The world is untold times more improved, and if those explorers had stayed home or perished before October 1492, we would all still be living in filthy hovels, dying young, and wallowing in ignorance as if we were freaking Islamists.
Well, maybe not quite that bad, but without the European empires’ sailing and steam technologies, and their introduction of ideas like the rule of law, romantic love, and the pleasures of literature to regions and races that had never dreamt of any of them, I agree with you that half the world would still be laboring in darkness of mind and spirit.