I'm not sure why you switched to worldwide when it specifically said DRC. Most economic indicators there have been flat or declining for the last 50 years. Vague platitudes about the world as a whole are unhelpful, and if anything only serve to reinforce the mythology of universal progress.

> Worldwide incomes

gotta buy that shit they're selling now that WORLD TRADE is here. thank goodness for foreign products instead of whatever came before that.

> GDP per unit of energy consumed

using this metric presumes that GDP is the goal. fortunately or not, there's no quantitative measure of well-being. certainly we could suggest that not dying during childbirth is an improvement... but if you're instead spending life under the thumb of an extraction economy established by colonialists with the explicit intent to remote-rule thru division[0], then... well, it's at least not so crystal clear that foreign tech comes from the hand of the savior.

> Deaths due to warfare are at all time historic lows.

I like this statistic, too, but I suspect it's inflated by medics around battlefields not letting people bleed, or rot from infection, to death.

anyway, I just wanted to make the point that it's not so clear cut. I think technology is largely good... and whatever it is, it's not going away.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization

Now let’s just apply some regional filters there, so that skyrocketing benefits for a minority don’t play statistical games with the majority.

It’s been pretty great for Bangladesh and India.

Time will tell. Bangladesh is grossly overpopulated, and struggling with hydrological and agricultural issues which may yet lead to systems collapse. India may thrive, or die in nuclear fire along with Pakistan. Until pretty recently tech was great for Syria too, but again, chicken, eggs, hatch.

There are the big twin baddies of climate change and mass migration to contend with, and nobody seems to be contending. We’re in a decent place, but I would argue, a profoundly negative trajectory. In the same way that the Late Bronze Age was both a time of wonders, and utterly doomed.

Apply whatever regional filters you want. Most of what I said will still hold most of the time. I'm not playing any statistical games.

Ok, let’s look at the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Edit: Or better yet, stick with my original example of the DRC, which is not a happy tale.