Anyway, it's not even that. The article focuses on global metrics -- which basically means poverty reduction in China, India, Africa, etc. I don't doubt that life in those places is better than ever, and in fact, having travelled quite a lot over the past twenty years, I can personally vouch for it.
What definitely hasn't gotten any better is life in the US and Western Europe over the past twenty years. 2015-2025 was a very bad period for the US in particular.
The generous interpretation is that was a jolly quip about those that confuse global averages with immediate specific locations.
For example, some might forget about hemispheres and assume January was globally meaningful when some of us are going through a tarmac melting heatwave.
Life under a rock is generally stabilised - warm during the night, cooler than direct sunlight during the day .. that's why goannas and perenties live in tunnels under rocks.
