But a lot of that improvement has been off the back of Rest of World, where slave-like conditions still endure. It's fine to have hairdressers here, but it's useful to remember that hairdressing is only possible because there are textile makers, miners, and farmers working in extremely harsh conditions elsewhere in the world.

And there's also been incredible damage to the planetary carrying capacity, with effects that will become more and more obvious as the century progresses.

So it's just as possible to argue that technology is more like a drug that works on generational time scales: you get a hit, you feel awesome for a while, then you fall apart.