I would like to split this into three separate claims:
the world is improving;
no matter how good or bad is the situation objectively, people are likely to spend 100% of their hysteria budget complaining about stuff;
the hysteria budget is approximately spent on the currently-worst things.
(I am not sure whether you actually made or implied the third point, or I am just imagining it.)
I agree about the world improving (so far).
I disagree about the efficient allocation of the hysteria budget.
For example, you mention slavery as an example of a horrible thing that is luckily already a matter of the past, which is why we have now moved our hysteria towards less horrible things. Except, no. According to Wikipedia, there are currently over 40 million slaves in the world. They are much cheaper than they used to be in the past, which typically means that they live in worse conditions. (Because the owners do not have to worry so much about their health; in worst case, they can easily buy a replacement.) No one gives a fuck anymore. If you do, you will probably get accused of racism, colonialism, islamophobia, etc. Similarly, people used to be outraged about female genital mutilation, not so long ago. Today, when a woman talks too much about how she hates being genitally mutilated, we call it “hate speech” and move on. Now put this in contrast to the public concern that some pussy might have been grabbed by Donald Trump. This does not seem like an efficient allocation of the hysteria budget.
Possible counter-argument: people focus their outrage on the worst things within their countries. I would disagree with this one, too. First, the amount of concern one is culturally allowed to express over situation in other countries changes in time. It is a recent political development that everyone is allowed to criticize Americans, but Americans are not allowed to criticize anyone (except for maybe North Korea), and everyone has to respect Muslims (and all the things that are traditionally part of their culture), only the Chinese are allowed to kill them. Yes, it was always more tempting to attack your neighbor, than to worry about a 1000× worse thing on the opposite side of the planet. The changing thing is whether the latter is a taboo or not. Second, there are many things deeply wrong in the developed countries, but they are usually not the ones where most of the outrage is spent.
A somewhat more plausible version would be that people focus their outrage on the worst things within their bubbles. That seems to match reality better. For example, if you are rich, you don’t really care about the healthcare or the homeless, but someone addressing you incorrectly on Twitter is the real tragedy. And your only issue with slavery is that you have to build a for-profit prison in order to exploit the legal loophole in the 13th ammendment.
I am not sure about spending 100% of the hysteria budget. How much of that is human nature, and how much is a consequence of free speech and clickbait profitability. I can imagine that a cult (or a socialist country) could simply suppress all talking about worrying things. Then, many people would still worry privately, but they would not trigger each other, and they would not be reminded of their worries at every moment. On the other hand, cults (and socialist countries) often have their own horror narratives and keep their people worrying about them. So maybe there is a conservation of worry, and it can only be redirected. I am not sure about this.
I would like to split this into three separate claims:
the world is improving;
no matter how good or bad is the situation objectively, people are likely to spend 100% of their hysteria budget complaining about stuff;
the hysteria budget is approximately spent on the currently-worst things.
(I am not sure whether you actually made or implied the third point, or I am just imagining it.)
I agree about the world improving (so far).
I disagree about the efficient allocation of the hysteria budget.
For example, you mention slavery as an example of a horrible thing that is luckily already a matter of the past, which is why we have now moved our hysteria towards less horrible things. Except, no. According to Wikipedia, there are currently over 40 million slaves in the world. They are much cheaper than they used to be in the past, which typically means that they live in worse conditions. (Because the owners do not have to worry so much about their health; in worst case, they can easily buy a replacement.) No one gives a fuck anymore. If you do, you will probably get accused of racism, colonialism, islamophobia, etc. Similarly, people used to be outraged about female genital mutilation, not so long ago. Today, when a woman talks too much about how she hates being genitally mutilated, we call it “hate speech” and move on. Now put this in contrast to the public concern that some pussy might have been grabbed by Donald Trump. This does not seem like an efficient allocation of the hysteria budget.
Possible counter-argument: people focus their outrage on the worst things within their countries. I would disagree with this one, too. First, the amount of concern one is culturally allowed to express over situation in other countries changes in time. It is a recent political development that everyone is allowed to criticize Americans, but Americans are not allowed to criticize anyone (except for maybe North Korea), and everyone has to respect Muslims (and all the things that are traditionally part of their culture), only the Chinese are allowed to kill them. Yes, it was always more tempting to attack your neighbor, than to worry about a 1000× worse thing on the opposite side of the planet. The changing thing is whether the latter is a taboo or not. Second, there are many things deeply wrong in the developed countries, but they are usually not the ones where most of the outrage is spent.
A somewhat more plausible version would be that people focus their outrage on the worst things within their bubbles. That seems to match reality better. For example, if you are rich, you don’t really care about the healthcare or the homeless, but someone addressing you incorrectly on Twitter is the real tragedy. And your only issue with slavery is that you have to build a for-profit prison in order to exploit the legal loophole in the 13th ammendment.
I am not sure about spending 100% of the hysteria budget. How much of that is human nature, and how much is a consequence of free speech and clickbait profitability. I can imagine that a cult (or a socialist country) could simply suppress all talking about worrying things. Then, many people would still worry privately, but they would not trigger each other, and they would not be reminded of their worries at every moment. On the other hand, cults (and socialist countries) often have their own horror narratives and keep their people worrying about them. So maybe there is a conservation of worry, and it can only be redirected. I am not sure about this.