[Karrot_Kream]

> It is a pandemic, so there's that, but there's been similar things in my lifetime that didn't lead to quite so much collapse narrative.

Yet despite all of the rhetoric around the pandemic throughout the entire world, very little has functionally changed politically. While the pandemic most certainly exposed many problems throughout world governments, the fact that no major change (e.g. revolution, energy collapse, etc) has actually happened is a testament to the world's current status quo.

> Maybe things were so good or stable-seeming before that returning to some kind of historical norm with regard to instability factors is bringing things back to a baseline with collapse narrative?

The world was a lot less connected before. Now we see the pain around us instantly through shared photos, Twitter, and the 24 hour news cycle. In the past you could go months without realizing that a major conflict was occurring, especially in less connected parts of the world.