If the status quo presents, say, an even chance that the world will get significantly worse, and a 5 percent chance that it will pass a tipping point and face a catastrophe, it would be prudent to take preventive action even if the catastrophic outcome is not certain, just as we buy fire extinguishers and insurance for our houses and don’t keep open cans of gasoline in our garages.

Steven Pinker, Enlightenment now: the case for reason, science, humanism, and progress, New York, 2018, p. 138