Beat me to it, I already knew that the allies had Penicillin and it was an advantage for the Allies over the Axis in WWII, I just learned how big that advantage was:
Nah, even there, things are better off. Both were and still are well below average, but the kids are mostly vaccinated (in N Korea’s case, probably better than the US), life expectancy is higher, and there’s at least some access to clean water, electricity, etc.
And Zimbabwe isn’t even close to being worse. It’s a political and economic hellhole but people still make out better in several ways than 100 years ago. You’re letting politics influence you if this even came up as a potential example.
One place where things are not better off are probably the Andaman Islands and uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. Of course, things aren’t worse for them, either.
Yeah, Great Antibob is correct, lets go to the Gapminder from Hans Rosling
The average Life Expectancy in Zimbabwe (Blue) was 34 years in 1913.
In 2012, the last data recorded, the expectancy is 58:
Warning: you need flash to see the results. You can see the catastrophic drop in the 90’s and early 00’s but it got better recently by 2013.
North Korea is in red: back in 1913 the life expectancy was 25, nowadays it is 70.
(link is not parsing fro some reason)
I’d take any stats out of the DPRK with a block of salt, but it is almost certain that infant mortality is much better now, which would be the major source of low life expectancy pretty much anywhere.
And exaggerated or not people are certainly living longer, as hitting 60 used to be considered an unusual event worthy of a massive celebration among friends and family (70 is the new mile stone in South Korea and it’s also much more commonly reached than even a generation ago).
Not familiar with hipsters, I take it?
AIDS isn’t ravaging West Africa quite as much as it is Southern and East Africa. Meanwhile, in 1913 West Africa was just five years away from this…
AIDS is survivable with treatment (which, yes, most poor Africans can’t afford), genocide, not so much. Of course, that sort of thing continues on today, so overall it’s a wash.
Most people were reading pulp magazines and enjoyed whatever the equivalent of velvet Elvises and Thomas Kinkade was - Hell, it probably was Dogs Playing Poker, actually.
Believe me, what you think of as typical of the 1913s was as exceptional as good novels and art today (of which there are lots, if you know where to look - not all of it Modernist or Post-, either).
Look at 2 nowadays critically-esteemed novels that came out in 1913 - Sons and Lovers and Swann’s Way - the former received quite a hostile reception, the latter “a muted and generally bewildered response”. As for fine art, what was the response to the Armory Show?
. And in other arts, we all know how The Rite of Spring was received…
It’s a pet peeve of mine when people talk about “the good old days”. I wonder if it’s polio or racism that they miss more. But, having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that people in 1913 were generally happier than in 2013. How this is objectively measured is hard to say - if you took a thousand people from 1913 and transplanted them to 2013 they’d probably say they prefer things now - but I expect people are a lot less likely to feel content with what they have nowadays.
I agree with the general thrust of your argument. However, one could point to exceptions. Between 1929 and 1939, the standard of living probably improved for the average German. Nonetheless, Germany was not a better place in 1939. So while improved physical standards of living are usually a sign that life is better overall, there are a few solitary exceptions.
Sure. But every person who is born still ends up dying. Is indefinite prolonging of life a good measure of a better world?
Probably.
I’m sure that in general they do.
Yes, those are all, for the most part, objective, quantifiable things. My question is what any one or a group of those an indicator of a “better world”?
I’m sure there’s a way to describe this kind of argument in Latin, but basically it sounds to me that people in general define “better” to mean whatever outcome of whatever measurement they’re chosen, and then point to that outcome as proof that things are better: “A better world is one that has more access to entertainment than people who lived in a worse world. Look at how many movies I can watch on Netflix; see, this is a better world!”
I agree (well, I assume it to be true) that we are healthier and there are fewer vectors for illness and death than in 1913. I am glad for this, but I am not sure if it makes this world a “better” one. Who can say?
I am inclined to feel that the world gets better as more people become happy and/or content. I’m not sure how one measures that, but I’m fairly sure that humanity hasn’t been increasing its happiness over the course of its existence with each medical advancement and each increase in GDP.
Re, I feel, somewhat frivolous things: I pretty much agree with Buck Godot – “mostly, better off – in a couple of ways, I’d like 1913 more”. Overall, globally, I see 1913 as having by a large factor, more wildlife and more wild places – with some locational “blips”, as Blakeyrat says. And admittedly, in 1913 far fewer people than now, would have been in a position to go to distant countries and experience those marvels first-hand.
And, I’m a railway- and steam-locomotive-enthusiast. In 1913, the great majority of freight and passenger transport on land, in countries which had railways, was by rail – road motor transport was in its infancy. The more developed countries had huge, and well-used, rail networks – very few lines had closed down. And the enormous majority of the world’s rail traffic would have been hauled by steam locos. That aspect of 1913 would, for me, have been heaven.
Back in 1913 there were still thylacines. 
Other than that 2013 is much better.
That’s a nice philosophical attitude to take, especially when you are one of the ones who has the nice, long life, but ask the people in 1913 dying primarily in infancy, or if they survive, of various now-treatable diseases, war, or other horrible circumstance, and I like to think the vast majority would still say it’s a good measure of a better world. Even questioning it is saying that high infant mortality might actually be a good thing. That implication is pretty bad.
Better yet, give the people of today the option of living the average life of a 1913 human being in their own region/country (not the upper class, which would actually not be too bad) or their current life, and I doubt you’d have any but a small minority take you up on that offer.
Now, extend our lives to the point we aren’t getting any more usable years of good health, i.e. just more years of living bed-ridden and constantly sick, and you might have a point. But our improving lifespans have come hand-in-hand with more and better years in the primes of our lives.
ETA: Heck, it doesn’t even require much brain-wrangling. It’s not 100 years, but my parents and grandparents have no doubt things are better now than when they were kids, complaints about “kids these days” notwithstanding. They wouldn’t trade out for anything.
On the contrary, if anything can most definitely be linked to increased happiness for humanity as a whole, it is an increase in overall health. There have been numerous studies that show that by far the strongest correlation with unhappiness is ill health.
Ah, yes, them too. If I’d been around in 1913, I’d have moved heaven and earth to get to Tasmania and throw in my lot with the in-advance-of-their time conservationists there and then (including Erroll Flynn’s father, a biology professor), who wished to capture a few of the creatures and establish a protected breeding population of them on an island off Tasmania. Tragically, that never happened.
-… . - - . .-. / — …-. …-. / … -. / …— ----- .---- …–
Further re “species on the brink” – 1913 would already have been too late for the passenger pigeon. If I have things rightly: by 1913, they were down to Martha in the Cincinnati Zoo; and she died the following year.
.-… — .-…
In the medical improvement category: better dental care. People’s teeth did not last long. My own grandad (b. 1911) had lost all his teeth by age 30 due to poor dental hygiene. It was a rite of passage, getting one’s false teeth, and maybe a sign of wealth. I knew many old people when I was young in the 60s whose faces were sunk in bc they had no teeth. And they were not really old…40s, 50s etc. It was so prevalent among my family and in our community that I thought teeth just normally deteriorated, and that I would have false teeth by my 50s. I still have all my teeth, and just four cavities my entire life. My grandmother (and great grandmother) would have been unable to make that claim.