> humanity survived just fine with regular hand soap in the bathroom for centuries.
What? No! No, we didn't do well at all! Child mortality in the US was 20% just a hundred years ago. What killed everyone? Infectious disease. Yeah, the entire human population didn't die out. Obviously your great grandparents both survived long enough to reproduce. Go check how many of their aunts, uncles, siblings, and children didn't.
The past sucked. Wealth and technology has made it much, much better. There are some drawbacks, but let's not pretend we were doing just fine without.
That's true in a general sense, but has technologically improved household soap in particular contributed measurably to the reduction in mortality rates? There are large contributions from antibiotics, vaccines, the general improvement in living quarters, improved workplace-safety regulations... I could even believe things like more frequent laundering play a role. But I'd be surprised if changes in the composition of household soap have improved health.
Clean water,public sanitation (my Dad used an outhouse until he reached his mid-twenties), Doctors washing their hands before operations/births, vaccines, all these were much more helpful in the past 100 years in reducing child mortality and adult mortality rates due to infectious diseases than anti-bacterial soap has in it's (what, 20 years?) period of commercial success.
> The past sucked. Wealth and technology has made it much, much better.
Yes, but "antibacterial hand soap in home bathrooms" isn't one of the ways that technology has made the world better than the past, except, perhaps, for people selling antibacterial hand soap.
Technology has made many positive changes to the world, but that doesn't mean that every use of technology is positive.
What? No! No, we didn't do well at all! Child mortality in the US was 20% just a hundred years ago. What killed everyone? Infectious disease. Yeah, the entire human population didn't die out. Obviously your great grandparents both survived long enough to reproduce. Go check how many of their aunts, uncles, siblings, and children didn't.
The past sucked. Wealth and technology has made it much, much better. There are some drawbacks, but let's not pretend we were doing just fine without.