The thing about The Worst ... is, you only ever hear about That..
in retrospect. 'Cause just-no-one ever wants to go there while there is (may.. be) still time to take annoying, boring? likely costly steps to forestall ... something so unLikely -- everyonehopes.)

Maybe that IS the reason why the only thing homo-sap 'learns from history' is: that we Don't.

[OK I won't even mention the ongoing, geometrically-increasing Problems with DOW's genetically-modified seeds. That movie, too will be on Nova (the stone tablets form, perhaps.)
All about the hubris of imagining that you know Enough, when the dim-young MBAs say; "Make a billion of these and let's see what happens.."]

What, Me Worry?
And I still like Edw. Teller's (lone?) memorable quip,
"The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to EMOTIONALLY comprehend the exponential function."

That and similar pithy quotes re, the profligacy of the human legacy can be found at:
http://www.systemsthinker.com/quotes/


Like..
"Men have become the tools of their tools. "
=- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"Good biology without good philosophy will be a calamity."
-- George Will

And so it goes.. (Kurt V. natch)