[bdw5204]

I think most of today's problems are due to failures of the consensus in the 90s and 00s. The consensus interfered in Russia's 1996 presidential election (alienating Russia from the western world), allowed China to join the WTO on the assumption that capitalism would eventually lead to democracy in China and invaded Iraq in the name of spreading liberal democracy. The consensus also stood by and did nothing or even cheered as corporations shipped working class people's jobs to countries where they could pay next to nothing and decided that they were "multinational" with no loyalty whatsoever to their home country.

What I meant by "few real problems in the world" is that compared to global pandemics, terrorist attacks, the return of 70s style economic malaise, aging populations (in the 00s, this was a Japanese problem but it is now becoming a global problem) and the possibility of a nuclear WW3 if the tensions with Russia and/or China escalate, whatever problems people perceived in the 90s were trivial in comparison. Even the problems that remain unsolved from that time (like climate change) are generally much worse today because of decades of inaction. Its really hard to take seriously "problems" like the president having an affair with his intern or a famous football player getting acquitted of a murder that most people think he committed when you live in a time where the end of the world in the near future is a plausible outcome.