I am afraid of a lot of things, though probably not more than the average person. I really do not like small closed spaces, and I have a disproportionate fear that any ache and pain can become a terrible illness. I fear economic insolvency. And I have been thinking a fair bit about these fears in the time of a global pandemic. Fundamentally, I have been trying to ask myself: what role does (or should) fear play in our decision-making? How do we reckon with the role fear plays in shaping our choices?
If you live in the US, your odds of being killed by a foreign-born terrorist on American soil are one in 3.64 million. This places risk of death from terrorism far below that of other causes of death, such as, for example, drowning, which is fifth among leading causes of unintentional injury death in the US. Yet drowning risk has not shaped our politics and society for decades, motivated sweeping legislation like The Patriot Act, or helped provide justification for an annual defense budget of roughly $700 billion. This is arguably because drowning, while more widespread, does not receive the same publicity as terror attacks, allowing terrorism to generate a fear disproportionate to the risk it poses.
Read the full piece on The Healthiest Goldfish.