amazingly, i have spoken to some elderly people, and not all were happier today than as kids. although who's to say how much their current circumstances and memory affect their recollection. and how can there be many MORE species that would have been extinct if not for us humans and our "progress" and technology, which is what drives their extinction in the first place?

what good is it to live in a great techno-wonderland if we've traded much greater gifts to get there? i could say perhaps you are too attached to the idea of progress, the idea that because time passes things must get better?