Is the World really headed for another Dark Age?

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In summary, you think the world economy is headed for disaster and anarchy, but you don't think this will lead to the end of civilization.
  • #1
Zdenka
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I'm talking about the World economy becoming so bad that it'll ultmately lead to revolts in every country and then the ensuing anarchy, which will bring down all the governments and authority.. reverting us back 300 years into another dark middle age.

Before you answer, please give my question serious thought, as I think it's really possible it could happen.. I mean the economy is seeing no sign of bottoming out, isn't it?

Thanks in advance for your opinion!
 
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  • #2
Let's see.

The last time the GDP was this low was 2007.

Yup. Sure looks like a Dark Age to me.
 
  • #3
I thought this subject was in reference to climate change. How is the economy going to get that bad? It's bad yes, lots of people lose their jobs get repossed, it's terrible but it's happened before, it's the logical conclusion of free market unregulated Friedmanite capitalism.

People get richer while others get poorer, and people should get angry. They had a week of riots in Greece, a few upsets in France, some English people reverted to rascism and blamed foreign workers for taking their jobs, but it's hardly a sign of an impending "dark age" is it; that is until you factor climate change into the equation
 
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  • #4
So you all seriously think the tumbling world economy won't lead to the end of civilization as we know it?

I'm not worried about 'climate change' the Earth has seen more dramatic climate change in the past and many species managed to survive, let alone humans.
 
  • #5
Lets flip it around: why do you think it could? And ask yourself just how far the economy would have to fall to get there.
 
  • #6
Zdenka said:
I'm not worried about 'climate change' the Earth has seen more dramatic climate change in the past and many species managed to survive, let alone humans.

You forgot to put QED
 
  • #7
neu said:
People get richer while others get poorer.
I think that's PETA's complaint.
 
  • #8
jimmysnyder said:
I think that's PETA's complaint.

You're right to mock that sentence. It's nieve isn't it? To think that wealth is in itself a sign of exploitation? Yes, now I agree, one needs to understand the world better to realize that being rich is a good thing and should be celebrated. So that when we are confronted with those who are very much worse off than we are we can say we've done nothing wrong.
 
  • #9
Vanadium 50 said:
Let's see.

The last time the GDP was this low was 2007.

Yup. Sure looks like a Dark Age to me.

What was the GDP during the dark age?
 
  • #10
Ivan Seeking said:
What was the GDP during the dark age?

Two sheep and a bushel of wheat.
 
  • #11
Vanadium 50 said:
Two sheep and a bushel of wheat.

Actually, during the dark age in the little ice age, it was too difficult for wheat to grow. It was half a bushel of rye.

http://williamcalvin.com/readings/Fagan 1999 chapter on LIA.htm

By the beginning of the fifteenth century, most northern European farmers had abandoned wheat cultivation altogether. Wheat was a tricky crop at the best of times in the north, requiring constant tilling, frequent and careful manuring, and meticulous rotation from field to field. English visitors to a Danish wedding in 1406 commented on the widely sodden ground and lack of wheat fields. In Norway, where the cold weather and plague had reduced the population by two-thirds over the preceding century, upland farms lay deserted. By the 1430s many district tax yields had fallen to one-quarter of their level in 1300. Many poor families ate rye bread, which, a French doctor wrote in 1702, "is not as nourishing as wheat and loosens the bowels a little."
 
  • #12
neu said:
I thought this subject was in reference to climate change. How is the economy going to get that bad? It's bad yes, lots of people lose their jobs get repossed, it's terrible but it's happened before, it's the logical conclusion of free market unregulated Friedmanite capitalism.

People get richer while others get poorer, and people should get angry. They had a week of riots in Greece, a few upsets in France, some English people reverted to rascism and blamed foreign workers for taking their jobs, but it's hardly a sign of an impending "dark age" is it; that is until you factor climate change into the equation

I'm not clear on this. Are you saying the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer? Or are you saying that some are getting poor and some are getting rich?
 
  • #13
Vanadium 50 said:
Let's see.

The last time the GDP was this low was 2007.

Yup. Sure looks like a Dark Age to me.

Considering that Bush was President then, maybe you are on to something?
 
  • #14
Zdenka said:
So you all seriously think the tumbling world economy won't lead to the end of civilization as we know it?

