I think it very much depends on your perspective, and also how old you are. Keep in mind I was 25 when the financial crisis hit. There really hasn't been a decade in my adult life where there hasn't been a once-in-a-lifetime event (I turned 18 and 9/11 hit). If I'm gonna wake up tomorrow with a chip on my shoulder, I have evidence. And if I let all of that shit define me, that chip on my shoulder's gonna be Ontario-sized.

Thanks for the defense. I stand by what I said but it's nice to know I'm not alone and just yelling into the wind. All the best.

Jebus but the apostrophe crime there.

Social program funding has been cut year over year for quite a long time.

I know. It's why I am doing my level best to never be in a position to require government assistance again.

A non insubstantial group of the population legitimately have no shame.

That's always been true. social media just made it more visible. Your racist uncle can spout his opinions on Facebook instead of solely at the dinner table.

Respect for people (Indigenous, LGBTQ+ etc) is dwindling. Hell even had masked Nazi’s show up at one of the Reserves during Truth and Reconciliation day.

The people who are disrespecting those groups now have always done so. They've just done so quietly until people in power started teaching them it was okay. Trump is one example, but there are others. And far too many of our people in power are included in that list.

Respect for many Institution’s (higher education being a huge one) is basically dead in the water.

Speaking as someone who has obtained postsecondary education, there's a reason for that. In 2008 you were told go to college/university and you'll land a good job. That was true. For about 15 years. Now the postsecondary education I have barely qualifies me to answer the phone and follow a script. But yes, also the deliberate underfunding of higher education - which predates the 2008 recession doesn't help.

Low Level anger has definitely permeated society, largely driven by social media and now “AI”. People can see their futures completely quashed because some tech bro’s and CEO’s think they’re already at Artificial General Intelligence, when all they have is a tool that doesn’t work for shit without proper human structures behind it.

You're giving AI too much credit. AI has become the most recent thing to blame for the current situation, and the AI bros are making that easy. But if not AI, it'll be something else. Just like it was something else before AI. We're never going to have it as easy as our parents, and our kids will never have it as easy as us. I'd be tempted to be pissed off about that too. It's part of the reason I don't have kids.

Unstable world politics is impossible to ignore.

That's the circle coming back around again. They were impossible to ignore in the 30's too, but the internet and social media didn't exist back then. Disruption, meet megaphone.

Society is being actively damaged by the Wealth Class, from climate change denialism to abuse of foreign worker programs to cuts to healthcare.

You don't need to be wealthy to be a climate change denier. And you don't need to be wealthy to benefit from an abusive TFW program. And you especially don't need to be wealthy to vote for any of the parties who would love to abuse that program, which is basically all of them.

Sure you can find good things still, but as melsaskca said, most of that is on an individual level not a societal one.

And I still disagree with this. Again, I'm not saying we don't have our issues. But if there is literally nothing good left in this society, then please tell me how to start the process of tearing it down and replacing it with a better one. And then find at least three people who can agree on what "better" looks like.