[gosub100]

I see two sides:

- we're better off because there is less human suffering "per capita" for lack of a better word.

- we're worse off because technology has allowed us all to instantly see and learn about every human (and animal) atrocity anywhere in the world.

I'm sure if I keyed up a gore site right now I could find the latest mexican cartel atrocity, or a necklacing in Africa, or someone somewhere else being cruelly hurt. But in the 1950s you had to pay for a paper which was excessively rate-limited and narrow in scope.