Our biased attention means we’ll always feel like we’re living in dark times, and our biased memory means we’ll always feel like the past was brighter.
You need context. Things are more shitty than they were 10 years ago. Things are less shitty than they were 20 years ago. Things are MUCH less shitty than they were 50 years ago. The general trend is towards less shittyness (with the very important exception of the climate, which has been getting exponentially worse for 200 years (although in the past decade it’s stopped getting exponentially worse and is now just getting worse, which is technically an improvement kind of)).
You need context. Things are more shitty than they were 10 years ago. Things are less shitty than they were 20 years ago. Things are MUCH less shitty than they were 50 years ago. The general trend is towards less shittyness (with the very important exception of the climate, which has been getting exponentially worse for 200 years (although in the past decade it’s stopped getting exponentially worse and is now just getting worse, which is technically an improvement kind of)).