But when, for the vast majority of history, the population faced a much poorer, more monotonous, and less free existence than what the modern worker faces then you jolly well can.
> the population faced a much poorer, more monotonous, and less free existence
That's an over simplification.
People could still have more free time than we do now[1], while their life could be more monotonous on some aspect, I believe an average office worker life today can be even more monotonous than what a serf life could be. You also have to consider labor alienation, which is a something that didn't exist so much before industrialization.
Most importantly, life commonly revolved around tight communities, while today most people live in individualist societies.
Individualism certainly has a larger impact on happiness than most modern convenience has.
If there are people today who want to put their money where their mouth is and give up the conveniences of modernity to go back to communal subsistence farming under serf-like conditions (and there are places in the world that still live like that), more power to them. I haven't seen any takers.
I don't understand this need to make everything white or black, unless we want to pretend we live in a word as simple as a kids' novel. You can't just throw away milleniums of history and people because in the past 60 years we have become too lazy and addicted to modern convenience.
No, preindustrial ages weren't the hell they're made to be nor a golden age by any means. The same can be said of today. Stop playing defensive and think openly instead, there's lot we can improve by learning from the past.
It isn’t someone’s personal/unique suffering that I am invalidating. They are saying that we are having uniquely depressing times _in general_ which if you take a brief look at history is laughably invalid.
