Sure, if civilization collapses, it may take us a while to get back to this point.

But my point is, essays like these assume we are peak humanity. We're not. Given enough time, we'll look like primitive barbarians too.

> But my point is, essays like these assume we are peak humanity.

Do they? the might assume we’re peak humanity right now but they don’t make the claim that we’re are the peak there ever will be

Seems like his argument is about now. The truth is that every now has been the peak so far, so his words apply to all points in time.

It seems to me he's missing that. Does it sound like he's urging people 2000 years ago to appreciate how clean their lives are? No?

> The truth is that every now has been the peak so far, so his words apply to all points in time.

That's a very strong statement and I have some doubts. There were periods of relative calm abd prosperity, then hit by plague (killed of one third of Europe's population in 2 decades), famines, little ice age, decades long wars etc. where it seems absurd to claim that now is better than before.

Yes, of course, I'm speaking approximately.

But given the various evolutionary processes, the trend is improvement over time.

This is the conclusion of the article:

> This world and the standard of living we enjoy are the gift they left us. We can never pay it back. But we can pay it forward: we can keep progress going, and build an even better world for the generations to come.

I guess I'm put off by how horrible he repeatedly describes the past, seemingly ignoring that those people of the past had it extremely well compared to the people of their past.

And how people of the future will look at us with that same horror.

I’ve become less clean in my life because I believe too much cleanliness is bad for your immune system. Could be a placebo, but I haven’t had allergies since.