I think it's an anthropomorphic fallacy for anyone to refer to their times as the golden age. Every generation of our species has always thought of themselves in this way

1. We are living in a golden age
2. Civilization will not make any more progress than we have
3. We invented nostalgia
4. Doomsday is approaching

They were thinking this even when they were burning women for having opinions, ostracizing Galileo for his blasphemous views and going on murdering rampages in South America.

While it sounds unfortunate, I believe that any given capitalistic society (the world economy) by necessity requires a portion of the population to 'suffer' in this way - capitalism is an economical manifestation of Darwin's theories. That's just my observation, it's somewhat close to what Shaggy posted, but I'm disagreeing about us being in the golden age.

Just as Charles Babbage once said, I too would be willing to give up the rest of the days of my life if I could come back 500 years in the future to see how much more progress has been made. And there will be lots, our achievements will seem barbaric, scattered and disorganized to them. This view, however, is what lends to a diminishing of our own self importance which may not be comfortable for everyone to handle. I'm willing to accept the existential insignificance implied because I think it's true!