Yes. But this doesn’t mean that nothing is ever actually dangerous.

Sometimes people overreact to problems. Some people are fatalistic. Some social panics are groundless. None of this means that we live in a perfectly safe world.

Germany in 1935 was not a good place for Jews, Romani, or various other groups of people to stay. Some saw the warning signs and left. Others dismissed the warnings as alarmist and died.

The threat of nuclear annihilation was real, but humanity rose to the occasion and the Cold War never turned hot.

Chlorofluorocarbons really were burning a hole in the ozone layer, until they were successfully banned by international treaty. Afterward, the ozone layer recovered.

Some dangers that people warn about are fake. Others are real.

Humanity doesn’t always overreact to a challenge. Nor does it always underreact. In some cases, humanity even manages to do both simultaneously, e.g., countries building huge battleships for use in the next war when in fact they should have been building aircraft carriers. There isn’t a simple solution like “just ignore every supposed technological risk” or “just assume that every technological risk is real.” To figure out what’s true, you have to actually look at the details of each case.

(For more on this topic, refer to the introduction of the book.)