Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

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Everyone who made it out of childhood thanks to antibiotics and vaccines should probably reject takes like this.

Technology has solved the vast majority of all of the major problems of human beings throughout all of human civilization. Agriculture is technology. Writing is technology. Inks and paper are technology. Pharmaceuticals are technology. Heart surgery is technology. The modern industrial supply chain is technology. Transportation is technology. Seatbelts and blood typing to enable blood transfusions - technology.

It is theoretically possible that technology could solve the problem of death itself.

To make claims to the contrary, which would be extraordinary, something a great deal more substantial than a handwavey dismissal is required.

I don't think anyone is talking here about going without antibiotics or modern agriculture. More like curbing excess production of concrete (making construction more sustainable) and metals (reducing automobilism and other wasteful means of transport).

The revolutions or sometimes evolutions resulting in democrat nations with regulated market based economies are what allowed the rapid pace of innovating you are praising. Those revolutions were radical social changes.

Nothing in your post rebukes the claim made by the parent.

Sure, we now survive childhood based on vaccines, but remember that there was a time between the disease appearing and the vaccine being developed, and in that time we used simpler methods to try survive.

The issue is not what the world will be like in 200 years when the climate crisis is solved, it's how we get there. Tech takes decades to research, design, and develop; we need ways to limit the damage that can be implemented in years to limit the effects we'll see in our lifetimes. I agree tech will be the end solution, but continuing to burn at current rates while we wait for that is going to cause, or already is causing, massive problems.

> Sure, we now survive childhood based on vaccines, but remember that there was a time between the disease appearing and the vaccine being developed, and in that time we used simpler methods to try survive.

50% of children died before their 5th birthday

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