The past wasn't sunbeams and frolicking in meadows, but your take on it is totally off base. The fact is that in every period of (Western) history, the wealthy have always lived incredibly comfortable and enjoyable lives. Modern technology isn't the determinant variable. They did it by harnessing their respective civilizations--it was absolutely not equitable. They rested atop a pyramid of other people. And so do you and I! We do not live in equitable times globally. To the extent that we've made any strides morally, it's only that we've substituted technology and industrialization for slavery and oppression. But under no configuration is modern life sustainable for 8 billion people, energy, living space, and raw materials wise, so this situation is going to keep drawing down the reservoir until there is a brutal correction.
I also think your characterization of all of history being "mostly starving, struggling for survival, dying of infections, dying during childbirth, being illiterate, and having little shelter or comfort" is frankly tripe. As if native peoples lives (over hundreds of thousands of years, indeed) are such utter trash that they need to be rescued from it by technology. "Oh, the poor brown people living such primitive lives, how sad. Let's do a mission to convert them to consumerism and fill their lives with junk, get them some jobs and atomize their tribes." I invite you to visit basically any place on Earth that is not Europe or North America. It's frankly a white/western superiority complex and technology is just a fig leaf over it, a fundamental belief that today's way of life is the only one worth living and is so obviously superior that it cannot be questioned. I mean, those stupid native Americans and their huts. Good thing we fixed that, right?