- Indoor plumbing. Consider how much more difficult and less comfortable maintaining good hygiene was before we got indoor running water and sewers. Some parts of the world still live without them.
- Supermarkets. Now there's a locavore movement but once upon a time, if it wasn't local and seasonal, you didn't get a chance to eat it. Food couldn't be transported very far because it spoiled too quickly and the technology to keep it fresh had not yet been invented. Now we have access to an incredible diversity of food throughout the year.
- Laws. Chimpanzees and baboons in the wild live in chaos and anxiety, always looking over a shoulder to avoid being eaten by a predator or ambushed by a rival. I'm sure some humans live in chaotic and anxious lives as well, but most of us live under a legal system that most folks adhere to enough of the time that we are afforded the comfort of an orderly, relatively predictable life from one day to the next.
- Science. We have a deeper understanding of how the world works than at any time in the past, our understanding continues to grow, and the information is available on the Internet to pretty much everyone.
Good stuff.
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