[TimTheTinker]

If you're ever lucky enough to ask someone in a western nation who came of age before World War II "What made the biggest positive difference in quality of life over the 20th century?" they'd most likely say "penicillin". It makes a tremendous positive difference not having to deal with the constant barrage of severe disease and death that was so common before modern vaccines and antibiotics.

At the same time, death to many of us has become little more than an abstract concept, something relegated mostly to the very old. With less suffering and death, we have less to ground us in an inescapable urgency about life, or a sense of immediate and pressing purpose. I'm convinced if it weren't for penicillin and vaccines, people would generally take life more seriously; there'd also be a lot more religious feeling, fervor, and searching.