Also nothing says survivor bias as statements like:

  And yet every single one of my friends managed to survive this now-impossible freedom

However, I agree with you. Kids raised in dangerous rural areas do learn. I had my fair share of close calls as a child in my city! I feel lucky to have had so much freedom. 30 years later I was told one guy I knew as a child was convicted of pedophilia: I still remember his awesome basement but I don't recall any bad close call with him (perhaps I was ugly : sorry sicko).

We don't notice many dangerous close calls. Hopefully we learn from from other close calls we did notice... I remember hammering a blank gun cartridge (ramset) until it exploded and thinking I shouldn't do that again. I also did a lot things with fire that I shouldn't have!

Some high risk activities are difficult to learn from. Philip K Dick writing about the dangers of the drugs he took: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29642422