At the same time, industrialization has created the very concept of leisure time. Vacation, travel, two days off per week, much less a 40 hour work week — these would have only been fantasies before industrialization.

Maternal death during childbirth, child mortality, and plagues dominated peoples' lives and offered no escape other than dumb luck before the rise of technology. Superstition provided the only hope of escaping the grim reaper who was omnipresent — could strike at any time and without warning.

Mass starvation was commonplace throughout history, but is now quite rare — due to high tech farming and distribution of foodstuffs.

All of those fears have faded enormously since the rise of modernity and public health advanced tech. COVID-19 would have been FAR worse (especially to the elderly and unhealthy) than it was but for the advancements of modern tech, especially the MRNA vaccines which, through the rapid advancements of tech, were created at an ASTONISHING rate. And it was only through the presence of tech that we've all been able to continue sharing our lives with friends and family during this, the first truly GLOBAL pandemic in history.

No, I'm thankful for the rise of technology EVERY DAY, and it gives we a lot of hope to continue improving everyday life in years to come.. It's the failures of humankind individually to advance emotionally and rationally that I fear. Humans still have a lot of growing up to do before we start responding to the vicissitudes of life like responsible adults still. In far too many ways, we still behave like children convinced the best response to difficulty is to behave badly and tear our hair in despair.

Fact is, living now, with all the plenty that tech has given us, should offer more hope for a better future than ever before. Yes, tech is disruptive, as it always has been. But tech has made the world a far better place in the past 300 years, and I for one expect that to continue, once the public gets some perspective on what life was BEFORE industrialization gave us hope for a better future.

Life expectancy != quality of life. In the modern world many more people are alienated and kept alive when nature would release them. Many people are spiritually alienated. The newest version iPhone does not give meaning to your life. Neither does buying a bunch of crap you don't need every week off of Amazon.

What does it mean to be spiritually alienated? I think also you are projecting a large part of your own unhappiness onto the world by suggesting that people are buying the newest iPhone to give meaning to their life.

I'm not going to claim life expectancy is equivalent to quality of life (although I do think it correlates). But I was just responding to the comment which claimed life expectancy had only increased in advanced countries.