Mitigation strategy

> I'm not sure I follow you here. If a pack of wolves suddenly appears behind me, how is the
fear I feel a result of being dependent? I'm dependent on what exactly, on the wolves? On me?
On some other people appearing and saving me? If I just hear wolves howling and the hairs on
the back of my head suddenly all stand up, where is the dependency? Or when I find a snake in
the grass and my palms get all sweaty? When lightning strikes beside my tree? I'm just trying
to understand your statement, honestly.

You feel fear because you can't do much about the situation. You're dependent on something
else which would resolve the situation. You have to hope that the wolves aren't after you,
that you're not stumping on a snake, or that the lightning isn't striking at you. You're
dependent on the whimsical mercies of a chance. You're dependent just because you don't seem
to be able to resolve the situation yourself.

> But e.g. with elevators we are not talking about a high risk or a low risk; statistics tell
us that casualties due to cabin falls are zero, or so close to zero that they are not
meaningful.

Who cares about what they say? I've met many people who were saying many different things. Why
would I want to believe? Let me have my own statistics and draw my own conclusions. What I
know is that falling from great heights is dangerous and can be lethal, that metals are very
tough, that the elevator's engines are very powerful and can easily tear me apart -- that's
what I KNOW. Don't you think it kinda contradicts what these statistics of yours say? Why
would I want to believe them then?! You can say that nuclear power plants are safe, and I
would never agree -- just because they inherently contain sources of dangers, no matter how
perfectly confined they are. Same with elevators.

While I personally don't have any elevators' fears, I assert that the line of thought I
presented is totally legitimate and has its merits, and I also think this is the way any
living being makes its assessments.

> In contrast, with cars we all know that regardless of the condition of driver and car we are
dependent on the good will of all other drivers. Even if everything else is in perfect
condition, if a drunk driver invades your lane or doesn't stop at a red light you are done.

I would disagree here. A good driver is not just someone who knows how to turn left and right
and how to tell red from green, but a person who actually knows his stuff, sees problems
coming, sees if other persons don't behave right on the road, anticipates everything and
doesn't get into problems as a result.

What you push here is that we should trust somebody who is presumably much more clever than
us. What I push is that, first of all, we should trust ourselves, and if somebody wants to
earn our trust, he should indeed earn it first. I personally see no problems in how people do
their assessments -- they might not always be right, but they are doing the right thing. If
they are wrong, it's probably lack of information -- but you can't just shove this information
down their throats and expect them to accept it. Most probably, it will be rejected as being
too different from what they know already -- and that's the right thing for them to do.