Not sure about all of these, but it's interesting.
Discussion
These sound like stories you'd tell to slaves so they don't revolt.
I have a copy of a memoir from a familiy member talking about rural life just 100 or so years ago & there wasn't anything easy sounding about it. People who romanticize the past are mostly retarded. What's interesting IMO is the origins of words & phrases that are still in use today even though the reasons for their origins have kinda been lost.
Salary - payment in salt
Shelling out - handing over lots of wampum due to inflation in supply
Ragging on someone (picking on them) - a reference to a woman being "on the rag" prior to the invention of tampons
The same people who told you that fiat money is awesome also told you about history. Why would you believe them? Yes, 100-150 years ago, I'm sure it was difficult. This was likely after a global reset. Before that, there is ample evidence of a more advanced civilization. Just look at the architecture which is beyond us to create today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQSO201RjpM
I don't think there are masterminds reseting society every few hundred or every couple thousand years, there are just cycles of people figuring out how to be prosperous & trade with each other, followed by hubris which leads to centralization & collapse. Yes there is evidence of prosperous cities prior to what we were generally taught in school, but that doesn't really change anything about how hard life can be, what we should be grateful for, or the roots of common words & phrases still in use today.