> Do you believe that, on balance, the world is no better today than in 1892? If so, that's where we disagree.

I think that the floor has been raised and the ceiling has been lowered for the typical person. There's far less suffering, but absence of suffering is not the same as happiness. In that respect I think a random 1892 person may have actually been happier. South Korea has 30x more suicides than Syria; the UK more than 3x Sudan; France more than 4x Afghanistan.

> and I can't imagine what I would have done without them.

You're falling into the trap of saying I could've only been happy if I did X. But humans aren't like that - even garbagemen find happiness in their work. The brain adapts to baseline no matter the field.

The second trap you're falling into is saying look how abundant things are compared to 1892. We have every statistic proven and locked down that abundance does not equal happiness.

Except with AI, a fraudulent gatekept world would still be a smaller percentage of fraud than what is coming. Infinite scale fraud.

The soviets may have rigged a few studies; but the democratized world now faces almost all studies being rigged.

The future of science, the Internet, and all things: The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges.

Some things should not have been democratized. Silicon Valley assumes that removing restrictions on information brings freedom, but reality shows that was naïve.

Thank you for admitting that laws against murder, despite a 46% failure rate, are effective.