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Are we in a Dark Age right now?

1123581321 4y ago
It’s quite possible. Depending on how our civilization collapses, and how our immediate replacements view us, most of our records and art may be lost to civilizations a millennia from now. A dark age is more an inability to communicate with the future than a lack of activity or culture.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Exactly: the Dark Ages were called that because there just wasn't that much written history that survived from that time, compared to times before and after. These days, for some reason, some certain groups of people are trying to rename the Dark Ages and whitewash them, but I think it's pretty clear that there was a lot more learning and recording of knowledge after the Enlightenment than before.
  - bdcrazy 4y ago
    Depending on how much of your life involved the early web, it could be considered the dark ages for the past 30 years. For instance, 90s to early 2000s had so many different things online that are basically gone today. Is that a good thing or a bad thing is highly debatable. Likewise, online pay services in the more recent era, MMOs and the like, fade away and are shut down, or they are continually changed, so as they say, you can't go back again. The world as a whole is producing too much 'data' to fathom. So I don't think Dark Ages moniker quite applies, more like finding the right haystack in a field of haystacks. Loss of data, but not quite in the same way.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Depends. How do you define "dark age"? Failure to transmit the culture's foundations to the next generation? Given the contempt for "dead white European males", arguably we're in a dark age by this standard. Loss of technical progress (and even technical regress)? No. Few records or little information about that age available to future ages? No. Even if you worry about loss of digital information, our garbage dumps contain insane amounts of printed matter, most of it buried quickly enough and deep enough that it's in anaerobic storage. There will be plenty for future societies to read about our current age.
Nomentatus 4y ago
Since we're piling up records like never before and still making tech progress (slowing down many argue) no. But... see Dark Age Ahead, May 17, 2005 by Jane Jacobs One of her largest points is that we are progressively losing our grip on what Science is in fact. I don't think she's all wrong about that.

It’s quite possible. Depending on how our civilization collapses, and how our immediate replacements view us, most of our records and art may be lost to civilizations a millennia from now. A dark age is more an inability to communicate with the future than a lack of activity or culture.

midoridensha 4y ago
Exactly: the Dark Ages were called that because there just wasn't that much written history that survived from that time, compared to times before and after. These days, for some reason, some certain groups of people are trying to rename the Dark Ages and whitewash them, but I think it's pretty clear that there was a lot more learning and recording of knowledge after the Enlightenment than before.
- bdcrazy 4y ago
  Depending on how much of your life involved the early web, it could be considered the dark ages for the past 30 years. For instance, 90s to early 2000s had so many different things online that are basically gone today. Is that a good thing or a bad thing is highly debatable. Likewise, online pay services in the more recent era, MMOs and the like, fade away and are shut down, or they are continually changed, so as they say, you can't go back again. The world as a whole is producing too much 'data' to fathom. So I don't think Dark Ages moniker quite applies, more like finding the right haystack in a field of haystacks. Loss of data, but not quite in the same way.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

Depends. How do you define "dark age"? Failure to transmit the culture's foundations to the next generation? Given the contempt for "dead white European males", arguably we're in a dark age by this standard. Loss of technical progress (and even technical regress)? No. Few records or little information about that age available to future ages? No. Even if you worry about loss of digital information, our garbage dumps contain insane amounts of printed matter, most of it buried quickly enough and deep enough that it's in anaerobic storage. There will be plenty for future societies to read about our current age.

Nomentatus 4y ago

Since we're piling up records like never before and still making tech progress (slowing down many argue) no. But... see Dark Age Ahead, May 17, 2005 by Jane Jacobs One of her largest points is that we are progressively losing our grip on what Science is in fact. I don't think she's all wrong about that.