True - although it's often a very mono-directional detector. Anyone higher up on the ladder, or taking advantage of cheats we didn't see, gets the full focus of our attention, while anyone lower down or slow on the take is clearly just a sucker.
Pretty bad heuristic, unfortunately.
Correct. But take away "physical comforts" and people are much much more likely to be unhappy.
edit: I find the downvotes on this confusing - I don't see anything controversial in above.
Sounds like a perfectly rational attitude, not rationalized. Also doesn't imply any awfulness in the way they live unless you subscribe to Buddhist teaching about attachment.
That nearly gets them every time.
Likewise though, the OPs "people wailing about how shit everything is" are pretty unusual. Mostly what you hear are different people dissatisfied with different things. If you choose to aggregate this in your mind to some abstract "person" you get an odd picture of what is going on.
There's an unequivocal improvement in certain metrics. It doesn't mean there aren't other serious issues often proprietary to the time we live.
I'd also argue that those metrics don't always correlate with happiness beyond a certain level.