I guess I should couple "monotonic in goodness" with "taking a global perspective". Economically[0], the world hasn't had a down year for decades. Even the 1930s were an "up" decade, at least for the world.
[0] One can make an argument about "economic bads", because economic growth isn't necessarily an indicator of humanitarian progress. However, I've seen no data to indicate that the proportion of economic bads has increased, so it wouldn't have a differential effect that would nullify observed growth.
Locally speaking, there are horrible uses of technology that occur all the time, but people have been doing awful things to each other since there were humans, and I think it's hard to blame that on technology itself. So what I'm really saying is more restricted: that the march of technical progress has been, for the world, positive more than negative over almost any measurable timescale.
Economically, the world has seen down years within one decade, depending on what we're measuring. The somewhat-loose-yet-quantified world gross product, for example, is certainly an economic indicator and decreased in 2009.
[0] One can make an argument about "economic bads", because economic growth isn't necessarily an indicator of humanitarian progress. However, I've seen no data to indicate that the proportion of economic bads has increased, so it wouldn't have a differential effect that would nullify observed growth.
Locally speaking, there are horrible uses of technology that occur all the time, but people have been doing awful things to each other since there were humans, and I think it's hard to blame that on technology itself. So what I'm really saying is more restricted: that the march of technical progress has been, for the world, positive more than negative over almost any measurable timescale.