Clearly, you haven’t read my stuff : ).I’m actually making an effort to temper my innate pessimism.

The low bar is because human history is generally a shitshow, and while it’s nice that most modern societies have given up publicly burning people alive or flaying them for entertainment, I don’t see it as that grand of an achievement.

I also don’t see history so much as a rising trendline from ignorant poverty to enlightened wealth as a few predictable cycles that repeat, with only the scale of the thing changing. There have been societies as open and fair as whatever is going on now, they just eventually got crushed by bad luck or internal and external assholery.

I also think that the premise we’re better off than ever is an economist’s view, and only holds true until we outstrip our resource base and the trucks stop pulling into Costco. Peaceful, prosperous, open-minded societies are just as prone to collapse as brutal dictatorships. Probably more so.