I have been asking this on a few forums that I use lately and the answers seem to vary within each forum. For example, most the users on one forum said no, but then on another nearly all said yes for many different reasons.

So I am curious to see how you users here on the gamesas forums answer, as I find this forum has a lot more intelligent members than most. Your answers can give a lot of details as to why you think your answer is right, or it can just be a simple yes or no.

Please note when I ask has life improved I only mean within the past century.

Physically I would say yes, but psychologically I would say no.



Unless you are actually mentally ill, in which case you're probably better off in this century.

Overall yes, look at all of our advances in information, health care, communication, etc. I think its pretty hard to argue that those have given a pretty big increase in standard of living. There are some things I can't talk about on this forum, but besides that point I feel like humans have become too separated and bitter. It's tough for me to say this being so young but we can do pretty much everything online, that really erodes our sense of community that we had even 30 years ago where no matter what you wanted to do, you were interacting with humans. The other way I think we've gone downhill is in terms of mental health. Look at how many more diagnoses of anxiety/depression are given, although, it could just be that doctors are more willing to give it as a diagnosis, it's becoming a pretty big problem and people with those diseases are still stigmatized as being weak.

I definitely agree.

Very interesting, seems it's a lot more divided on this forum. Please keep the votes and replies coming!

I don't think a simple yes or no can answer this. In the industrialised nations life has improved for many people on a material level. Living standards have improved, employees are better protected by law, we're living longer than before, etc. But then take a look at countries ravaged by war, famine, decades of corrupt rule. Ask the people of Afghanistan or North Korea if their lives have improved over the last century and you'll get completely different responses to those of us enjoying our comfortable lifestyles.

Overall I would say life has improved for both the haves and have-nots of the industrialised nations which don't have oppressive regimes, but in many other parts of the world there are large numbers of people suffering in extreme poverty and from lack of freedoms. My own life here in England may be much better today than if I were to find myself in similar circumstances in 1910 for example (i.e. sick and unable to work), but for those in the slums of India or the ravaged towns of some African nations their quality of life is probably much the same as it would have been a hundred years ago.

If you really think about it, the only possible answer is yes.

There was nothing inherently better about the past, there was more discrimination, there was just as much drugs, poor medical care, just as many if not more wars.

It's just that as humans we generally only remember the good things in our lives, which tends to distort our view of the past.

Our generation has enjoyed the luxury of choice that no other generation had seen before it. Sure, there are some career and social paths that are easier than others but on the whole we're a much more open and accepting community than previous centuries. Whilst our quality of life has been upped, it is apparent that our mental well being is being corroded by social media but you can't take the good without the bad - our society will change to accommodate these things, as we have done in the past, we'll probably just keep plugging away until the end of time. If its one thing I've learnt it is that human beings are tenacious little [censored]ers and will stop at nothing to survive. I mean, what other species would decide to live in areas like the desert or the tundra? Eskimos are hardcoe because they're like, "Stuff this cold, let's built a house out of ice!" If it were me, I would have buggered off for somewhere warmer.

I'm pretty sure for those of us who have the luxury of posting on an internet forum discussing this, it would be an obvious yes.

But you must agree there is probably much more stress involved with western life today?


However, we are a very biased sample. If you are posting here you are probably in the top 15% of the world wealth wise and at least the top 30% educationally.



I would agree if you prefixed it with "In the first world countries"

While I do look back when I was a bit younger and recognize things were so much simpler, I do feel that life tends to get easier after time. A few years ago I wasn't doing too hot due to family issues (father issues) and then just about last year my coming to terms with the fact that my high school days were over and things were getting real hit me pretty hard. But I am here now, relatively happy and looking forward to the future and what I am hoping to accomplish. So yes, I do feel that life tends to get better over time, curve balls and all.

We would probably have still been so 100 years ago. It's just everybody's standards would be demonstrably lower as well.


Do you know, if you've been to university you're in the top 1% educationally?

Depends on your criteria. Going on safety, survival rate, comfort, ... the answer is a resounding yes.

The downside to all those apparent advantages is that everything in our society is fake, or perhaps even worse, a commodity. There are no real thrills in our lives, so we pay for safaris, or parachute jumping. Food is practically guaranteed, so we have no idea about what it is to hunt. Our solution? To pay for organized hunting trips. Nearly everything in our lives boils down to a cheap, artificial imitation of what our ancestors faced on a daily basis.

The guy was a nut, but Ted Kaczynski was spot on about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_process, as far as I'm concerned. Especially about surrogate activities in relation to the power process, which the Wikipedia article doesn't mention.

Ah well. As long as we keep making progress.

Listen, life is life. What's good for some may be bad for others, and nobody has the same share of good and bad in this world.

My life is pretty great. I have a bed, I have a computer and internet, I have a steady paycheck and a job that feeds me intellectually. I get three square meals a day, and have the means to eat out anywhere I want if I should choose, and I have healthcare. I basically have everything I could ever need or want, and it only gets better in the future the longer I stick with it.

