In terms of the travel paradox and similar fears driven by society I highly recommend a book called "Risk: The Science of Politics and Fear". I reviewed it a fe

In terms of the travel paradox and similar fears driven by society I highly recommend a book called "Risk: The Science of Politics and Fear". I reviewed it a few days ago here on HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=673955 The travel paradox does make sense because our "primal" brain knows whats "less natural": in the face of that the intelligent brains statistics are meaningless. In terms of spiders: I'd say I am unreasonably scared of them. I mean I know fairly large spiders here in the UK are perfectly safer. But I still leave the room till they are gone.