...no
 
  • #15
Zdenka said:
So you all seriously think the tumbling world economy won't lead to the end of civilization as we know it?
No! The future is bright. Get some :cool:
 
  • #16
Yes, the time has come. We all are doomed to die. It's the end and Jesus is coming to save his people only :devil:
 
  • #17
This might be off topic but once I heard that the dark ages were actually "dark" caused by the enviroment. Is this true?
 
  • #18
Ach! Here we are, facing a recession arguably less worse than the '70's and we have people saying doomsday!
 
  • #19
Bright Wang said:
This might be off topic but once I heard that the dark ages were actually "dark" caused by the enviroment. Is this true?

I do remember watching something on the history channel about this. But it seems that
you have your ages confused ... the dark ages are attributed to the fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent lack of unity and the chaos derived therefrom. Many problems in European history during the medieval period can be blamed on prolonged winters caused by vocanic eruptions.
 
  • #20
From my studies of history I get the impression that the fall of Rome was due to an affinity for sophistry. Put simply, the ruling class so caught up in the ability to propagate their own self-serving ideologies though rhetoric that society eventually lost grasp of reality. We are clearly on that path today with the financial crisis being just one example, and while I am hopeful we can turn this ship around, I don't see it happening yet.
 
  • #21
Karl G. said:
Ach! Here we are, facing a recession arguably less worse than the '70's and we have people saying doomsday!


I must have missed the part about the government bailing out the big investment banks during the 70's. :rolleyes:

It isn't going to be doomsday but there isn't going to be a payday for a lot of people for a long time.
 
  • #22
kyleb said:
From my studies of history I get the impression that the fall of Rome was due to an affinity for sophistry. Put simply, the ruling class so caught up in the ability to propagate their own self-serving ideologies though rhetoric that society eventually lost grasp of reality. We are clearly on that path today with the financial crisis being just one example, and while I am hopeful we can turn this ship around, I don't see it happening yet.

While this continues to be a hot topic of debate among historians, the Roman Empire 'fell' for many reasons. (I put qoutes around fell because Rome really didn't collapse overnight- even well into the 1000's, many of its institutions still existed. To be precise, Rome experienced a decline, sometimes gradual, sometimes quickly, as when Rome's last emperor was overthrown by a barbarian army). Some reasons outlined in Cullen Murphy's interesting book Are We Rome? (which compares America to Rome) include government corruption, overexpansion of empire, decline of military, and said barbarian problems. Furthermore, late Rome was often plagued by emperors who seized power by force ad only lasted on average for several months. Also, another problem that Rome faced in its decline was runaway inflation (sound familiar?) and other economic problems. There are, however, some more loopy theories about Rome's decline, including lead poisoning caused by the use of lead pipes, gradual loss of the mental faculties of the aristocracy due to generations and generations of incest, male infertility due to hot baths, etc.
 
  • #23
Karl G. said:
While this continues to be a hot topic of debate among historians, the Roman Empire 'fell' for many reasons. (I put qoutes around fell because Rome really didn't collapse overnight- even well into the 1000's, many of its institutions still existed. To be precise, Rome experienced a decline, sometimes gradual, sometimes quickly, as when Rome's last emperor was overthrown by a barbarian army). Some reasons outlined in Cullen Murphy's interesting book Are We Rome? (which compares America to Rome) include government corruption, overexpansion of empire, decline of military, and said barbarian problems. Furthermore, late Rome was often plagued by emperors who seized power by force ad only lasted on average for several months. Also, another problem that Rome faced in its decline was runaway inflation (sound familiar?) and other economic problems. There are, however, some more loopy theories about Rome's decline, including lead poisoning caused by the use of lead pipes, gradual loss of the mental faculties of the aristocracy due to generations and generations of incest, male infertility due to hot baths, etc.
Peter Heather has produced an interesting narrative on the decline of the Roman Empire. He points out that they way one became emperor was to assassinate the emperor one was replacing.

Clearly the successive barbarian invasions and subsequent break up had an adverse impact. Rome split between east and west, and the western empire fell apart much more rapidly. Certainly we are not in that situation.

Communication is much more extensive now than then, and so is public education. On the other hand, we do seem to be in a rather unstable situation at the moment, and we are by no means in the clear just yet.

While some think the current US and global economic crisis is just as bad at the Great Depression, many in Washington acknowledge that the current crisis is the most severe since the Great Depression. It's clearly not that bad overall, but to those without a job or home, it is as bad as it was in the 1930's. Of course, few in the US have it as bad as the majority of those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq, . . . .
 
  • #24
Astronuc said:
Peter Heather has produced an interesting narrative on the decline of the Roman Empire. He points out that they way one became emperor was to assassinate the emperor one was replacing.

