I think you're being too harsh saying that it's trivial to think about after all philosophers and such have talked and written about these things and I don't think they're trivial minded folks.
I do agree that it's not something to lose sleep over but this isn't a black/white issue. I'll cop out and say that Mankind has achieved a lot but in the long view of the Earth's age and how long humanity has been around we're just babies. Unfortunately like babies we tend to grasp towards things that can cause us harm. We're at the cusp from being a Type 0 civilization to a Type 1 Civilization. It's this jump that's the hardest and many theoreticians believe that's why we haven't seen so many alien civilizations out there because most civilizations fail in this important transition.
So in the end we've achieved a lot but we have more probability to cause our own downfall.