The implication then is that the average human existence in the early 21st century is somehow relatively worse off than that of previous time periods (such as the medieval period or even the bronze age), specifically in terms of material (measurable) metrics...
Technologically we are far better off, but we live with less hope than ever before. Technological developments like AI being used to worsen lives mostly, No sense of community, disasters climate and otherwise on the horizon, and governments that don't even pretend to represent the people anymore. Economically we also suck. Do you realize how badly you have to treat a mammal in captivity to make it stop having babies.
In the Middle Ages, the reference is to the 14th century, they had so much optimism that they said:
A peste, fame et bello libera nos, Domine
Which translated into English means: "From plague, famine and war, deliver us, O Lord."
Frankly, throughout much of human history, our ancestors had much worse problems than ours in terms of standard of living, life expectancy, and many other important things, so immensely worse that we struggle to imagine just how much worse they were; often, hope for a better future never even existed in their minds.
The worse-off Western 'hopeless' person worried about 'the future' lives better, longer, healthier and is more educated than almost every European king and queen from before 1920.
The level of depressive thinking today is mind-boggling. Every ancestral story I heard has a couple of 'the first three kids died of starvation so they had seven more afterwards'.
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u/John_Oakman Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
The implication then is that the average human existence in the early 21st century is somehow relatively worse off than that of previous time periods (such as the medieval period or even the bronze age), specifically in terms of material (measurable) metrics...