There are certainly some concerning trends, but you believe things were better in general during the Cold War before the fall of the Soviet Union? When substantially more people globally lived in poverty? When the US was just coming off the civil rights movements of the 60-70s? When AIDS was rampant, but there was no treatment? When global warming was happening, but it wasn’t widely known or acknowledged?
The majority of brand new cars that the average American is buying is still an ICE-powered automobile that’s nearly as serviceable as the old ones, sometimes requiring more advanced diagnostics tools, but far safer and more reliable.
Life in the United States was better for most Americans in the 80's than it is now. That was the beginning of the decoupling of productivity from pay, and it has been ongoing ever since.
That's not the same thing as "basic ability to survive".
When billions of people couldn't buy food and don't have clean water to drink, cries of, "But I'm not maximally benefitting from my own productivity increases!" come across as relatively unimportant.
The phrase that caught my eye was, "the general state of the world today is worse off." I don't think that meshes with observed reality over the past 40 years for the humans living on this planet, if you're not white, affluent, straight and American.
I am happy for the the fact that lot of people have been lifted from poverty.
What I am not happy about is all of us, all 8 billion of us, being able to afford everything we can and hoard useless electronics and plastic doo-dads, waste a ton of resources and live an excessive life. But, "We in the west have it so they should also" is a controversial take on this.
We as Americans waste a lot of resources. That shouldn't be the role model for others.
The majority of brand new cars that the average American is buying is still an ICE-powered automobile that’s nearly as serviceable as the old ones, sometimes requiring more advanced diagnostics tools, but far safer and more reliable.