Hacker News Reader

Comment by edmcnulty101 | Hacker News Reader

The same thing happened pre-enlightenment during the dark ages.

All of the capital was tied up in the hands of the royalty.

The black plague came along and killed 50% of the world and the whole system was shaken up and it's theorized that reduced the inequality enough to the elightenment to happen.

Its possible that World War two did the same thing for the mid 20th century post great Gatsby roaring 20s levels of inequality. But apparently according to the article there was a lot of innovation during the early 20th century though. So who knows?

Walter Sciedel, I think it is, posits the idea that only four things can upend inequality and that's war plague and revolution and governmental collapse.

Note that legislation is not included in that list.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/open-future/2...

View on HN

There was a lot of scientific advancement during the so called “dark ages.”

Christian monasteries maintained and improved on technology after the absolute collapse of the Roman empire

There could be great movies on the monks hiding from the barbarian hordes burning everything… :)

I mean are historians wrong for calling it the "dark ages"?

I'm not disputing that there's always 'science going on' but at what quantity and how much impact did it have?

It seems like scientifically the needle wasn't moved as much in the 900 years of dark ages as in the 70 years of the enlightenment.

However, it may have, in all seriousness, been hype, from a few major breakthroughs and charismatic characters during that time, that gave it a much more visible place in history than deserved.

I'm not a scholar in this stuff...and could be saying completely wrong boneheaded stuff so please feel free to correct me, if I'm off base. :)

Historians generally don’t call it the “dark ages.”

Moreover, it’s inherently ridiculous to look at the progress of science and technology on some sort of linear path from less technologically advanced to more technologically advanced.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Its not a linear path.

Its a bumpy path that's filled with huge upticks at times and no movement at times.

And I’m saying you’re thinking about it incorrectly. Technology isn’t a line that can be graphed from less advanced to more advanced. If you think deeply about it for any length of time, you can see why that absurd notion deconstructs.

I mean we went from caveman without the wheel to launching a Tesla into space and having a magic phone that has the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips.

There does appear to be a less advanced to more advanced technology trend?

I agree, but describing the “dark ages” as a time of low technological progress is wrong for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which being that it is atrociously eurocentric, and moreover it ignores the many important inventions(for example, crop rotation) to come out of Europe at the time.

But it was a time of low technological progress though wasn't it? Not saying it was NO progress. Just low progress.

Am I wrong?

I'm not a history scholar, so please let me know if I'm off base.

No, it was a time of immense progress. In particular, in the middle east.

But those advancements were not used to improve quality of life substantially. Only with the dramatic decrease in population due to the black death did it become necessary to improve the output of the remaining workers. New tools became widespread, previously idle lands were improved, the population began consistently rising for the first time in 1000 years (a trend which has continued to today), and per capita GDP likewise began to rise above subsistence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com