> Secondly, testing instills a fear of code, like code is a monster under the bed that could do anything if you don't constantly have a flashlight under there pinning it down
In my experience, testing frees you from that fear. You have empirical evidence that you haven't broken things.
My company does Continuous Integration as a service. You would be utterly amazed at how often our customers break their code with tiny innocuous changes.
> How many people test their tests for correctness? Then test their test-testing programs for correctness? "Test all the things!" is an infinite loop.
Try to think of testing in terms of the value it brings to your business. Adding the first few tests to a module has immense value. Adding tests for the edge cases has some value, but you're probably at break even unless it's breaking in production [1]. Adding tests to test the tests? I would say that is valueless in nearly all cases [2].
[1] Bonus: use Airbrake to find the edge cases that happen in real life, and only add tests for them
[2] If you're writing software for cars, planes, medical stuff or transferring money, there is probably value here.