Your average Joe is completely fucking hopeless at judging risk. This is why the US has the TSA, and you can’t legally ride a bike without a helmet in my country.
I’m inclined to think this risk illiteracy suits the powers that be just fine; they’re constantly manipulating people’s perceptions of risk, as a means of pushing buttons in the reptile brain. On a population level, folks can be thus controlled with predictable results.
Developing an informed appreciation of risk is one of the less obvious ways of freeing your mind, with a huge payoff; suddenly you notice all kinds of authorities lying through their teeth. If enough people took that step, we’d suddenly be a whole lot closer to democracy.
