Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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For centuries the term "Dark Ages" was applied to the time period between the late 400s AD until the early 1000s, across Europe.
That phrase was best understood as a period of decline and stagnation in arts and innovation; a time of barbaric ignorance. In England it was seen as the time period following the retreat of the Romans, as their Empire collapsed in the west and shifted to the east. In the wake of the Roman departure people began moving over to England from Northern Europe. These people are now called the Saxons, and they brought with them a new culture that slowly began to influence the Romanized British. Unfortunately, Saxon culture was not as highly refined as that of the Romans so they did not have record-keeping systems. All of the Roman villas, temples, public buildings, hotels, and industrial facilities fell into disrepair and were eventually disassembled for use in other buildings and field boundaries. Archaeologists have a difficult time finding evidence from the Saxon era, as they did not build with the coherence of the highly organized Romans. Eventually there was a effort made to take control of the larger territory. In 1085 William the Conqueror sent agents out across the land to assay what exactly it was that he was now king of, the result becoming known as the Domesday Book (pronounced more excitingly as "Doomsday") - which has been used ever since by archaeologists and scholars for research on places and culture. Today, scholars of the Medieval period shy away from the term Dark Ages, with some suggesting that it ignores continuing innovation and a lack of appreciation for the culture that did exist. There are lots of very valid, very learned reasons why the term is inaccurate and salacious. But when there are virtually no written records for a period of several hundred years, Dark Ages seems fair - and how can you have a "Renaissance" without there being a period of ignorance and rampant superstition? For the past decade or so I have felt as if we (in the West at least) have been slipping into a new Dark Age, societally, due in large part to our transition to the digital realm. Libraries of knowledge have disappeared around us in crashing waves of AOL, MySpace, and message boards. Knowledge has been balkanized across Diggs and Magnolias and Farks and now Twitter and reddit are set to "fall". Technology has hardly been stagnant in this time, but ignorance abounds. In his book Fall (or Dodge in Hell), author Neal Stephenson explores an intentional "salting" of the internet to disabuse it as a place of trusted knowledge. The result of that effort is a digital AND physical new Dark Age, in which everyone needs a curator (or a curation service) to determine what is true and false out on the internet. People who can't afford a service simply decide what to believe based on their existing biases. Traveling between large population centers becomes dangerous, as rural areas all begin to affect a redneck guns & camo aesthetic, with overtones of fundamentalist barbarism. In that regard it's not really far from where we are now. But back to the new Dark Age. Am I way out in left field? Is there some echo of previous dark ages in what we are currently living through? ... |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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I'll admit that 4Chan does threaten to throw the entire premise off...
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Factual information is no longer fixed, but fluid in the moment depending on the whims of the speaker, in a way that it hasn't been since the advent of the printing press.
Political manipulation in cries of 'Lügenpresse' or 'fake news' only adds to the complete break from reality being not only easy, but in some circles expected as a signifier of affiliation. Let's just say that I've been slowly and steadily acquiring printed materials recently, because I'm not sure that online availability will continue, or be of quality. (This is a handy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0716601230/) While YouTube has been great for learning new DIY tricks, I've also been purchasing older guides on how to build everything from fences (my 19th c. text on that still can't be beat, IMO), to a 1978 ham radio setup (analog is simpler to build from scratch), a 1906 treatise on creating chemical compounds useful to homesteads and farms, etc, etc, etc. The medieval 'dark ages' were a time of missing information. We don't have information missing, we have a glut of misinformation and outright insanity. Reality is buried under mountains of chaff. On the plus side, I now have a very nice library of useful information. |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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That's kinda how I've been seeing it, in recent years. There's no shortage or "missing" of anything, it's the complete opposite. So much that a lot of it is just useless noise (if not outright horseshit). That's the trick anymore, just sifting through the constant stuff coming at you, nonstop, on all your devices. I kinda quit/gave up some time ago.
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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This is one of the most interesting parts of the Stephenson book I mentioned.
