It's not subjective if you're dead and/or live(d) in abject poverty. It is a subjective reality that life is better now than it was prior for practically everyone (in terms of standard of living, not in terms of tragic personal events), just because people view the past through rose-colored lenses doesn't negate that fact. No, we should be optimistic, that's not "political," in fact the opposite is true.
>It is a subjective reality that life is better now than it was prior for practically everyone (in terms of standard of living, not in terms of tragic personal events)
I assume you meant to 'objective reality', but that simply isn't the case. There are millions of people alive now that 'would prefer to be dead'. For them, life is objectively worse now than it would have been if they had been born 100, 200, 500 years ago. People in Libya are worse off than they were 20 years ago, by far, and those in Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza are obviously in worse positions. Even leaving aside 'temporary conditions' like war, more people today are trapped in human slavery, or drug addiction, or any of a million other maladies that plague modern life. Life now is subjectively better than it was, as long as you're nowhere near the bottom of the distribution.
But maybe you want to argue that the distribution is better overall? This is the same line of thinking that kills utilitarianism through the creation of a Utility Monster. The average distribution of suffering means nothing to the person experiencing suffering above that average. That people aren't starving anymore, means nothing, if those people are being fed by their slavemasters. Humans are as brutal now as they ever have been, and if anything, our technological and cultural progress has allowed barbarism on scales unimaginable to people even 200 years ago. It's that same technological progress that makes an even more horrifying future seem entirely probable. Outside of religious traditions, there is no overarching reason to believe things will get better for the average individual, and every reason to believe that power, wealth, and opportunity will continue to aggregate into the hands of a select few. Whether or not those few are willing or able to disperse their wealth and privilege is again a complete toss up.
As such, taking an overly optimistic stance is simply asking to be taken advantage of by the same processes that have driven us to this point. Yes, humanity is better positioned than ever to satiate our physical needs, and yes, humanity seems closer than ever to losing everything we value, whether it's through nuclear war, AI abuse, bio-engineered plagues, or any of a hundred other horrifying hydra heads. Be optimistic, yes, but plan for the worst.
