[glenstein]

>All of these things are more true now than they were in the average subsistence based society

I don't think that's accurate at all. For one, we no longer have prevalence of childhood leukemia that we used to have. You could run down a long list of similar examples related to health.

For another, we have robust labor standards in most of the world which we didn't didn't used to have. Warehouse workers do indeed have appalling work conditions measured by modern standards, and we should be incensed by those. But I think any serious consideration of what, say, dust bowl Texas was like prior to rural electrification, or what an experience of hunter-gatherer life would be like for a person who actually wanted to go out and try it, I think it would be nuts to say such conditions are preferable.

As others have mentioned, your own link to EROI doesn't appear to make the point that you think it does.