Human suffering doesn’t just come from human actions.
Virtually all modern human suffering is the result of deliberate aggression or institutional neglect.
It also comes from natural causes, genetic defects, disasters, disease and parasites
We’ve had the technology to mitigate or eliminate these problems for decades.
We’ve had tools to minimize their impact and insulate against their consequences for centuries.
Natural events are nakedly exacerbated by greedy, gluttonous administrators. You can’t blame the Spanish Flu on “nature” because it was the direct result of factory farming and poor hygiene during mass troop mobilization.
You can’t dismiss the catastrophic storms wrecking major cities as we hit climate change peaks.
You can’t blame famine on deserts that formed in the wake of industrial mining and deforesting.
At some point you have to recognize humankind as an enormous global force within its own right. One that is responsible both for its own preservation and destruction.
The Garden of Eden is metaphorical in that sense. Eating the apple of knowledge means assuming control of your own destiny in a way no other organism on the planet can claim.
If all that exists was the last hundred years thwn you may have a point.
Even prior to the last century, the overwhelming bulk of human suffering was inflicted by other humans. Slavery, most prominently.
But you can’t just shrug aside the thousands of years before that.
You can go back to The Taiping Rebellion, New World colonization, and the Inquisition to find plenty of fully human made disasters before the last century.
Human suffering doesn’t just come from human actions.
It also comes from natural causes, genetic defects, disasters, disease and parasites
Virtually all modern human suffering is the result of deliberate aggression or institutional neglect.
We’ve had the technology to mitigate or eliminate these problems for decades.
We’ve had tools to minimize their impact and insulate against their consequences for centuries.
Natural events are nakedly exacerbated by greedy, gluttonous administrators. You can’t blame the Spanish Flu on “nature” because it was the direct result of factory farming and poor hygiene during mass troop mobilization.
You can’t dismiss the catastrophic storms wrecking major cities as we hit climate change peaks.
You can’t blame famine on deserts that formed in the wake of industrial mining and deforesting.
At some point you have to recognize humankind as an enormous global force within its own right. One that is responsible both for its own preservation and destruction.
The Garden of Eden is metaphorical in that sense. Eating the apple of knowledge means assuming control of your own destiny in a way no other organism on the planet can claim.
You take a very narrow view of history.
If all that exists was the last hundred years thwn you may have a point.
But you can’t just shrug aside the thousands of years before that.
Even prior to the last century, the overwhelming bulk of human suffering was inflicted by other humans. Slavery, most prominently.
You can go back to The Taiping Rebellion, New World colonization, and the Inquisition to find plenty of fully human made disasters before the last century.