I don't want to touch on what I see as a futile debate about whether people are generally better or worse now. However I do feel the need to point out that the

I don't want to touch on what I see as a futile debate about whether people are generally better or worse now. However I do feel the need to point out that there are currently more slaves in the world than at any other time in history. I don't mean in the idomatic sense of wage slavery or anything. I'm talking about literal slavery - forced labor and ownership of people. Much of the stuff you buy today probably had a slave involved in its production at some point. Corporations say they can't ban slave labour from their supply chain because it's impossible for them to tell what resources had slaves involved in its production. The slave produced supply and legitimate supply of goods is too mixed to adequately track Some reading to get started https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century Also genocide was very prevalent in the 20th century probably more than at any other time