I can definitely understand this point of view, but there's also another way of looking at things. Nobody in a million years would have ever wished for somethi

I can definitely understand this point of view, but there's also another way of looking at things. Nobody in a million years would have ever wished for something like the Black Death. It was a catastrophe like none before (at least that we know of) and certainly none since. It claimed the lives of upwards of half of the human population in Europe. Such a catastrophe, yet it played a major role in setting into the motion the social changes that would eventually lead to the end of feudalism and the advent of mercantilism. It played a key role in shaping a vastly more liberated society. Or consider nuclear weapons. These weapons were only used against other people twice. It was a heinous act with immense cost. Yet far beyond just ending that war - as was the purpose of their use, those weapons of unimaginable destruction signaled the end of all outright warfare between developed nations. It makes one wonder if in some parallel world, if the weapons' destructive power was never demonstrated on humans might we have been more likely to eventually end up in nuclear annihilation with countries, such as in the Cold War, far more willing to press that red button? Should human caused catastrophic climate change should come to pass it's not particularly hard to foresee the lessons and behaviors we might learn and enact from such. And one can only imagine what social changes might occur. Of course would indeed be much nicer if this was not how we collectively learned, but a civilization and a young child have one thing very much in common. You can tell them not to put their finger in the fire all you want, yet they will inevitably learn that lesson not by instruction but by scorched digit.