There are several things we look back in history which instantly make us shudder.
Wars, acts of terrorism, shootings.
We can even say the same of our own lives, as we look back on family illnesses, break-ups or terrifying travel experiences.
It's easy to say that these are events or memories which we wish had never happened.
However, if we stop and reflect, we might realize that all of the above, and more, were important stepping stones in our lives and the course of history.
As they were all valuable learning experiences which shaped our lives, and the world, for the better.
A "necessary evil", if you will.
"What is a great example of a necessary evil?"
A Natural Warning Sign
"The ability for the human body to feel pain."
"As exploitable as it is, without this ability to feel pain the life expectancy would go way down because people often wouldn't realize something was wrong with their body until it was too late to do anything about it."
"Pain is the body's natural defense mechanism to protect itself against further injury."- Music_Girl2000
Even If You Still Want More Chips
"That air in you bag of chips stops the chips from getting crushed on delivery."
"We all wish there could just be more chips but you need that air."- ArminTanz
Hungry Full House GIFGiphyKicking Cancer In The Butt...
"Chemotherapy."- Qazax1337
Everyone Needs To Be Served A Slice Of Humble Pie...
"If you don't experience sitting down and being humbled, you're all the more likely to not only let success go to your head but to take things for granted."- ImaginaryCharges
Everyone Deserves The Right To A Fair Trial
"A lawyer defending an alleged murderer etc."- qqqrrrs_
Episode 16 Reaction GIF by Law & OrderGiphyA Little Perspective Goes A Long Way
"If we manage not to engage in a nuclear war, we will probably look back on the century or centuries we had them pointed at each other as being the single most important factor in not engaging in massive warfare every decade."
"People forget that the firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and it was nothing compared to Dresden, and that was comparable to Nanjing, which was nothing compared to the Holocaust, which was nothing compared to the Eastern front, in which an estimated 30 million people died."
"Before that, we had WW1, which setup the political and economic stage for WW2."
"Before WW1, we had various wars of colonialism that setup the imperial rivalries from Europe."
"After WW2, the entire world seemed to be teetering on the edge of another global conflict every decade that was only truly staved off by the possibility that the entire human race would be annihilated if such an event occurred."
"People on every continent have engaged in brutal wars ever since, but the specter of global war and the potential for nuclear holocaust has tempered these conflicts immensely."
"If we manage to outgrow the need to be pointing a gun at each other's heads, our great-great grandchildren might think of us as having been silly, but they should have an appreciation that their peace is because we came close to ending it all."-tacit_urn
Let It Rip...
"Farting, it stinks and it's embarrassing but we'd be in constant agony without it."- OutlawCountryFan
Evil In The Classic Sense...
"D&D villains."
"Hard to run a decent campaign without one or two of them."
"I used to run a home game with close friends and family so luckily I never had that problem player or a murder hobo party but never say never."- Clear-Owl-378
Role Playing Magic GIF by Dungeons & DragonsGiphyIt Takes Being Sad To Realize How Happy You Are
"Sadness."
"You can't be happy all the time."
"It isn't healthy."
"You have to take the good with the bad."
"You learn to cope and move on from it."- PracticalyWorker
Literal Necessary Evil
"I don’t know, but in the 'Engineer Trilogy', a great low fantasy series in a weird renaissance/medieval mashup world, they call their war department the Department of Necessary Evil."
"Which I always loved."- malenkydroog
There are countless things we find ourselves going to great efforts to avoid, or wish would never happen.
Hard as these things may be to endure, however, they must happen nonetheless for progress to be made.
The Black Death is notable for wiping out much of the population of continental Europe. It was a terrible, devastating, and protracted event that was no doubt traumatic for those who managed to survive it.
But did you know that it led directly to the average person having a say in how they are ruled? With a shortage of workers, peasants found themselves with considerably more bargaining power. Migration patterns changed and different towns and cities grew out of the wreckage.
It's wild to think about: If the plague had not happened, would we all still be serfs?
But the Black Death isn't the only historical event with a macabre silver lining. People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor follopie asked the online community,
"What are some of the 'necessary evils' of history?"
"Allowing some attacks..."
