Civilization has shifted the emphasis from ‘fighting’ to ‘caring’. We have attributed more value to a human life. Life used to be cheap. Good life was only for the most assertive and aggressive, as far, at least, if they managed to survive the struggle. They got the best women too. An individual was expendable. We have shifted to an inclusive society, that saves as many lives as possible.
Without that, the death toll of Covid could already have amounted tens of millions today. Without that, we could already have colonized the Moon, but perhaps at the cost of one in three flights from or to getting lost with all hands. A Challenger or Columbia disaster would have been part of daily life, not a world headline. Plane crashes! Nowadays, all efforts are done to retrieve bodies and find the cause. There are however airliner wreckages on mountain tops with the bodies still inside. That was 60 years ago : shit happens, they said about it.
Our care is embedded in an institutional context. We have now the Precautionary Principle. Do not, if it could cause harm. Intended to protect people against unpredictable or concealed side effects. We have a Stand-still principle, intended to avoid damage to our environment.
The intention of saving lives by caring policies is also a survival strategy, it offers more people a good life quality, but, right, it will not bring us to Mars very soon.