this is teleological thinking. it's not necessarily the case that things get better over time.

there's a lot of evidence things do generally get better over time, though. Jon Haidt and his ilk... I forget all involved... have done research into it

obviously it can be bumpy and maybe there's a Great Filter or you happen to live during a bad period but life is certainly much longer and less brutal than it was for 99.9% of human history