Fun fact for parents: In the US, abductions of kids by strangers are _incredibly_ rare: 1 out of 1.5 million kids per year. Basically, your kid would have to be playing outside, alone, for tens of thousands of years, before they're likely to get abducted. (Of course, ever since 1980, 'news media' has taken the handful of cases per year and turned them into a huge moral panic that exploits the statistical illiteracy of most parents.) (Data from @FreeRangeKids book).
@primalpoly You almost certainly would enjoy this book: The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff on Audible. audible.co.uk/pd/0241393655?…
@primalpoly How has this shifted now with sex trafficking? (Honest question, not rhetorical)
@primalpoly The late Kahneman has a section in TFAS about this and parents definitely overweigh the risk of abduction. I do wonder if there's been some causation making kids safer because the opportunity for abduction is lower due to this rise in paranoia.
@primalpoly A useful heuristic here is to consider whether you let your children ride in an automobile without thinking twice. If the answer is yes, consider all the things you think are too risky for kids and look up how many orders of magnitude less dangerous they are than that.
@primalpoly I desperately need to show your post to my wife because we fight over letting the kids play outside by themselves, but her feelings don't care about your facts.
@primalpoly @BobSummerwill It's led to kids being stuck inside, no imaginations, & now most stare at screens. When I was a kid, I'd play outdoors most of the summer. Now, my friends had CPS called for kid walking from bus 500m in city. Social pressure prevents it in my small town: moms judge other moms