I'd wager that our increasing reliance on technology in all walks of life - education, anti-terrorism, policing, medicine, health etc. - also plays a role in fa

I'd wager that our increasing reliance on technology in all walks of life - education, anti-terrorism, policing, medicine, health etc. - also plays a role in fanning our fear of risk. I _think_ technology tends to offer us two things: (a) an illusion of meaning, as risks are reduced to a discrete set of numbers in excel sheets or databases, and (b) a false sense of control, because we try all sorts of actions (like the ones Schneier mentions) to reduce some of those risks. Then of course there is the cultural angle. > Risk tolerance is both cultural and dependent on the environment around us. I'm from India and our willingness to tolerate or overlook risk is fairly high (I don't mean that in a good way, because most of the times we are fairly blasé about our personal/collective safety or about taking preventive actions almost to the extent of devaluing individual lives). But, for what it's worth, we are therefore more willing to tolerate violent risks like the ones Schneier mentions for longer. Note: 2011 Schneier reference to a research study analysing risk and culture - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/risk_tolerance.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/risk_toleranc...