It’s infuriating in part because the defense - which has whittled its way down to the “common” man - is that this is “just the way things work”. As if we’re supposed to shrug our shoulders and just accept it.

Yeah, this isn’t really surprising to anyone who has studied ecology at any level. An ecosystem - like any living organism - seeks a homeostatic balance. If you do something to upset that balance, the system will work to correct it. The longer or more severe the upset in balance, the more the system will overcorrect.