I was only saying that we managed just well enough without firefighters and medics for thousands of years, had they been really “essential” we would have kept/invented those trades well before we actually did. Were you to have asked my peasant grandmother what she reguarded as more essential between a doctor and a priest she would have totally chosen the priest, reason being that she knew she was going to die anyway (we all will) but the priest was one of the only persons who could take care of her soul.

Again, doctors and firefighters might look “essential” for a secular and technological society like ours (one where we’re afraid of death and where we value physical stuff that could burn) but that hasn’t always been the case. It still isn’t in many parts of the world.

100 years ago if you cut yourself shaving, you might die and no doctor could help. We have since upgraded our expectations in medical outcomes.

> yourself shaving, you might die and no doctor could help

In my parts of the world (Eastern Europe) often times the barber was also the doctor and the dentist (was called "felcer).

> ad they been really “essential” we would have kept/invented those trades well before we actually did

Unless things change over time, as such requiring new facilities. We didn't have nuclear power station inspectors (or regulations) thousands of years ago, so are they also non-essential?

> It still isn’t in many parts of the world

There are "many" places in the world were death is not feared and people are happy to see their stuff burn? Barring nomadic jungle tribes with no persistent possessions or home locations in the first place, which societies are you describing?

The fact that our ancestors commonly died of tuberculosis doesn't mean they where happy to do so.