Materially, our ancestors would murder to have days off every week and limited work hours in exchange for sufficient food and nutrition, and they did so in constant, careful, worried concert with their entire community.

It’s not a fair comparison cause you’re not going back far enough. There is not much debate comparing being poor today to being poor during the Middle Ages.

If you compare modern life to pre agricultural times, then it gets tricky, they worked a lot less and weren’t constantly starving. They were athletes by today’s standards, with their own challenges and hardships. Life was harder but it matched the human needs/desires better than modern life. Hopefully we can reach a society that is better than all of history, not just cherry picked bad parts.