If you’ve ever flown you’ve depended on fly by wire systems to keep you safe

If I’m flying it means I’ve already decided to put my trust in a pilot and it’s up to him to manage the risk of systems failures, not me. It’s an entirely different thing.

Now, if I were piloting a small plane myself, then it would be comparable – but I’d probably want to have mechanical linkages between the yoke and the control surfaces in that case, too!