Where living standards have risen, human beings have generally become less considerate and kind, and more angry and disillusioned. Most Americans today have riches beyond the imagination of their predecessors in the 1950s (for example) and yet I’d say they were much less happy, as evidenced by the industrial quantities of prescription drugs and extreme levels of violence in contemporary US society. It’s not just a US phenomenon, but given living standards there, and the level of division and disharmony in that country, I’d say it was the exemplar.
How are we ever goi g to save, or even fix the planet when people operate on this level. People don’t want to give up what they’ve got, and it’s why we’re fucked.