If I get a certain variety of leukemia, and I'm in a society which hasn't discovered Gleevac yet, I will probably die. That's a pretty awful consequence. Not ge

If I get a certain variety of leukemia, and I'm in a society which hasn't discovered Gleevac yet, I will probably die. That's a pretty awful consequence. Not getting to see the Godfather movies in glorious 1080p is perhaps a lesser tragedy, but all these little things add up. Sure, there are all sorts of "holistic" measurements of society's overall happiness, but I'll come back to the Socratic question: Would you really be happier in 1970, knowing what you're missing from 2013? And again, we're assuming straight up that you're not in some woefully underprivileged demographic that would be seriously screwed by having to live under 1970's mores.