Humanity as a whole might be in the best spot it's ever been, but that's almost exclusively a function of the rise of China and of some improved health care in third world countries.
When it comes to the first and second world (NA, Europe, SK/Jap, AUS/NZ), times were better for a majority of their people during either the 80s (Eastern Europe, Japan), 90s (NA, Western Europe) or 00s (SK, AUS).
It's a function of the globalism that NA ushered in after it came out of isolationism. I wouldn't lump NA into the second worlders yet unless, it's government actually needs reset for it. China IS hitting their stride, but wonder if they can sustain with their technology development strategy of reverse engineering and IP theft, they never seem to run out of buyers of there shitty products
For USA, peak was 1993
This post was edited by RedFromWinter on May 26 2026 05:13am