I&#x27;d agree, but a common doom-mongering narrative is &quot;things are worse than they used to be and they&#x27;re getting ever worse!&quot;<p>Very few people say &quot;the present has a number of trade-offs that&#x27;s arguably not much better or about as bad as the past.&quot; That said, I think a lot of the gains are invisible to white professional class heterosexual secular&#x2F;christian males, which is part of the problem.<p>As a pure issue of labor, the average work conditions are probably the same or worse than in 1970 and purchasing power is about the same. Both of those are bad things that need to change, but there are vast cultural and technological improvements that often get diminished, and I think the comment above is a pushback against that, which does advance their argument.<p>If you only identify with the historically most privileged group, a lot of the advantages like &quot;not being provided with inferior safety equipment because of your race&quot; or &quot;living in constant fear of your career being destroyed because of your sexuality&quot; don&#x27;t seem very important. What seems &quot;toxic&quot; to the most privileged group can seem like &quot;acceptable tradeoffs&quot; to other groups, and this also speaks to the attitudes of many immigrants and H1-B employees.