I think I hear what you're saying. It's about perspective. But I also think you made my point when you said "what regular markets looked like 100 years ago." That's exactly the problem. So yeah, they're not some evil contraption you'd see in a James Bond chase scene. But they're stuck in the past and our health standards have gone way up since then.

Or put more simply: we no-longer have to, and no-longer choose to accept that a percentage of humans are culled from time to time. We cherish and protect even our weakest.