Safe

Safety is an emotion - and should be managed as such.

But is it...(anxious pause filled with fear)...safe? 

Over my life of international travel and outdoor adventure, I've been asked this question scores of times. While on the surface this seems like a straightforward question, it hides a contradiction. The structure of the question assumes safety is a fact like color or weight or height. In reality, though, safety is less like a fact and more like an emotion. 

Why? Because while safety can be defined in terms of statistical probability (i.e. any situation where the risk of danger is less than a 1% chance of happening), the more relevant definition (and the one more often in play when someone asks “Is it … safe?”) is the condition of feeling safe. While we’re all capable of understanding the statistical facts about risk and danger, what tends to capture our attention is more often the emotion that surrounds risk and danger. The remarkably low statistical probability of a plane crashing, for example, is irrelevant to many at takeoff or during turbulence. 

Seeing safety as an emotion reveals how often it is manipulated to generate sales, votes, or behavior modification. Buyer beware.