Does the presence of a safety net make people too reckless, lazy and dependent? Or does it allow people to experiment, develop skills in a secure environment and prevent the penalization of healthy high spirits.

This could be an argument about how to run a circus. A trapeze act is no fun if the safety net is pitched too close to the performers so that a fall becomes no fall at all. The performers' skills are honed by the awareness of danger. If all the danger they have to worry about is a mild graze or two on their knees, there is really very little incentive to train, sharpen their sense of balance or keep themselves physically fit.

On the other hand, if the safety net is pitched too low to serve its purpose, or indeed if it is not even there at all, the performers would simply be too petrified for too much of the time to perform all but the safest of acts on the menu. That too, would be no fun at all. Nobody would come to watch performers go through such a dull routine. Thus, both too much and too little safety end up having the same unfortunate effect: closure of the circus for lack of an audience.