Clearly the successive barbarian invasions and subsequent break up had an adverse impact. Rome split between east and west, and the western empire fell apart much more rapidly. Certainly we are not in that situation.

Communication is much more extensive now than then, and so is public education. On the other hand, we do seem to be in a rather unstable situation at the moment, and we are by no means in the clear just yet.

While some think the current US and global economic crisis is just as bad at the Great Depression, many in Washington acknowledge that the current crisis is the most severe since the Great Depression. It's clearly not that bad overall, but to those without a job or home, it is as bad as it was in the 1930's. Of course, few in the US have it as bad as the majority of those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq, . . . .

Agreed! I'm tired of hearing 'our society is going to collapse' rhetoric. Compared to the times of the Roman Empire (even compared to the early 1900's!), we are infinitely better off today. Life expectancies have skyrocketed. Income has drastically risen. Crime has fallen. Etc!
 
  • #25
Karl G. said:
Life expectancies have skyrocketed. Income has drastically risen. Crime has fallen. Etc!
Well life expectancies on average have increased, but one can find pockets in the south and places like the Appalacian mountains and Indian reservations where it really hasn't risen that much.

Incomes are (proportionally) up for many people, but for many people the costs have kept ahead of any income increase.

Similarly crime. The aggregate rates are down, but I can take you places where it is relatively high, e.g. parts of LA, Chicago or any other urban or rural area.

For most - it's out of sight, out of mind.
 
  • #26
edward said:
I must have missed the part about the government bailing out the big investment banks during the 70's

But you might not have missed the same with S&L's in the 80's.
 
  • #27
Vanadium 50 said:
But you might not have missed the same with S&L's in the 80's.

The S&L bailout was peanuts compared to the current situation.
 
  • #28
Astronuc said:
Well life expectancies on average have increased, but one can find pockets in the south and places like the Appalacian mountains and Indian reservations where it really hasn't risen that much.

Incomes are (proportionally) up for many people, but for many people the costs have kept ahead of any income increase.

Similarly crime. The aggregate rates are down, but I can take you places where it is relatively high, e.g. parts of LA, Chicago or any other urban or rural area.

For most - it's out of sight, out of mind.
True, but I'd rather live in impoverished Appalachia than be a peasant in Ancient Rome.
 
  • #29
Astronuc said:
Well life expectancies on average have increased, but one can find pockets in the south and places like the Appalacian mountains and Indian reservations where it really hasn't risen that much.

Incomes are (proportionally) up for many people, but for many people the costs have kept ahead of any income increase.

Similarly crime. The aggregate rates are down, but I can take you places where it is relatively high, e.g. parts of LA, Chicago or any other urban or rural area.

For most - it's out of sight, out of mind.

While doing some cherry picking, this quote came up.

"In 1980, the average income for a man in his 30s was $39,109; today, Pew estimates it is $34,676."

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0902/gallery.five_measures_new/3.html
 
  • #30
edward said:
I must have missed the part about the government bailing out the big investment banks during the 70's. :rolleyes:
How does that have anything to do with the statement you were responding to? The govt bailed out the investment banks during the early 90s recession (and this one is worse) but didn't during the great depression (and that one was much worse). All that tells you is that recessions have different causes and the government reacts differently in each case. It doesn't tell you that bailout = really bad recession.

In any case, you seem to be implying that the current situation is worse than the 1970s recession. By what measuring sticks would you conclude that? Unemmployment rate? GDP drop? Inflation?
The S&L bailout was peanuts compared to the current situation.
...which adds to the uselessness of your point, but in any case, no, I wouldn't call $125 B in 1990 dollars "peanuts" compared to $750 in today's.

Anyway, we won't know we've hit the bottom until long after we're on the way back, but there were some seriously encouraging signs last week (which is why the markets are up 10% since then).
 
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  • #31
russ_watters said:
but in any case, no, I wouldn't call $125 B in 1990 dollars "peanuts" compared to $750 in today's.

As well as that the $125B was a cost, but the $750B is a loan. Now, we might never see the $750B again, but it's a bit soon to write it off, I think.
 
  • #32
russ_watters said:
In any case, you seem to be implying that the current situation is worse than the 1970s recession. By what measuring sticks would you conclude that? Unemmployment rate? GDP drop? Inflation?

We nearly lost the US, and even the global financial system. It appears that we may have averted disaster with the bailout, but we don't really know yet. Yes, it is much more dire than the seventies.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/

What do you use as a news source?
 
