This is not a tale of despair.
It is freeing to know that the modern world is unusual in many ways compared to most of human history.
This means that things have been different! And it means that they can be different again!
And it means that we can look at the examples of the past and see what things made people unhappy and what's different today. And we can look at what makes people unhappy today and what used to be different.
We are not *worse* than history, or *better* than history, we are just different right now. Sometimes in ways that are good, and sometimes in ways that are bad.