[golemotron]

> I think fear is a natural human attribute left over from an earlier time in human existence, I really do.

It's not a leftover, it's a survival mechanism. If fear were stripped away from a person or a society, it wouldn't last long. It's easy to think that rational thought would keep people from dancing on the edge of a cliff but rationality can be undermined through persuasion, self-delusion, and lack of conscious attention. The limbic system evolved as a attempt to keep us safe prior to logical thought and it still does the job.

[wmccullough]

Fair enough, these are good points. I didn't state it but what comes to mind for me is that surviving isn't nearly as hard from a physical perspective (At least not in the U.S.), but I think our fear has been replaced. We no longer need to kill a wildebeest by hand to get its food, but we do have to maintain a job to get food.