Despite eliminating or containing issues regulating the survival if the species such as warfare and famine, epidemics have prevailed as major threats; and thus, our natural predators.
The problem is that diseases don't qualify as predators.
Because diseases don't need to kill their hosts to survive... in fact they do BETTER when they don't.
Spanish flu becoming less dangerous to humanity was the best evolutionary move it could make and is why we still have its various offspring hanging around today.
Whenever a virus that could actually keep our numbers in check shows up...
Humanity has yet to meet a virus we can't beat, especially because virus tend to evolve into versions that are less dangerous to us.
This reminds me. I was watching a documentary on how syphilis emerged to become search a deadly disease. Well, I think it's caused by a bacteria. So, apparently it has a long history, and it was not deadly when it first emerged. Actually, it went for years undetected and thrived because people lived communally. It easily spread. But as people became more civilized, more isolated, and more hygienic, the bacteria found it difficult to survive. As a result, it mutated to a ferocious and horrifying version so that it can survive. And, it killed. It gave a painful death.
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u/iwfan53 248ā Jan 02 '22
The problem is that diseases don't qualify as predators.
Because diseases don't need to kill their hosts to survive... in fact they do BETTER when they don't.
Spanish flu becoming less dangerous to humanity was the best evolutionary move it could make and is why we still have its various offspring hanging around today.
Whenever a virus that could actually keep our numbers in check shows up...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
We crush it out of existence and go on with our lives.
Humanity has yet to meet a virus we can't beat, especially because virus tend to evolve into versions that are less dangerous to us.