I've heard this book cited many times, and people saying that the "bad" things we see are just the news cycles and very temporary, and in general we're better off (e.g. "The richest person has the same iPhone as you and uses the same kind of toilet").

Sure, some things are "objectively" better, like lower child mortality and so on. But happiness is so subjective. It's entirely possible that when we were hunter gatherers, the average person was happier, even though child mortality and life expectancy were considerably lower.

It's easy to think that access to high tech like iPhones and a toilet to shit in makes people happy, but I don't think this is the case.