"Allowing some attacks to take place even after Hitler's Enigma encryption device was cracked by the English and they knew when and where the attacks would occur. They could only act on the intelligence to thwart attacks if they could quickly come up with an alternate way to find out which the Germans would find believable."
wanted-to-upvote
To which this person replied:
"Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon really does a great job of explaining this concept. Bounces back and forth between WWII and current day (well, ten or so years ago) drawing parallels between cryptography at the beginning of computers and encryption now."
countryhacker
"The only ways schools could get human bodies legally..."
"Body snatching in the 19th century."
"Medical schools would illegally buy human bodies that were dug up from graves in order to study anatomy and teach medical students in secret, because at the time it was illegal and not acceptable to use human bodies for Science or education purposes."
"The only way schools could get human bodies legally was from death-sentenced people who also had been condemned to dissection on top of that by the courts, which was very rare and couldn't supply enough bodies for medical schools."
"So there was a literal black market of dead bodies and the body snatchers would risk death penalty themselves to make profit from digging up bodies that were freshly buried. The bodies of young adult people were particularly sought after and expensive."
"But it also allowed scientists and students to learn about anatomy and improve surgery techniques, which allowed medicine as a whole to make a lot of progress and saved many lives in the end."
cocOtte
To which this person replied:
"This reminds me of the ethics dilemma around the use of data acquired from Nazi human experimentation. Or data acquired from 'testing' at Unit 731."
"Do we keep the data? Or toss it because we acquired it in a really f**ked up way?"
TheRockObama
"They have been instrumental..."
"One of the necessary evils through history has to be the experimentation on animals, specifically mice. They have been instrumental in our understanding of diseases."
Killdozah
To which this person replied:
"There's a pretty cool statue in Russia, honoring lab mice."
Zombiehacker595
"There's a school of thought..."
"Possibly the Agricultural Revolution."
"There's a school of thought that argues that it led to a diminished diet and poorer health for everyone, greater social inequality between classes and gender, and greater instances of warfare between and within sedentary and nomadic societies. So life really sucked for countless generations of humans for thousands of years."
"And yet it created the conditions for a population boom and the division of labour needed for humans to get really, really good at more specialized trades, skills, and learning, and here we are."
SodarnHinsane
To which this person replied:
"I feel like all you really need to do to negate the negative effects of modern society etc. is restructure cities to allow more natural things around us."
accomplishedpilot2
"All the people..."
"All the people that died trying berries, mushrooms, and other foods to see if they were poisonous. Somebody had to do it."
OneTyler2Many
To which this person replied:
"It truly sucked to be them."
[deleted]
"World War II..."
"World War II is controversial but it was the main factor why there has never been a major war since."
Starlight3020
To which this person replied:
"That and more importantly nuclear weapons. Even if Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t the main reason Japan surrendered, the fear of nuclear warfare has all but eliminated conflict between major powers in the 80+ years of relative peace."
YoungPacofgbm
"Starting a world war..."
"Starting a world war over the invasion of Poland. Sanctions against Libya. The killing of Osama bin Laden."
Rudaur
To which this person replied:
"Fair. Absolutely fair."
[deleted]
"Most wars..."
"Most wars lead to technological and medical advancements that likely never would have occurred without war."
llcuff80
To which this person replied:
"There is a concept called opportunity cost in economics. In a world of limited resources, it means that resources invested in one thing are resources not invested in something else. Whatever you do, there's always a tradeoff."
"War doesn't cause technological advancements to occur, it just directs those advancements towards certain goals."
Ellakastekat
"Dinosaurs..."
"Dinosaurs had to go for mammals to rise up as the dominant order on Earth."
Drakisright
To which this person replied:
"Earth would have been better if the dinosaurs continued being the dominant species."
CyclonsInaPoliceBox
"It broke the back..."
"Sherman's March. It broke the back of the Confederacy. Scorched Earth but at quite the cost."
Krd167
To which this person replied:
"In his own words: 'War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.'"
Whiteshark49
The world is not black and white. It exists, in fact, in certain shades of gray. Something to think about as we continue to reap the benefits of modern-day living.
Have some observations of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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