This is the ratio of an adult human male fighting a baby. You would not find a single example in the animal kingdom of an animal winning with that ratio outside of insects.
@gpt4 The shark's muscle is created to accelerate mainly in one direction. There isn't enough space in an Olympic pool for the shark to attack with as much power as it wishes to. Once it's first attack fails, the bear has an advantage
@Chumchulum Have you ever seen a shark attack on a human? See the video below (WARNING - the footage is from far away, but that person eventually dies).
The shark doesn't accelerate and attack, it holds its pray and twists and rotates. That shark in the video was a tiger shark, which is a quarter of the size of a great white shark.
Also, regardless - what would happen in practice is that the shark either ignores the bear or eat a few pieces of the bear if it is hungry. You can't force a wild animal to attack. in either situation the bear is under no control.
Pool floor is too slick. Bear can't get traction like it expects.
Blubber and fur make bear rather buoyant, no leverage for striking, striking force already greatly reduced through water as medium and lack of traction.
Bear can't easily pin the shark as it needs to do to bring teeth into play, teeth would have to be under water anyway to be effective. Breathing is a significant demand on the bear's positioning.
Bear standing is easily knocked out of stance, spends significant energy to reposition. Shark has much more efficient movement.
Shark easily.
@JoeandSeth the bear is also 5feet tall on average. They'd be drowning as soon as the battle started
They can be up to 8 feet tall if they stand on the rhind legs, but then they'd be at a disadvantage because they'd have bad balance and the shark would be underwater but their head where the teeth are would be above water
@Quroe I'd say they have some level of aggression and each immediately see the other as a threat, but not so much that they blindly rush at each other (unless you think they would do that normally). Both will fight with a level of intelligence/strategy equivalent to that of an average wild member of their species within the bounds of the defined swimming pool.
@Zeolite So leaving the pool is a loss condition? Is the ground level around the pool also in bounds?
@Quroe Assume its a battle to the death and that the bear won't leave the pool to try to escape even if that could be what would happen in real life. The goal of the question is to see which animal would win in combat in this specific scenario.
I also plan on tagging all traders when the poll drops. FYI though, you will not be able to trade after the poll drops. I'm not interested in giving mana for people trading on the results of the poll as they come in.
@Zeolite The reason I'm interested is because I've been doing this market for a few months, and this is right up my alley.
@Quroe I see that now. I had seen that market but not looked into it too closely. Much more similar than I thought