[acallaha]

I agree with other commenters that rosy retrospection may be at play, and that in many regards the world today is better than ever before.

That said, you might enjoy Scott Alexander's essay "Meditations on Moloch", describing how many aspects of our society are multipolar traps / races to the bottom: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

A sample:

  Imagine a capitalist in a cutthroat industry. He employs workers in a sweatshop to sew garments, which he sells at minimal profit. Maybe he would like to pay his workers more, or give them nicer working conditions. But he can’t, because that would raise the price of his products and he would be outcompeted by his cheaper rivals and go bankrupt. Maybe many of his rivals are nice people who would like to pay their workers more, but unless they have some kind of ironclad guarantee that none of them are going to defect by undercutting their prices they can’t do it.

  Like the rats, who gradually lose all values except sheer competition, so companies in an economic environment of sufficiently intense competition are forced to abandon all values except optimizing-for-profit or else be outcompeted by companies that optimized for profit better and so can sell the same service at a lower price.

[pjscott]

Also recommended is this remarkably clear explanation of the mechanisms at work here, and how things could in theory be much better:

https://equilibriabook.com/molochs-toolbox/

[TideAd]

(Related: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...)

A way I sometimes think about it: humans have made great technological leaps, but every day is a battle against decay. Everything that actually looks stable is mostly kept that way through effort:

- most large internet sites that seem automated actually have engineers on-call 24/7. it requires constant operational work

- every machine has parts that must be replaced periodically

- the friend group tries to meet at least twice a month so you can all remain in each others' lives

So it is not unusual to see progress happening concurrently with decay. I feel similarly to the OP but I think we're bound to end up with a bunch of things that are getting worse in a given year.