I’d say that OP’s point is the odds are so low, that it is OK to play them.

> 99.8% of the children who go missing do come home.

> Only about 100 children (a fraction of 1%) are kidnapped each year in the stereotypical stranger abductions you hear about in the news.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/in-a-yea...

> In a Year, Child-Protective Services Checked Up on 3.2 Million Children

> 2.5 million of those kids were declared 'non-victims.' Another 686,000 were 'abused' or 'neglected.' And an estimated 1,640 kids died as a result.

To be fair, one of these has a much higher rate of incident than the other.

Personally, I'm more concerned with the quality and accuracy of CPS than I am about child abduction simply because a 10% improvement in CPS would save more lives than a 100% reduction in child abductions.

Then again, I feel that way about medical errors vs. terrorism and the value of spending money to save lives. A 10% reduction of medical errors would save more lies than a 100% reduction in terrorism. :/

I do agree that the risk of terrorism is massively overrated. I think this is because terrorism requires 'agency' and thus feels both worse and more preventable.

It was meant to represent the impossible goal of 100% success, not that I actually meant it was achievable. I don't think we can substantially reduce terrorism below current levels.

There is always going to be some group of people who are angry and violent as long as humanity hasn't achieved the Singularity imo.

I don't want to come across as crass, but, with respect, I will make this short observation:

You trust your child's life to hundreds of strangers every time you drive them somewhere. The chance of your child being hurt by a careless/bored/insane stranger on a per trip basis is very, very low. I assert that the risk of child services becoming involved after you let your child play on a trampoline (or whatever) is even less.