I agree partly.

But I think another reason why society looks so bleak today is because specific areas have regressed since their peak around 2000-2026. Even if median QOL is highest (which I doubt), Consider these common complaints:

- The best housing / median income (even accounting for size) was awhile ago

- Many types of food like meat have increased more than median income for some time

- Specific brands have lowered quality, e.g. Pyrex, Komoot

- The social scene in most places was much better. And online, we have more people and media than ever, but also more spam, propaganda, and gatekeeping

- More private offices and cubicles in the past, more WFH right after 2020

- More perks and higher salary compared to median for tech workers until around 2022

- Cheaper RAM and memory sometime around 2022-2025

- The best LLM (Mythos/Fable) was available a few days ago

Humans are biased to weigh disadvantages disproportionately more than advantages: even if someone was less happy in the past, when they weigh the advantages and disadvantages of that time vs today, they believe they were happier. So even if today wasn’t especially bleak, people may always wish for the past.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t keep addressing today’s pressing issues, even though the fixes will inevitably create more issues. Because without change, things would slowly objectively get worse.