*Sigh.*
I'm sure we wouldn't be as intelligent as we are now without a million years of being dragged through various lethal evolutionary knotholes either, but that doesn't make it fun.
Involuntary servitude was the foundation of several prosperous nations--like Australia--but I still bet their ancestors would have preferred emigrating above the decks in a nice stateroom, and that doesn't make it a recommended method of founding nations.