Oooooh my bad, we're completely in agreement then.

Yeah last 12 years have unfortunately seen the normalization of a lot of toxic political extremism that's definitely made society worse.

So what, same can be said for this time.

Approximately 13–14% of the world's adult population (aged 15 and over) is illiterate. According to UNESCO, about 739 million to 773 million adults globally still lack basic literacy skills, with nearly two-thirds of them being women.

Over 7 million people have died of Covid, over 40% of Americans are considered Obese, over 16% take prescription drugs for depression. 16 % in the US/UK are stressed every day, 49% report significant daily stress, about 74%–75% of adults in the U.S. and UK report feeling overwhelmed or unable to cope at some point in the year.

When I was studying AI back in university it was that that got me an exemption from the draft at the time because the military was interested in what I was studying. (Luckily the draft had ended when I dropped out) My dad working with AI has now peaked their interest. (recognition of aircraft flying over, he's doing it to measure noise pollution)

Leonardo Da Vincy lived to age 67, sounds better to me than living to 90 in a care home wasting away.

Yeah the world of today has way more options to distract (and fool) yourself, (doom) scrolling to deal with stress.

But it was much much worse in the past: just 200 years ago almost 90% of the world's adult population were illiterate.

https://ourworldindata.org/literacy

500 years ago? Of course even less. 

Even in European countries like France, Italy, Germany, UK, Spain the literacy rate was only 3 - 15% in Leonardo Da Vinci's era:

Letterpressed books were invented around 1440. So if you were born the same time as Leonardo da Vinci, letterpress printing was still in its infancy.

The production of books was still very low in the 15th century, before it took off in the 16th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_spread_of_the_printing_press

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_newspaper_publishing

So even if you could read in Leonardo da Vinci's lifetime... what would have been available to read?

Some handwritten or printed religious texts if you were one of the lucky few having access to those.

Leonardo died in 1519, the oldest handwritten news sheets circulated since 1566, the first printed newspapers were published in 1605. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_newspaper_publishing

Periods of high inflation of happened all throughout history it’s not something new.

Maybe just a few years earlier. I was born in 1980, so like 1975 instead, maybe a couple of years earlier (like when my parents first met, as opposed to six years into their marriage). That way I would have been old enough to have a job a good bit earlier (like 1993 at the latest) to get some of the cool things I wanted as a kid in reality but never got. Plus I'd have been an adult earlier and could have gone to more concerts in the 90s. Like, I totally would have gone to Woodstock '94 (but not the dumpster fire that was Woodstock '99). Basically, I'd have liked to experienced more of the 90s as a young adult than I actually did, and had more concrete memories of the entirety of the 80s. Would have had my first job for a good number of years during the better economic times of the 90s as well.

Other than that, I'm actually kinda fine having been born when I was. Still got to witness most of the 80s & 90s and the peak of Western pop culture. Got to grow up before the Internet was really a thing. Still got my first job when the economy was booming and it was easier to get a job (I miss simple paper applications).

If anything, instead of being born in a different time, I'd like to simply be able to mentally time travel back to when I was a kid, like back to 1984, retaining all my memories. Basically just a do-over. I wouldn't do much different (butterfly effect, and all) other than pressure my mother to take better care of herself (she died prematurely in 2014) and use my knowledge of the future to do things to ensure I had a better financial future so I wouldn't be struggling and could retire early instead, esp. considering I have myotonic muscular dystrophy, which makes doing any kind of physical work difficult.

People might have been more happy with their lot back then, because we measure things relative to others. In absolute terms they were worse off. 

In the UK since 2000 wage growth exceeded inflation for the majority of those years. Minimum wage for an adult increased from £3.50 to £12.21. People are less happy because they judge their situation relative to others and income gaps have increased. More people buy luxury items like £1000 phones and it makes the people who can’t afford them feel like they’re miserable and their happiness depends upon owning them too. Going back to a time where such items didn’t even exist and depriving everyone of those items might make the individual more content but in real terms their situation is not better. It’s just psychology. 

Happiness is not measured by material possessions. Those only add more stress, more things to keep track of, defend, maintain, repair, replace, worry about. See the paradox of choice as well, the more choices, decisions, the less time to concentrate of things that matter more.

Getting bombarded with ads and apps vying for your attention 24/7 is not a healthy way to live. Overcrowding, noise and light pollution. Want to run a farm nowadays, so many rules and regulations, in debt with the seed corporations, working on the brink of bankruptcy. People are always in debt nowadays just to keep up.

Humanity is getting replaced with technology.

This map comes to mind



We're going backwards through progress.

The cost of living has still gone up a lot though. A lot of people in the UK have been having a lot of trouble getting by the past few years and there's much more to this than wealth and material possessions. Stuff like culture and the quality of the environment you live in matters massively. A young person in a middle class household today in places like the UK and US will likely be seeing a lot of negative political messaging through social media and thanks to stuff like that could easily end up with worse mental health than if they were born 20 years earlier.

Yeah I'm not one to doom and gloom, I do think things are in some ways better now than ever, such as in terms of medicine and access to supports, but the developed world's definitely slipped a fair bit in recent years, due in large part of the harms of social media, combined with political radicalism and economic downturn.

We're still better off than like 99% of humans who've ever lived, but we're also not as well off as we were in the 2010s, 2000s, 90s, etc.