> 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.