The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Imagine one day that they find a cure for cancer, and another for the common cold. Maybe they also find a cure for hunger, like in Nancy Kress’ book Beggars and Choosers. Then everything will be different and we’ll all finally be happy and there will be no more sadness or pain!

Right?

I remember a Star Trek episode where an ambassador was afflicted with some alien degenerative disease. The ship’s doctor complained to the captain that his disease did not respond to any of their 24th-century advanced medicine, that despite the fact that they knew how to cure virtually every disease known to us now, they weren’t going to be able to cure the ambassador. I realized that this was a device used by the scriptwriter in order to tell this story, that the near-magical medical technology in Sickbay was going to keep him from telling his story unless he wedged something in there.

But I found it believable, even expected. Seems like as soon as we get one enemy licked (like smallpox or polio) another pops up (like AIDS or autism). The stories remain the same, even though the scenery changes.

Five hundred years ago, someone who lost the use of their legs would be severely limited. Today, a double-amputee can be outfitted to be able to sprint well enough that they risk being barred from the Olympics due to the unfair advantage their prostheses confer. But the story of the lame man from 1500 A.D. is still with us, with a different name for the disease—perhaps cerebral palsy, or a traumatic brain injury.

We can’t seem to finagle a landscape that doesn’t have any holes in it. A society that undertakes mass literacy will certainly be better off, but it creates a new kind of poverty for the remaining illiterate people, a kind that didn’t exist before. Our modern dependence on cars means that people too weak or disabled to walk for miles a day are still able to participate in society, but it also means that having a junky car that breaks down frequently is a new kind of disability that rushes in to fill the gap.

The conservation of energy means that research into perpetual motion machines is futile; the conservation of narrative means that it’s futile to try to tweak ourselves and our world to guarantee a perfect absence of poverty.

The poor you will always have with you… Matthew 26:11