Widespread disruption

Tomorrow's my birthday, and it feels like I've got to mentally travel back to the 1970's to feel the same level of unease, war, disruption and uncertainty for the globe as we have now.    (That said, I was a teenager for most of the 70's and distracted by high school, a still interesting space program and enjoyable science fiction, and as such still felt somewhat optimistic for the future.  But I was aware of the level of global unhappiness - much of it still coming from the exact same places as now!)   

I mean, Israel attacking buildings in Qatar (even making the Trump administration uneasy!); deaths in anti-government rioting in Indonesia and Nepal (with the later partly being put down to proposed social media bans!); I haven't checked what armed conflicts are "hot" in Africa at the moment, but there are bound to be some; Trump and his coterie of idiot advisers who think a global trade war and trashing decades of international relationship building is a good idea;  Elon Musk using his social media outlet to encourage a race war (and openly expressing regrets about white people not reproducing enough to keep up with the non whites - yes, he is an awful man);  American going down a anti-science path not only on climate change, but the previously non-controversial issue of vaccines; Britain still suffering from its self inflicted populist wounds and stupid use of police in culture wars over gender and sexuality;  illegal immigration from badly run countries causing social unrest everywhere;  Russia carrying on a pointless war because Putin refuses to do the right thing and die.   All we need is an abrupt stockmarket crash and for China to make its move on Taiwan, and it would round off a "perfect storm" of things that could go wrong.

I often think of the Robert Heinlein's Future History with it's "crazy years" and how appropriate a label that appears to this current unfortunate era - and oddly, it seems figures both on the Left (science fiction author David Brin - well, I assume he's mainly Lefty) and the Right (blogger Glenn Reynolds) have both written years ago - around the rise of Trump - about how Heinlein was prescient!   Obviously, each thinks the other side is the one causing the "craziness":  perhaps I should just read that as confirming the craziness is deep and not going away anytime soon.

Of course, one should remind oneself that there are respects in which the world is still in a much better place than in the 1970's:   treating people as people, regardless of location and colour (hello, Elon), the decline of poverty in China and India is a positive.   Ignoring the dire risks of global warming for a moment, there's no doubt that environmental issues are otherwise taken seriously now in a way they weren't in the 70's.  (Of course, Trump is doing his best to undo that...because he's an idiot.)   

Anyway, there must be other "global positives" that I need to think about.   Help me, anyone?    

It's just hard to believe how pessimistic we can now feel, with quite a bit of justification...