two important philosophical questions

Maybe the task of philosophy is not to answer philosophical questions as much as it is to figure out the right questions to pose. Asking the questions gets me focused on the area of thought I'm concerned with and good dialog can contribute to personal progress. With that in mind, here are the questions:

first
"What is the relationship between proximity and knowledge?"

second

"What is the relationship between risk and the meaningful life?"

I'm planning to dedicate some time to each question and ask some friends to do the same. Some thoughts (from a recent conversation) on the first question:

• proximity can relate to time, place, causation, etc.
• globalization seems to push us into a predicament where we're often making decisions without proximal knowledge
• can adopting a pre-packaged worldview be a means of avoiding seeking proximal knowledge?
• might we judge the truth/usefulness of a worldview based on the extent to which it advocates seeking proximal knowledge?
  
• what are some texts which address this question in one way or another (e.g. Hume's argument against miracles, conservationists advocating "buy local")
• do particular political points of view advocate proximal knowledge? States' rights? No child left behind?
• the legal system takes a point of view on this topic, is it fair?
  
• are there types of knowledge that have no relationship to proximity?
  

on the second question:

• people have different definitions of risk and meaning
• as humans we're fragile but it's hard to accomplish much in life without risk
• better to live deliberately than to be driven by fear
• to live at all is to take some risks, but a lot of these aren't perceived
• how is our perception of risk formed by society/culture/religion?

Those are just to get ideas flowing, we're all pretty busy at the moment so this conversation may take place over a number of months. Any direction you want to go with an answer I think would be worth while.

Other thoughts?