No, we in no way want to claim that, for example, absolutely all snakes are completely safe, or that you will never become the victim of a plane crash. But the contemporary world is full of data, and on its basis we can conclude that certain species of snakes that live, let's say, in an area where we are planning to travel to are, in fact, not venomous.

Or that the likelihood of getting into a plane crash today is really extremely low. “If you take one flight a day, you would on average need to fly every day for 55,000 years before being involved in a fatal crash,” Executive Flyers quotes Arnold Barnett, who has calculated the chances of a plane crashing, and is an expert in the field of aviation safety and risk and Professor of Statistics at MIT. And now all that remains is to believe in the truth of the statistical data.

“Our belief in scary stories actually comes from ancient times, when fear was the most important driver of survival for people,” says Volodymyr Nemertsalov, a teacher and school principal from Odessa, Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. “Ancient people could hardly be convinced by logical arguments, but the classic 'The night is dark and full of horrors!' worked perfectly. Especially in cases where the listeners were small children - by default, more impressionable and gullible.”

“Hence all the numerous horrors of ancient fairy tales. Because, having told the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the narrator then always added that it is unlikely that the kids would be as lucky to have people passing near their grandma’s hut... and therefore, it is better not to walk through the forest wilderness at all. This worked quite successfully for many centuries, but today it plays a cruel joke on us, because we are accustomed to believing in scary stories - even if they are actually not scary at all," Volodymyr concludes.

In addition, many myths are often supported at the corporate or even state level - for example, about the risks of nuclear energy. At one time, large oil and gas exporters skillfully took advantage of the accidents at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and especially in Chernobyl, so that, for example, many European countries closed their nuclear power plants altogether.

At the same time, the impact of fossil fuels on the environment, as we can now see, turned out to be almost worse than from major accidents at nuclear power plants. Moreover, modern nuclear power plants are built with unambiguous consideration of the negative experience of their predecessors. But fears - fears have not gone away...

Well, in any case, we expect you to read this selection to its very end, and always remember that any concern should ideally have a rational basis. And be based on facts. Otherwise, it will be like sticking your foot out from under the blanket at night with childhood fears. Although... who knows, maybe it’s better to buy a bigger blanket. Well, you'd just better read and discuss everything in the comments, but as for the blanket - it’s better to just play it safe, isn’t it?