It depends on how you judge. If you live in the western world, you probably have access to technology far superior to the total under command of the most powerful Egyptian pharaoh. On the other hand, neither you nor the richest ten thousand people you know are going to be able to order a six million ton pyramid from Amazon. We judge based on a modern perspective of what is necessary and important when that isn't always a fair comparison. We can order a pizza by pushing a button. But we cannot create immortal launchpads to eternity for our spirits to use to achieve godhood. By that standard, ancient pharaohs might think our entire civilization was pretty poor.
There was a time when we thought early hunter-gatherers spent most of their time "working." We thought of and described their lives as "nasty, brutal and short." However, modern research now suggests that hunter-gatherers spent less time on work than modern people do: averaging less than 30 hours a week on such tasks. What's more, those people would not necessarily even consider most of that time spent on "work" as we think of it. Children are taught at very early ages "hunting games" and "crafting games" and when they become adults actual hunting and actual crafting become extensions of those activities. It is as if an entire generation of children who grew up playing World of Warcraft became adults who played WoW as their professional careers. If we're talking about "lifestyle" then a life spent playing - as *they* saw it - ain't all that bad when you think about it. That's what they were taught, that's all they knew, and they were mostly happy to do it.
However, if we do decide to judge based on modern, western notions of lifestyle, then yes, things are better now than they have been, and have been trending better overall.
That's what I meant by the ability of humans to adapt. We find a way to enjoy life in some way even if we are in prison. Children played games in Nazi prison camps too. (required mention of Nazis or Hitler on the internet)
So could people enjoy life when their lives are spent in an endless search for enough calories to sustain them? Certainly. 90% of the labor force living in North America in 1790 were farmers. There is a reason why we moved away from that lifestyle. It's not because it was great...it's because it's better to do something else and once technology allowed us to do something else, we choose that instead. By 1890 that number had fallen to 43% of the labor force. Today, 2% of the labor force are farmers and we have more food than ever before using less land to grow it. Some still do feel the urge to hunt...I'm sure that's a biological thing which I've completely evolved past personally. But we certainly don't choose to do it 30 hours a week and there is a reason for that. Our ancestors didn't have a choice so they of course made the best of it like we always do. We do have a choice and we choose to
not live that way. As you point out, that's all they knew. And that's where the improvement lies.
Some of the richest people in the world still live in the Middle East and they also could live like the ancient Pharaohs if they wanted....but they don't. Bring one of the Pharaohs to the present and give them the same pile of money and see if they still choose that ancient life. I'm betting they wouldn't. Don't forget they aren't allowed access to modern medical care or technology. Their kids and wives are still going to die in childbirth a lot.
A longer life span by itself is proof it's better to be alive today. The fact that your chances of existing longer are greater puts today over all past eras. And of course the human
global lifespan continues to increase every decade. So it's getting better everywhere. I myself would have died at 16 in past centuries from appendicitis instead of spending a couple of days in a hospital eating jello.
But then add in that our ancestors were typically losing most of their teeth by age 30, had bad skin, rarely traveled more than a few miles from their birthplace. Did they get used to seeing people with bad teeth and body odor who urinated and defecated outdoors in the winter? I'm sure they didn't think it was unusual at all. Did they think it was odd that almost no one knew how to read or that women had almost no rights and the world was almost constantly embroiled in a war or conflict of some kind and was ruled over by monarchs, kings, emperors, czars, and dictators? Was it shocking to them that their drinking water was dangerous to drink? Nope..that's all they knew. You can't miss what you don't know about. We know better. We actually take reading and writing for granted in the west and that's a miraculous achievement.
Much better to live in a time when we have to invent medical scares instead of actually experiencing true plagues and epidemics. SARS, Swine Flue, Bird Flu, Ebola, West Nile, Mad Cow....we panic over those while the 1918 flu epidemic wiped out millions of people. (Didn't we just get a new medical scare? We get one every other year or so) I guess we are so spoiled we got bored with AIDS and malaria and need fake medical scares instead.
