An interesting example (or maybe counterexample) is thinking about how your first paragraph is relevant at any point in history. Compared to sticks, a bow causes asymmetrical damage.
I think this is part of what makes it so scary. The current changes are nothing new, it's just that we're approaching the point where these threats can be existential. Once that happens, unless something really massive has changed in human society, it's probably game over.
How are drones a bigger existential threat than nuclear weapons? If anything drones look absolutely inferior to what came before. They are expensive and low in capability.
And that argument is exhibit A for why Mars colonization is so important. It gives us a second chance to figure out how to live with existential threats.
Extra terrestrial expansion will be the magnus opum of a species that has adopted science as a standard. For a few decades, such an inhospitable location will become a mecca for "the best of us" (off world or not).
The conditions necessary for successful mission executions will insulate this unique group of colonists from the existential threats created by citizens naturally responding to their failed government (drug cartel would not exist if humanity could find a place and purpose for everyone).
I'd imagine that this is our own version of the "filter" described in the root comment. The high standards of heavily funded interstellar ventures will bring together strong-willed, healthy, intelligent, empathetic, curious, and ambitious men&women to operate several light-minutes away from Earth. These are the types of people we should want to be breeding with each other for a few generations in order to produce higher quality citizens that will carry on the project (surely there will be medical implications rearing children in 0.5 G, see lifelong asteroid miner portrayal in "the Expanse").
But that is not a useful term here because there is a finality to it. The filter and expansion just sets the stage for someone to one day be able to exist and conjure up something as vast as a Dyson Sphere (or Halo).
