[laughinghan]

The recent spike in homelessness, the health insurance coverage gap, rising economic inequality, we are facing many major urgent crises. But there is a severe lack of imagination to suggest that our problems as a society or species can't or haven't been far, far worse.

A homeless woman today in any major American city (which generally require hospitals to provide emergency care even to people without health insurance) is safer giving birth than a queen a few centuries ago. A homeless person today in any major American city is safer from cholera, tuberculosis, any antibiotic-treatable disease than a king a few centuries ago.

Society and technology have made us much better off overall, it's not close. The fact that we still have major problems today does not contradict the fact that we have also solved some major problems, too, thanks to science and technology.