From the comments on Marginal Revolution

These “decadence” pieces are really only written by people who are in the top 1% or at a minimum 10% of the global wealth distribution. Life doesn’t look so decadent to the median human. For the median human in the world (meaning, a Chinese or Indian peasant), 1970 resembled 1920 far more than 2020 and more progress was made in the 2000s than the 1960s. If you’re too decadent and want a grand mission to give your life meaning, how about trying to extend the ability to be decadent to more of the human population than the maybe 10-20% who enjoy that ability today?

There are some other interesting comments there about my recent piece on decadence and the Alchian-Allen Theorem.