"Good Old Days"

So I saw 10,000 BC recently. Okay, that was a lie - I haven't seen 10,000 BC and I don't intend to. However, it got me thinking about history and especially how people always say "The Good Old Days."
Alright. The Old Days were not 'good,' okay? They weren't even 'just okay,' they just plain sucked. Let's take it from the beginning.
Dinosaurs. Come on, how could anyone say that old times were better? How good would your life be if you had to spend every second of it fighting fucking T-rexes? I mean, you guys SAW Jurassic Park, right?
How did that end up?
Exactly. And they didn't even get to ride any. 1

So for the next few thousands of years it's living in caves and freezing your ass off. When you're not in a cave you're in a bearskin throwing shabby spears at deer and picking berries. Berries, for fuck's sake. If you're lucky you get to spend all twenty years of your life freezing your but off, and if you're slightly less lucky you get your skull smashed with a semi-sharp rock. I'd watch Oprah over that shit any day. 2

Okay, you say, but we're talking about when civilisation showed up. That's when shit got good, you say. Wrong. Civilisation means you're a slave.
Ancient Egyptians? You're a slave.
Ancient Greece? Your ass is definitely a slave.
Roman empire? You're fighting a lion in the Colosseum. It's better than fighting a T-Rex, I'll give you that, but you're still dead as fuck. And probably a slave. Even the rich folks back then were so bored (there wasn't anything on tv) that they spent all day lying around drinking wine. Doesn't sound very exciting to me. 3

Alright. So far shit sucks. But then, BAM! Christianity, motherfucker!
Kiss your decadent ass goodbye Caesar, The Saviour is here, and he's all out of gum. Okay, I wasn't there, but this actually sounds like a pretty badass time to live in. However, it only lasted a couple of decades (I heard the poor guy got nailed to a cross; who the hell does that? Another reason why old times suck ass. I haven't seen anyone get crucified in my entire life.)
And even if you were there to see it, you probably got killed. Either that, or you're responsible for every sin ever committed since. Gee, thanks guys. 4

So. Queue the Dark Ages. The name implies most of what I'm about to say, I think. Let's see. We've got the black plague, killing people left and right like it's still the cool thing to do, we've got people going around with swords chopping other people's heads off, and some shit about a king named Arthur.
Right. Sounds like fun. Also, crusades! It's kinda like a ski-trip only you have to take a sword and there won't be any skiing. Instead you get to be crushed by a Muslim elephant.
Let's face it, if you lived anywhere in the Middle Ages, there's a 80% chance that you'll be one of the guys dropping dead in the street, the plague killing you just as you were on your way to get a magical potion to cure your sore foot. If you're one of the lucky 20 percent, chances are that you'll be on a crusade fighting Muslims (not skiing), getting stabbed by Vikings, getting robbed, getting beheaded, getting raped, getting set on fire, getting eaten by dragons, getting turned to stone by evil wizards, or just doing some plain old starving to death.
Oh, and let's not forget about the Spanish Inquisition. I think they're the same guys who came up with the Patriot Act. In any case, word was that nobody ever expected them so it's impossible to prepare. One minute you're eating your gross medieval shit-porridge, and the next you're dangling by your balls in some soggy dungeon. Mucho gracias, seņor. 5

The renaissance. Also called the enlightenment; sounds hopeful, right? WRONG. To save you guys time I'm just going to go ahead and say that it sucked. Trust me on this.
At some point we "discovered America": an uninhabited land free for the taking! (Even though it WAS inhabited, but we took it anyway because we were awesome like that.)So we went in guns blazing, shooting Indians left and right, just so we could ride around on horses and have duels in the streets.
After that, we got a shitload of wars, including two that engulfed the ENTIRE FUCKING KNOWN WORLD, and a whole bunch of misery. We killed each other for every reason we could come up with (his skin is darker than mine, his eyes are smaller than mine, his nose is larger than mine, he fucked my wife, etc.), and we even dropped so low as to use atomic fission weapons on cities. Cities inhabited by people. When people say "the good old days," I assume they don't mean sixty thousand people vaporised in the blink of an eye.
Try selling "the good old days" to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 6

Anyway, I think you get what I'm saying. Historic times were seriously fucked up. If there's any "good time," it's not the old ones. I daresay that now is pretty much a better time. I'm not saying everything's good now, you know, we got plenty of fucked up shit right here, right now. But let's take a moment to take things in perspective:7

There's inequality and racial killings now, but at least your ass is not a slave fighting a lion while 'civilised' masses cheer you on (or more likely, cheer the lion on.)
There are wars now, but at least we're not shoving Jews in camps anymore.
There's cancer and AIDS now, but at least we live long enough to even get affected by these diseases. And to be honest, I'd rather take my chances with cancer than the black plague. 8

Furthermore, 'old times' had:9

- T-Rexes eating you.
- Mystical fucking dragons burning down your farm.
- A bigass asteroid that killed almost every living thing on the planet.
- Kings who would order you around or have your head chopped off.10

We now have:11

- Hot showers.
- Chocolate.
- Comfortable clothes.
- A lifespan of more than 40 years max.
- Television.
- Street Fighter 3.
- Guys in suits who order you around or get you put in jail.12

And best of all:13

- The internet to vent your frustrations and irrelevant opinions.14

But seriously, the thing that gets to me most is this. We can all agree that the world is a long way from perfect right now. There's a lot of shit that's just fucked up bigtime. People are all to quick to point to these things and say how the world has gone to hell and how much better things used to be. But things never were better. If anything, they were much worse.
I agree that there are many wrongs out there today, but looking to the past and trying to hold onto those mystical "good old days" - that never actually existed - won't get us anywhere. We have to stop our desperate attempts to return to the past. There is nothing for us there.
It's time to accept where we are now, and turn our faces to the future. Because if we intend to change anything for the better, the future is where we need to look - it's what we have for ourselves, unspoiled by the mistakes of our ancestors.
Bring on the "Good New Days".