@budbayview: You're quoting very early 20th century writers, people around the first/second world war, THAT was pretty low at least in our immediate histories, but not the worst event in written history (I would consider the dark ages and the plague to be worse).
Things have always been 'bad' and 'getting worse' and then the next generation thinks the same thing, only when you get older will you see, things have been steadily getting better. Just 50 years ago, if you said you could talk to anyone in the world and have a supercomputer with all the world's libraries and references in your pocket, you'd be considered exceedingly wealthy. Go back 100 years ago, if you had a doctor nearby, police, fire brigade or hospital in your vicinity, access to antibiotics like penicillin you must be living in the Hamptons, now, >99% of the population in the US and >80% of the world population lives with access to emergency and regular healthcare in under 30 minutes. Go back 150-200 years ago, you don't have to worry about food, la-dee-da rich boy, go back 250-300 years ago, the only people in the world that were obese were kings and statesmen.
