Perhaps before great technology.
Before you might need 100 men to dig a ditch with shovels. Now one guy and a backhoe. Before you’d need a field of harvesters- now we got John Deere.
Personally, we have the technology to do many good things - just the “will” “politics” and “power/money/control” seems to get in the way. Trying to balance the changes that we could bring to people earth wide.