"we have a constant history of getting better"
I have to take issue with the word "constant." At best, our progress as a species is marked by fits and starts, two steps forward and somewhere between one and three steps back. And it has been anything but uniform. Our technical and scientific progress has vastly out-paced the growth of our wisdom.
The only reason we're not fighting world wars anymore is because even our dim ape brain understands that it would destroy us all. Not for that, we'd be trying to kill each other with all the vigor we've always shown for that passtime. That's a pretty sad stand-in for "wisdom."