We do not know if we live in a world any more risky than those of earlier generations. It is not the quantity of risk, but the quality of control or—to be more precise—the known uncontrollability of the consequences of civilisational decisions, that makes the historical difference. Therefore, I use the term “manufactured uncertainties.” The institutionalised expectation of control, even the leading ideas of “certainty” and “rationality” are collapsing. …the main difference between the premodern culture of fear and the second modern culture of fear is: in premodernity the dangers and fears could be attributed to gods or God or nature and the promise of modernity was to overcome those threats by more modernisation and more progress—more science, more market economy, better and new technologies, safety standards, etc. In the age of risk, the threats we are confronted with cannot be attributed to God or nature but to “modernisation” and “progress” itself. Thus, the culture of fear derives from the paradoxical fact that the institutions that are designed to control produced uncontrollability. Ulrich Beck, On Fear and Risk Society, Interview with Joshua J Yates, the Hedgehog Review