A fun thought experiment is describing modern living to someone in the early Georgian era in an uncharitable way. It would be relatively easy to sell it is a godless industrial landscape. A city dweller could feasibly go days without seeing a tree or even leaving their apartment. Threat of annihilation looming over everyone's heads and the various major armies that can reach out and do what they like in most parts of the world. Constant risk from authoritarian ideologies that spread like wildfire.

The future is always scary. The present is pretty scary. The past was much less comfortable.