This refers to the fear of things that usually do not go wrong in life. Such fear, although it seems irrational at first, could be useful for the survival of populations as it could save them from some potentially disastrous consequences. People living in traditional societies, for instance, usually adopted certain practices that might seem completely irrational to observers in modern times. But these practices, some argue, may have saved them from contingencies that either do not occur at all or can be easily solved in modern societies. The term was coined by American anthropologist Jared Diamond.
