As a computer engineer, the likelihood of me contributing to a 'cure for <x>', is very very low. I'd like to focus on things that I can solve, or work towards.
So telling people to stop trying to solve something (that is an actual problem), because something else should be a higher priority.....seems kind of ridiculous.
As for attributing terrorism to "modern life", I think that's a joke. We should just ACCEPT mass murder?
Also, people DON'T accept car deaths, there are huge segments of the population working towards reducing car deaths (that's kind of the whole point behind autonomous cars, as I understand it).