C'on Ibian, we have never in history lived better than we do for the past few decades. Or can you point out any moment in time you would have better preferred to live?
this depends entirely on the metrics you measure your quality of life with. Also, as always, social class has a great influence.
I think I would be perfectly happy as a petty aristocrat in Roman Britain for example. For many, a life in a clean and abundant environment with actual unclaimed wonder over the horizon would be far preferable to today's dystopian prison web of interstate highways, satellites and "social media".
Well, I am sure you would be happy if you were so lucky as to land on the good side of the coin and you weren't already used to how we do live today. Most people weren't as lucky, as differences between "classes" were way more significant than nowadays.
But yeah, let's assume you are one of those aristocrats and compare what they had in comparison to what every average person has nowadays:
PROS:
- The difference between you and plebs are HUGE, so you feel privileged.
- You can even abuse lower classes with almost or no consequences.
- Anything else?
CONS:
- Your life expectancy is WAY lower than nowadays.... It is very probable you would already be dead.
- Even if you have way more and better food than the plebs, it is nothing in comparison to what every average joe can have nowadays.
- You are always at high risk of: Being ill and die, being attacked and die, being ....... and die. Death is just around every corner.
- You can be easily abused by anyone of higher class than you.
- Everything technology related: Air conditioning, fridges, cars, planes, ...
- ...
- And there was no Bitcoin.
No, really, it is hard to compare such different social environments, but if we just go like 50 or 80 years ago it is easier to see that what is considered "poor" today in a first world country still has a better lifestyle than most of the "rich" then.
We live much longer, we have more and better food, more and better clothes, ... better quality of life in essence. If anything, today's problem is that we have everything at our disposal so we are never satisfied and want much more (which is probably a human feature anyways).