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> The trade system which maintained large cities broke down for reasons that will be forever debated re: the decline of the Western Roman Empire. But that is the key, and why it probably deserves to be called a Dark Age.

The normal use of the term "dark age" refers to a time period for which historical records are not available. This makes it difficult to see in the dark age.

Colloquially, "dark age" means an age when the people are unenlightened, backwards, etc

There is no benefit to using it that way; if you try, the only thing that will happen is you'll be hopelessly confused by every historical period that is called a dark age, because they're all called that for the reason I gave above.

It is a problem when professional jargon makes its way into the common lexicon with a different meaning. No amount of history professors telling people that "dark ages" refers to a lack of sources will overcome the association people have in their minds today. And even the "no sources" thing is reevaluated regarding the european "dark ages" ("The Bright Ages" is a recent monograph with a fair amount of chatter pushing hard on this).

The term "dark ages" was coined by Petrarch with an explicitly negative connotation. It has never been a neutral term.

But for a very long time historians assumed knowledge wasn't advancing during the dark ages, setting that association up. Then historians changed their minds, realizing that in some areas such as mining, technology and understanding was advancing during the period.

Yes, I understand. I did mean it like that. My point was that the material capability of the societies in the area of the former Western empire to record things, to write history, the sheer number of literate people with surplus time and access to writing materials, the inclination and ability to preserve existing documents, etc. -- that seems to have sharply contracted during the period in question. Is that not then a Dark Age in the historical records sense?

Yes, writing is significant and its (whole or partial) disappearance coincides with a great deal of societal trauma.

But the trauma isn't why a period deserves to be called a dark age. It's called a dark age because it's hard to see.

Worthwhile point. But we usually have considerable records from civilizations that are cranking along quite well. There is a strong correlation - not perfect but good.

In a security class about resilience I use Thomas Thwaite's "Toaster Project" as an example of complex dependencies and the "black-start" reboot problem.

Your above comment could be rewritten replacing literacy of reading and writing with digital literacy and coding. Hackers (in the vernacular sense) may be required to "take back technology" in some future idiocracy of intellectual oppression.

[1] https://www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-project/

I like the way you think.

Imagine if today the oil trade stopped completely. In a matter of months, the civilization as we know it would collapse. Even with this current crisis, we are seeing a sharp decline in the standard of living.

Well the grain was as important or even more important to the ancient societies than oil is to us. Without it, the civilization would revert to tribal hunting and gathering of food.

We can argue about the role of religion for the lack of prosperity but without cultural and spiritual connection provided by organized religion, people would not band together as they were. Grain alone was not enough.

Only when science allowed for more comfort and easier transportation (railroads, ships, roads, sturdy homes, etc.), did people start putting religion aside.

I would argue that some ancient civilizations were more advanced when compared to some medieval nations.

Trade disruption was not the only reason why those civilizations fell. The lack of a reliable way to preserve knowledge was another.

Now, imagine what would happen if modern humans lost access to Internet for a couple of years. It was about several orders of magnitude worse when ancients lost written knowledge that was kept, most of the time, in a well renowned place.

One such example was the Library of Alexandria. Imagine all the secrets and ancient technologies that were lost when they burned it.

If you lack the knowledge and resources to build the infrastructure you need to get yourself out of the shithole, is pretty dark. Olives are nice, but bridges are essential.

It's not even knowledge or resources, but organisational scale and capacity. The ability to coordinate the labours of many people for long periods of time with enough stability to do things at large scale, gaining efficiency. If that stutters, neither the knowledge or resources may suffice.

When stated like that, it becomes quite clear to me that we're currently living through software development dark ages. :-)

there are absolutely forces who are actively weakening both social interconnectivity and also technological interconnectivity. leaders say this out right.

it’s much easier for them to control and build personal wealth/power when isolation is rampant. lock in—or metaphorically, when wings are clipped.

one of graeber’s three freedoms is: the freedom to move _from_ one situation _to_ another if you feel it will measurably improve your life.

we currently see example after example where someone with influence—monied or political—is actively trying to limit our abilities to change situations. and of course as you pointed out, this is heavily applying in technologies as well.

Well, the lack of stable energy and power sources would indeed be detrimental to software development.

But it would be so for a lot of other things we modern humans take for granted.

We are underestimating the impact of peace on global prosperity. When there is no peace, there is no trade. If there's no trade, there is not enough energy. No energy = no power.

And modern society simply can't exist without power.

> impact of peace on global prosperity

I know of a certain country that loves war against small states and interfering with regional conflicts thereby disrupting peace.

> Even the main durable writing material

I must say, I wonder if the dark ages were dark because of all the factors you cite ... or simply because they started using a non-durable writing material and historians can't find much information because all that was written down disintegrated before it could be found.

That’s not true though. They actually started using more durable writing materials. Parchment can survive much longer than papyrus which is why we have some many manuscripts surviving from the late dark ages.

IIRC if any ancient work was transcribed around 9-10th century there is a pretty decent chance it survived until today. The thing about ancient Roman/Greek texts is that they had to be continually copied every few generations or so. So 50-100 years of extreme social upheaval might be enough to lose a significant proportion of all literary works.