Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational" would be a great read for you. Humans suck at abstraction, full stop, and our impressions of risk are shaped very much by societal expectations. Ariely points out that the most dangerous thing in modern life is stairs, and has been for 5,000 years. But since we have no alternative to stairs, we accept the risk of stairs and assign it to zero.

We're 30 years into computers, which is nothing from an evolutionary perspective. We're 20 years into social media. Kids at the park by themselves? We're 30 years into America's Most Wanted and the ABC Sunday Night Movie. Both are more than 10 years gone, though, so the backlash is well-advanced. My kid stays home alone for hours at a time and when I mention this to fellow parents they're all at "whew, ours too" because while they know they'll be judged, they also know that fuckin' hell an eleven year old can manage on her own with an iPad for a couple hours fer chrissake. I think we're starting to see the turn on social media, too.

A dreary percentage of this country wants serfs. A much bigger percentage wants to be serfs. Turns out they're all white.