> This assumes 'we' (ie societies) are in a position to stop it
There’s major advantages to understanding the world as it is independent anything else. People make tradeoffs around harm all the time, pretending it doesn’t exist is pointless.
We can mitigate harm from earthquakes and blizzards independently from our ability to prevent such events. That comes from understanding such events as more than just acts of gods who would happily use other means should we try to mitigate the harm from earthquakes etc.