Life was not always better.

Me and me other half went for a bit of a walk not that long ago. During that walk we decided to have a walk through one of the cemeteries in Lancaster. Don't judge, we just wanted to have some romantic Gothic time.

I find it fascinating walking through some of these cemeteries. The information you can get just glancing at some of the headstones is pretty interesting. Especially when you find headstones like this one. Listing 4 children that died before reaching their second birthday. 

This used to be the reality not that long ago. Couples would have hordes of children. In the hope that at least some of those would reach adulthood. And this is still the reality in certain areas of the world.

Today this isn't the reality. Today the reality is that we have 2 sometimes 3 children and we can be pretty damn certain that they will reach adulthood. Go to university, get married, have children of their own, get divorced and hope for grandchildren of their own. 

And why is this? Well there are few factors. The biggest ones being improved healthcare. Both public and private. We have vaccines for illnesses that used to maim and/or kill children in their droves. We have antibiotics. We have ventilators. We have bronchodilators. We have defibrillators. We have radiotherapy. We have chemotherapy. We have insulin! We have some of the most amazing medicine in history that ever existed. With more on their way. 

We have more food today thanks to modern agriculture and genetic modifications. We can now feed more then we ever could. Thanks to lest pesticide usage. Thanks to being able to use less space that grows more per acre.

Public sanitation is of course miles better than it used to be. Again, thanks to modern technology and science. Drinking water is safer and better than it used it be.

Dentistry is at it's best today. With fluoridation of water and more. 

And yet... And yet we have people who want to demonise today's technology. In some cases they actively campaign against them, and want to make sure that less fortunate countries don't get them. They somehow think that everything was nice and rosy in the old days. That everything was so much better in the days before modern technology.

No, it was not. Life was dirty and short. You died. And you died horribly.

Vaccines save lives. Medicine save lives. GM technology save lives. Hippies and luddites don't.