Sorry if it's a little glib, but the first thing that came to my mind after reading this post was:

"But apart from medicine, effective sanitation, drastically higher chances of living a long life, material welfare, peace and declining violence, and a near end to famines and legal slavery, what has the Enlightenment ever done for us?"

Sure, WWII claimed 3% of the world population, but Tamerlane got 5% and Genghis Khan 10%.

Thank you for this.

I hear lots of people complain about how bad things are. So I ask them if they know the difference between typhus and typhoid.

They never do, because at least in developed countries we never see either of those.

As backup, I ask them how many people they know who have died of starvation, religious pogroms, or smallpox.