It’s kind of like how people are more likely to die in a car accident on their way to the airport than they are to die in a plane. Yet people are more likely to be afraid of flying.

There’s a sense of control that people tend to gravitate towards. In the aggregate, Tesla might run fewer red lights than humans. At the individual level there will certainly be “safe drivers” who run red lights at a lower rate, who end up dying because of the Tesla. It’s a hard pill to swallow.

Probably not all that groundbreaking, but I hadn’t thought of it until recently:

Brutality is a function of societal evolution. The societies that grow and expand do so, not only because of some technological or cultural advancement, but in large part due to their willingness and propensity to conquer and dominate other societies, often in brutal ways.

Peace is hard, in part, because the human desire for power is baked into all the major remaining people and cultures- any society that leans towards peace will eventually be overtaken by one that doesn’t.