Quality of life worldwide has had the biggest increase in the history of humanity over the past 50 years due hundreds of millions, if not more, being lifted out of poverty. Its impossible to separate the role of technology from it.
We need something like Omni magazine to return. Something without the cynicism of Wired, but with sharp and stylish images that juxtapose the cool with the intellectual. The kind of thing that has slightly too cool booze ads and half naked people sitting next to interviews of Nobel prize winners and perhaps overly optimistic Science Fiction. We need dreams that are not just the seeds of new nightmares.
We usually get the future we dream of, and I'd like us all to start imagining it to be more like Star Trek and less like Black Mirror.
Be realistic - we've gone from "You, yes you, will be able to do an incredibly new and fun thing with Shiny New Technology™" to "You probably won't have a job or drinking water, your TV and phone are tracking you, all creative work is now worthless, the planet is on fire, AI may kill us all, but buy into our IPO anyway" in less than ten years.
In places that sucked in 1950 it's way better now.
In places that were good in 1950 it's pretty questionable if it's all that much better.
Birth rate has been going down since like 1910, so there is a lot more than just one thing causing it.