Nothing is perfect, including where we are now, but, most people who decry where we are have never been where we used to be.
I am 78, a relatively short span, even in the history of THIS young country, and I can watch TV shows from my younger days, and, even sort through the memories of my own childhood, in which life was filled with fewer gadgets, games, and the opportunities to use them.
I don't know if where we are today is properly labeled "progress" or "prosperity", but it DOES mean many of us have a lot of time on our hands to worry about things that are actually pretty good, now that we don't have to walk down to the creek for water, spend our day tilling the soil, or hunting for game, subsisting on whatever our own efforts provide us, protecting ourselves from the elements, or raiding bands, living out our lives in caves, lean-to's, tents or hovels, falling into bed (if we built one) aching from each day's exertions, hunting through the woods for healing herbs, and dying young because of lack of trained people who have access to modern medicines and medical facilities and procedures that are not located in the dirty corner of a barber/surgeon's place of business, as horses go by outside leaving momentos of their passing, as chamber pot contents are hurled from upstairs windows onto the street below.
Disclaimer: I'm old, BUT some of these images are from a bit before my time.
By the way, did you catch what I did with the title there? Huh?