Then there are people without jobs, people with illness, people who go hungry, people who do drugs, people who get to watch their family [censored] and murdered right in front of them. There are people who commit the murder. There are people who never know anything in their entire lives but how to eat and breathe. For them, life is not good, nor has it "improved".

You can use statistics and say that, oh, some percent of people are living x amount of years longer and are y amount happier, but it's just a game at that point.

So I can only speak for myself, and my own life. As for the psychological maladies that you seem to think come along with luxury and comfort, I can say I've dealt with them too. Yes, my life has improved with time.

As John Wayne said in one of his movies: "Life is tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid."

In certain ways, yes.

Medicine, Machinery, Weapons have all vastly improved compared to what the world had in the past. However, with the introduction of Weapons it has also remained in the same area as the world was before with savagery, murder, and other horrible things that people try to abuse them with- but it also allows anyone to defend themselves easily than what you could do in the past.

In another area machinery has decreased the work load for many and allows workers to focus on another area of components needed, and can sometimes save money for companies or factories. There is also a downside in this however- by using machinery it takes the jobs of workers and gets them replaced with machines, because why would you use someone who needs breaks and needs to rest when you can have a mechanical worker who doesn't need to do any of those things?

Medicine is a nearly a neccesity now and nearly every single person alive has been sick, but it would make sense for one to use medicine to help lessen pain, recover faster, or simply to supress the effects tempoarily. It is used in surgery which is absoloutely needed unless you would like to be awake while a surgeon cuts you open for surgery and I know nobody would like it, the Medicine used here is to put the patient to sleep, numb the body, or both; now the world has been introduced to Mechanical Prosthetic's which are greatly improved compared to wooden or rubber limbs, of which many use today.

However there is a downside to Medicine with drugs such as Marijuana, Steroids, Morphine and many others, while these are used in medical procedures and can be very important for surgeries many have become addicted to these drugs and need them to function and if one goes into withdrawl it can be devastating.

Physically the world has and hasn't improved, in the past if some people were fat they would be unable to preform their jobs as effectively than if they were in healthy shape. Currently, alot of jobs don't require you to be in 'this condition' or anything like that which is what I would say is keeping some areas in the world unhealthier than they were in the past.

Mentally, people havn't changed much. The minds of mankind will never change and many always dwell in some areas such as Love, or Hate, War or Peace, What one did in the Past, or what they will in the Future.

However, this is just my take on the improvements of life and the downsides, I would say that in some areas the world is still back where it was two-hundred years ago with no improvements while others have improved.

In general, yes; although it seems that it appeared to peak in the 1960s and '70s, whereas since the '80s it seems to be on its way down again (not in all regards, but in many important ones which are inevitably political in nature sooner or later). Whether that's just a blip or a trend remains to be seen, though.

Well some things. South Africa's life expectancy has plummeted for example so it may only be marginality higher than it was in 1911.

Depends on whos life we are talking about. If we are grading humanity as a whole Ill say yes but only slightly, no where near what it could be.

Hmm.. let's see...

I can get an education and a job, I don't have to have babies, and thanks to modern medicine I can achieve my full potential (as opposed to being dead). Also: Internet, corgis, and chocolate.

I can't really think of any other era that has all these benefits.

You could get a job in 1911...

You could also get a job in 1193 in the Middle East.

100 years ago, you had a much lower chance of living long enough to be make it to where you are today.

http://books.google.com/books?q=page%2054&id=MRIpAAAAYAAJ&output=text&pg=PA54, compared to .less than 1% today.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus10.pdf#022, not much better than the Paleolithic era, when life expectancy was in the 30s. Today, it is closer to 75 for men and 80 for women

Need I remind you I'm female? Do you really think women back then were "allowed" to get an education and an actual, real job? Sure, there are some exceptions, some women who were famous doctors and scientists, but most where just cheap labor for factories, or did service-sector jobs (secretary, switchboard operator, etc)

Yes life has improved, only problem is that people are a lot more detached from each other these days. If everyone was able to put themselves in other peoples shoes life would be a lot better. It′s no lie that we as humans don′t want to be bad, no one thinks he is evil. But people can do bad things without realizing it, we separate us from eachother with borders and nationalities and religion (that may disappear however as education increases) and we feel detached from eachother especially on the internet.

But I don′t think I need to mention that to those of us actually sitting here discussing this.

So yes, overall I think life has improved with time, and it will only get better as long as we can learn how to get along as the space we have becomes more crowed, pushing us towards eachother forcing us to come to agreement with eachother when it comes to resources and residental space.

I'm so [censored] sorry you don't think working in a factory is a real job. :rolleyes:


Most of our jobs now are service sector anyway, so I don't really see the difference. There was nothing stopping my grandmother from working in a law firm anyway.