It sort of depends on the specifics you’re talking about. By most metrics the world is about as good today (or perhaps very recently, pre-Corona) as it has ever been. Still tons of problems of course but in terms of % of populations suffering under war, in extreme poverty etc etc things are almost entirely better.
A main exception to this would be the pandemic going on right now since those are relatively rare events on this kind of scale then you could view that as us being especially fucked at the moment.
The other main exception to this would be climate change. The world has got better in most ways but not this one – it just keeps getting worse and if we haven’t already reached an unrecoverable tipping point most efforts to avoid us getting there will fall short according to most of our best science. Hopefully the scientists haven’t factored some things in or there are new game changing tech developments as otherwise this might be the one that really fucks us up. If we’re lucky the very very problematic part of that might still be a few generations away though…
The black death killed 75 to 200 mil people in eurasia.. That reduced the world population by 25%.. There was little to no healthcare constant wars.. Despotic leaders.. Mean life expectancy below 40..it was shite… We had people who fought in ww1 only to return home to a land ravaged by the spanish flu, a global recession followed by amother World War that turned most of Europe into a crater.. Yes things are shit now.. But as I type this on my phone while I wait for my shopping to be delivered to my door step so I can eat some crisps while I try and figure out what from the hundreds of hours of shows on netflix I will watch tonight! I do realise how lucky I am.
I believe we’re just more aware. 🤷♀️
Its kind of like overfilling the bat tub…
Is it the first drop or the last that matters the most?
We are more aware of how awful the world is now but less aware of how awful it used to be. Seriously. The past sucked. The world has always been a terrible place full of terrible people. If anything it’s less terrible now.