He talks a little bit, by the way, about one of my favorite books–Ernest K. Gann’s Fate is the Hunter. And points out that–well, I hope you watch it so you can see for yourselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXbdJ3kyVyU

From the description of that book you linked”

It postulates that behaviour is governed by the probable costs and benefits of alternative courses of action which are perceived through filters formed from all the previous incidents and associations in the risk-taker’s life.;

Which is why attempting to isolate children from risk has created adults without awareness of, or even interest in, negative consequences of decisions.

By the time people finally start calibrating their risk meters, the stakes can be enormous. Lacking understanding and practice, they weigh risk poorly and the consequences of unbalanced risk aversion, not at all.

A classic example is seat belts, where an increase in safety inside the vehicle is more than cancelled out in most populations by and increase in injuries to pedestrians, cyclists and other less well armoured road users.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Risk-John-Adams/dp/1857280687/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357894183&sr=1-1

My fiancé and I used to stop when we passed a playground while on a walk, and swing in the swings.

Sometime in the ’60′s, it was realized that those flat seats could clobber children in the cranium, and all the schools and parks replaced them with the flexible rubber strips. Not much good for standing up in, and not very comfortable to sit in either. Goodbye swinging.

Eventually it was discovered that even the strips hurt if you got clouted by the edge of one; but worse, there was still the possibility that a kid might fall out of the swing.

I haven’t seen a swing, nor a jungle gym, nor a teeter-totter, nor one of those kid-powered merry-go-rounds in a playground in many, many years.

Meanwhile, there have been cases where the grandparents have been sued by the parents because the kids have gotten hurt on their parents’ old swings in the grandparents’ back yard.

When I was a kid, the lucky ones among us had trees, and dads who drilled two holes in a board with rounded edges, threaded a good long sturdy rope through the holes, and tied the ends around a stout branch. Ours must’ve been at least 10′ off the ground. Swinging in it was pure heaven–I could swing for hours (or so it seemed).

It was guaranteed that you’d fall out of the swing at least once each year, and twice every other year because the rope always broke at some point. Usually didn’t fall very far. Never got more out of it than a skinned knee.

I sure miss the swings.

Oops, did I upset the apple cart again? Sorry.

The genie is out – it can never be put back in.