This kind of global awareness is a very new thing in human history. As late as the last century, news from far-flung places took time to reach the ears and eyes even of governments, never mind ordinary folk.

Ignoring or distancing the problems of others is also hard-wired into us, to an extent. we find it very hard to truly acknowledge the lives, or even existence, of more than a couple of hundred individuals, because that's roughly the size of the hunter-gatherer tribes we evolved in and that our genes and basic instincts still expect us to live in. As has been said before, we are meant to recognise every face we see every day, not be aware of the struggles and joys of others half a world away.

The unnatural way we now live is forcing us to think in ways our brains are not really designed for. That's why things are such a mess.