One of the characters in the book is seized upon by internet trolls, who create memes about her and dox her family. Another side character (a hyper dorky computer scientist) asks for her permission to ruin her reputation by publishing every conceivable slander about her - every possible terrible thing. The concept is that, for a brief time, she would be made into a pariah by him setting loose these bots designed to flood the internet with all this chaff. The long term result would be a "reputation inoculation"; eventually nobody would believe (or care) about what was published about her. A weariness of her bad reputation. And it worked. Kind of. ... |
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Sneaky Punk
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If anything I see the current age as being closer to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, rather than the period after. The service industry dominated the economy. The society fell deeper and deeper into entrainment, greed, debit, the Empire imported more than it produced, making the latter worse all the time. Power struggles from special interest groups, putting one leader or another in power in short periods of time. Massive amount of immigration from poorer areas on the boarders to make up for a drop in population (look at the birth rate now), lower birth rates, large amounts of people dying from virtual infections. No real focus or reason to exist other than to keep doing so. Any of this sound familiar?
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Are you saying history repeats itself and there is nothing new under the sun?
What you wrote does sound amazingly familiar. |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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Sneaky Punk
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Well, if we slip back past to pre-industrial for any reason, we'll never get through it again. We've consumed all the readily available fossil fuels, and those are rather critical to building the infrastructure for a large scale electrical society, much less the requirements for fission, fusion, or even solar cells.
Waterwheels and windmills would be the peak after that point. So, yeah. This is one of those Great Filters. Not nuclear war, it turns out, but simple stupidity causing widespread breakdown of society's assumptions. If our species manages to survive the next millennia, it will be astounding. I don't expect our modern society to survive the next two centuries. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
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Sneaky Punk
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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I am (surprisingly) more hopeful.
While Europe languished in widespread ignorance, the accrued knowledge of the West resided safely with the Arab people - apocryphally, being recovered by Europeans invading Spain. I do not know where that place is, electronically, but maybe it exists... but books and clay tablets seem so much more resilient! ... |
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Sneaky Punk
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Veteran Member
Join Date: May 2004
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Sneaky Punk
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25-50, that’s what I have humans period. We are bent on self distraction, that much is evident. For ever person trying to improve things there are a million who would try to do the opposite. Instant gratification is our nature, I don’t see us overcoming it in my lifetime. The US? Civil war in the next 5-10 years is my guess.
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Does this mean I can stop paying my bills now?
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Sneaky Punk
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Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472 Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
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Really though, I'm going to do what I can for my family (and neighbors really) to help maintain a basic level of life. We moved to solar which is great, while still not the same level of stability we are used to from the grid. We homestead so we now have food to feed our family and will continue to expand that, slowly. I saw an article about a guy who moved off grid and has no utilities other than internet IIRC. Rainwater collection, solar, even glass bottles built into his walls for interior day lighting. Then there is a composting toilet and outhouse. No thanks. I'll take a septic system over that... but if I HAD to, I would take a trowel outside and do what I have to do. Even outhouse if it came to that. Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it. |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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My friend lives in a tiny house on Vancouver Island, BC. She has a non-flushing dry toilet, based on the property (rural, undeveloped) she recently moved to/parked on). After explaining it all, I think I could go this route if it ever truly came to it. It doesn't bother her. It has two separate holding canisters (liquid and waste). She's been living this way since September and says she'd never go back, wasting so much water again.
*shrug* She's looking to get her own piece of property one day, 5-10 years, and do the solar panel and well water thing. She's in a lovely area now, near a running, clear river, billions of trees and beach/waterfront areas with some nearby land for sale that she's seriously eyeballing. Hopefully I wind up there with her someday. I don't think I'll be fully happy until I do, she's kinda amazing/adorable. I always assumed I'd grow old, grey and die here in Tennessee. Now I no longer believe that. You Canadians will have to deal with me. Apologies in a advance. |
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Space Pirate
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
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"friend" with solar power
Should we change this message board to PrepperNova??? ... |
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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No, but I have some other, more accurate suggestions.
She just wants to put some out in the yard and not be fully reliant on the grid, way out in the country where she is. I don't blame her. Every time it storms around her, she loses power for several hours, it seems.. Nobody's in a hurry up there to fix things, either, she says. Very different from her decades in Calgary. I don't know, I've never been. Just going by her weekly "you won't believe what happened today!" Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2023-06-13 at 16:56. |
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Sneaky Punk
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Mr. Vieira
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
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Yep, I hear.
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