We've had perpetual war for the last 20 years. We've had increasing inequality. The temperature is rising, wages are stagnating, riots in major urban areas are becoming more common.

These are not the good times. We have plenty to eat and too much technology but these are not what make the good times.

Perpetual war in a far off land that has pretty much zero impact on people at home.

Inequality sure, but the economy has been on a tear in the US since the 90’s, contrast that with the decade of the Great Depression.

And the riots now are nothing compared to the 60’s riots worldwide.

The last 20-30 years have definitely been easy times for the developed world. Not without challenges (2008 crash) but relatively speaking easy times.

I am not sure that is true. As an outside observer of the US I see a lot of highly trained, potentially dangerous veterans who came home to a pile of broken promises with broken psyches and sometimes broken bodies. There are now decades worth of these guys milling around in a society awash with firearms and blitzed with misinformation. It's a powderkeg that might just go off unexpectedly. Of course there are side effects to those middle east adventures.