Compared to thousands/hundreds years ago are humans better off or not? See Detail.

The person was saying “fewer deaths from sickness, we live longer, ....” What could the other person be saying to take the other side of the debate?

Who would bother with “the other side of the debate”? Why don’t YOU try it. Give us some examples.

Super bugs (antibiotic resistant infections), climate change, automobile deaths, etc., stuff like that.
We live longer is a plus? So we can die from cancer?? No thanks!

In some advances yes,in others very much NO!
Advances in medicine sure we are much better off today.
But over population, human greed, and killing the planet we are very much NOT.

@kritiper That’s an important point. We may have eliminated many pathogenic diseases that plagued humanity for most of history, but now we have an upsurge in cancer and autoimmune diseases. Sometimes it seems that with an absence of pathogens to fight, the body resorts to attacking itself! Not to mention the rise in depression and suicide rates. Living longer doesn’t necessarily mean living better. (And then of course the new means of bringing on the apocalypse, climate change and the possibility of nuclear war and overpopulation).

Still, if it’s a choice between my 21st century comforts or some medieval world where I could get the plague at any moment or have my head chopped off in some silly feud with the neighboring duchy, I think I know what I would choose.

Yes we’re better off than we were even 100 years ago. We live longer and have far fewer diseases and infections. Women almost never die in child birth any more.

A couple hundred years ago I probably could not have told you that I was still alive at 51, because I probably would already have been dead at 51.

So interesting. I’ll keep reading.

Women were have children at 13, old maids at 20.