Well, historically, we didn't. Infant mortality is continuously at record lows. Modern medicine means that we can handle many things that can/do go wrong.
We're effectively propagating that difficulty and it compounds generationally (imagine your bloodline has unusually large heads...) but we're smart enough to circumvent fate and the net result would appear to be positive.
Much of what humans do approaches the limit of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Is life better than it has ever been, practically speaking, everywhere? With some exception granted to the last couple of years, yes, and even without, probably yes.
I find it rather disturbing to think about. Diversification is really our only long term hope (hedging so to speak) and in many ways we're constantly moving away from that. If we were suddenly space faring colonizers, or if there were another dark age, then that would cease to be true, for better or for worse.
We're effectively propagating that difficulty and it compounds generationally (imagine your bloodline has unusually large heads...) but we're smart enough to circumvent fate and the net result would appear to be positive.
Much of what humans do approaches the limit of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Is life better than it has ever been, practically speaking, everywhere? With some exception granted to the last couple of years, yes, and even without, probably yes.
I find it rather disturbing to think about. Diversification is really our only long term hope (hedging so to speak) and in many ways we're constantly moving away from that. If we were suddenly space faring colonizers, or if there were another dark age, then that would cease to be true, for better or for worse.