I'm always reminded of the video where one monkey is rewarded with a cucumber and one with a grape[1]. Certainly getting a cucumber is infinitely better than not having a cucumber, and yet the monkey protests.

Despite having higher cognitive functions, that impulse still exists and can only be suppressed for so long and so far. No one has infinite capacity to maintain what they see as unfairness indefinitely, especially when it seems that humans make their own rules.

1. Capuchin monkey fairness experiment, total duration: 57s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

Traditional responses see that as either good (which I think is your implication) or terrible, a la "bread and circuses" where people are too complacent to demand any real changes. I would say that the "average person" is a tricky model, here in the US there are people sleeping on the sidewalk, but they have smartphones in their pockets. Are they better off than a Roman emperor? I would say no.

Thanks for pointing this out. It helped me contextualize the argument.

It is a combination of "Other People Have It Worse Than You Do" but uses the past as a point of reference.

We could just as easy compare ourselves to our presumably better off future and say that we have it worse off than them so we deserve to improve things now.

Not quite. Some things are fundamentally restricted in supply - for example and most pertinently, decent housing where people need to live. It is hard to feel like a billionaire when you have to share cramped living spaces that take most of your income.