>The safer our society gets the more afraid we become and the less tolerant we seem to become of risk. I completely disagree. Even with our crime rates being

>The safer our society gets the more afraid we become and the less tolerant we seem to become of risk. I completely disagree. Even with our crime rates being much lower than decades ago, the US is still nowhere near as safe as Japan, yet in Japan they're not remotely as risk-averse as we are (particularly in regards to kids being outside without their parents). It's very much part of their culture to have kids walk themselves to school at an early age. I'm pretty sure it's similar in western European and Scandinavian countries: they're very safe too (particularly the Scandinavian ones), and don't treat kids and parents this way. This is something unique to the US. And this really touches on something I think Americans are really, really horrible at: thinking about the rest of the world. Instead of looking at our brains and trying to use psychology to figure this out, why not just look at what other humans in other countries are doing? Americans are not biologically unique. This is a cultural problem.