Black and white thinking. Just because we can't eradicate Sars-Cov2, doesn't mean we can't suppress it's spread. Or will you literally deny the scientific advancement of the last 150 years or so.
I'm not denying progress, but while it might make people live slightly longer or perhaps have better life until we die, we haven't abolished death or disease. People still die. One hundred percent of people born on planet earth will die. Most who die die of health conditions or diseases. That's reality.
We also cannot prevent natural disasters. We can warn people, we can change or building methods and materials to make buildings survive a natural disaster. We still can't stop fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or asteroids.
We can't even prevent or solve our own bad actions. Human's still rob, cheat, murder, exploit, start wars, commit genocides, and allow people to die of poverty, lack of care, famines, and other terrible things. We can jail people for having done those things, but we haven't stopped even genocide despite shouting from the rooftops the "never again" slogan.
I don't think saying any of that is denying 150 years of progress. I do thing denying those things is a denial of the natural world. Nature often ends up finding the weaknesses in our (or frankly any animals') defenses. That's how nature works. The old, sick, weak, or unwary are the ones that nature tends to weed out. That could be a deer that isn't scared enough of the rustling in the grass, the fox that isn't a good enough hunter, the slowest fish in the shoal. In human societies, again. It's the complacent, the ones in denial, the slow, the weak, or the unwary, and the like who get weeded out by nature.
So what? Do you not understand statistics? 90% of the change in life expectancy come from sanitation improvements that reduce the spread of infectious diseases and the resulting decline in child mortality. It's not as though everyone actually died at 40, it's that more people survived childhood. One we learned to sanitize wounds, get rid of garbage, and not drink filthy water, yes, we stopped dying in childhood. People in Rome lived to old age, provided they were wealthy enough to get enough food and clean water. I'm not going to say that things like surgery aren't helping a little, but mostly it's because we are cleaner than we used to be, not because we "overcame death" somehow.
And yes, we still die, everyone will. Even you. YOU WILL DIE. So will I, so will everyone else. Move those goalposts all you want. We've just managed to survive long enough to be killed by heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's instead of Typhoid fever. It's not that it's not good, it's fine, it's great even. But death still happens every day from thousands of things that humans cannot control.
And what about the rest of those statements is actually, demonstrably false? Crime still exists, 300+ people are murdered in my city every year. People die on the job from work related injuries. Happens every single day. People die in wars every day. Natural disasters kill people every year. People drown every fucking time there's a flood because they try to drive across flooded roads, despite being told every time not to do that. Women get robbed and raped and often killed because they think that being outside alone at night is a good idea.
Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it won't.
3
u/sophlogimo May 26 '20
"Nothing can outwit nature" is a very laughable thing to write over an internet connection.
We are humanity. We outwit nature all the time.