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RE: Something Feels Really WRONG About the World...
Not anymore than usual, I think. The standard of living continues to rise across the globe (not uniformally, but it's still rising), the world is generally safer today than it has been at any other time in human history, and more people have more access to more information and resources than ever before.
I'd say we're living in pretty awesome times.
Agreed... to a degree. The standard of living has certainly improved "on paper," in terms of economic numbers. Some of it is merely an illusions; governments lying with statistics.
Read an interesting article in a regional paper a few months back... talked about how property values, and wealth per capita in our area was at a new all-time high. Then someone did an analysis on "effort-hours needed per unit of purchasing power" and it actually showed a steady decline since the mid-1980s.
It's all a matter of how you spin the numbers, and what result you are looking for.
I'm assuming "effort-hours needed per unit of purchasing power" is how much work is necessary to achieve a standard unit of purchasing power, right? If that's the case, it's far more likely that inflation has negatively impacted this standard. That assumes it's expressed in currency, which I may be wrong about, but I'm welcome to any correction.
As far as the on-paper point: more people have greater access to more goods from a wider variety of sources than at any point in our prior history. I don't think you can argue that. Medical technology has made unbelievable strides in the last 30 years. Decentralized methods of water purification and power generation are available for relatively little expense, and they continue to drop in price. You'd really have to stretch to make the claim that the standard of living has either remained stagnant or gone down. I don't disagree that governments tend to want to skew statistics (just look at the US "unemployment" figures or the actual debt liability), but that's not the only method of discerning the truth of their conclusions.