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citizen15's avatar

"But it's a good bet that some future societies will make ours look primitive and benighted"

A good bet but by no means guaranteed. While the most recent post-Enlightenment 200 years gives us optimism, there was very little progress for much of humanity's 200,000 year existence prior to that. So, to the extent that we can maintain our liberal democratic capitalist society, your bet will probably be correct. Keep in mind, though, that even in the 20th Century, communism/socialism and fascism threatened to plunge humanity into darkness. Those ideologies gained traction even among "respectable" people in the US, so the threat was by no means purely external. By the 1990s, one might have thought that humanity had reached the "End of History", where liberal democratic capitalism would persevere indefinitely. Some might say that it's less obviously the case now, although it's probably still a good bet.

The point is though that the human flourishing that the West has been blessed with is actually quite fragile when one considers the entirety of human history. We know for sure that we live in a (mostly) liberal democratic capitalist society right now. There is some risk, though perhaps small, that won't be the case in 100 years.

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citizen15's avatar

Literally, the question asks what people *are* most thankful for, not what they *ought to be* more thankful for nor what they would be more thankful for if they put more thought into it. Most people probably have not contemplated very much not existing nor not existing as a human. If one takes being human for granted, then one won't be thankful for it. They probably have thought about the 21st Century West vs. other past and present societies and about inequality within the 21st Century West. So, people probably have answered quite honestly what they literally *are* most thankful for, given what they have contemplated seriously and what they take for granted.

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