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  • #33
"There are, however, some more loopy theories about Rome's decline, including lead poisoning caused by the use of lead pipes..."

Not too loopy. They made a sweetener where the acids in fruit reacted with a lead container. And how do you take the edge off of lead poisoning? By drinking wine brewed in lead containers, of course.
 
  • #34
Astronuc said:
While some think the current US and global economic crisis is just as bad at the Great Depression...

I can't tell. The relative indicator would be to quantify how many years of GNP was fushed-away in bad investments in each case. There is a significant difference between the 1930's and the 2000's. In the 30's interest rates were raised. The economy in the 2000's was, and still is, proped up with low interest rates, a matter of the FEDs open market trading of interest instruments. As a result, we kept on shopping, and kept on spending as we did prior to March 2000 under the delusion that nothing had changed to our own financial positions we had during the bedazzlement years of 1995 to 2000.

The low rates are a deferment, not a payment of debt. The deferment has walked from wallsteet to corporate debt, to housing and lending institutions--and now tax payers as Obama adn the congress critters will have their way. It's got nowhere left to go, that I can see. There's no one else left to leave holding the bag. The time has come to pay it off. You know, common labor. Activities that add real value.

Unlike the 20's, today, with all the new currency dumped into the system, things should be a little different. Maybe the fed will dump the paper money system if it should devaluate too far, and go to bits and bytes if it comes to a matter of keeping their frickin banking system solvent. The arm always bends inward.
 
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  • #35
Phrak said:
"There are, however, some more loopy theories about Rome's decline, including lead poisoning caused by the use of lead pipes..."

Not too loopy. They made a sweetener where the acids in fruit reacted with a lead container. And how do you take the edge off of lead poisoning? By drinking wine brewed in lead containers, of course.
Interesting, but I don't think the decline of Rome can solely be attributed to lead pipes ... did you know, however, that Czar Ivan the Terrible's homicidal mood swings were probably caused by mercury poisoning? Ivan sufferred from terrible arthritis, and many of the drugs prescribed to him were full of mercury. Now this potentially changed the course of a nation: if Ivan hadn't been mercury poisoned he may not have killed his son, so Russia would not have entered the Time of Troubles, so there would be no Romanov dynasty, so there may not have been any Russian Revolution, no USSR ... but this is getting too speculative.
 
<h2>1. What is a Dark Age?</h2><p>A Dark Age is a period in history characterized by a decline in civilization, often marked by a lack of scientific and cultural progress, political instability, and social and economic turmoil.</p><h2>2. What evidence suggests that the world is headed for another Dark Age?</h2><p>There are several factors that could potentially contribute to a future Dark Age, such as climate change, political unrest, and the spread of misinformation. Additionally, the rise of anti-intellectualism and a decline in critical thinking skills could also lead to a lack of scientific and cultural progress.</p><h2>3. Have there been other Dark Ages in history?</h2><p>Yes, there have been several Dark Ages throughout history, including the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and the European Middle Ages from the 5th to 15th century. However, it is important to note that the concept of a Dark Age is debated among historians, and some argue that there were still advancements and progress made during these periods.</p><h2>4. Is there anything we can do to prevent another Dark Age?</h2><p>While there is no definite way to prevent a Dark Age, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate its potential effects. This includes promoting education and critical thinking skills, addressing issues such as climate change and political instability, and promoting scientific and cultural progress.</p><h2>5. How can we recognize if we are entering a Dark Age?</h2><p>It can be difficult to determine if we are entering a Dark Age, as it is a gradual process. However, some signs to look out for include a decline in scientific and cultural progress, political and social instability, and a rise in anti-intellectualism and misinformation. It is important to continue to monitor these factors and address them proactively to prevent a potential Dark Age.</p>

1. What is a Dark Age?

A Dark Age is a period in history characterized by a decline in civilization, often marked by a lack of scientific and cultural progress, political instability, and social and economic turmoil.

2. What evidence suggests that the world is headed for another Dark Age?

There are several factors that could potentially contribute to a future Dark Age, such as climate change, political unrest, and the spread of misinformation. Additionally, the rise of anti-intellectualism and a decline in critical thinking skills could also lead to a lack of scientific and cultural progress.

3. Have there been other Dark Ages in history?

Yes, there have been several Dark Ages throughout history, including the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and the European Middle Ages from the 5th to 15th century. However, it is important to note that the concept of a Dark Age is debated among historians, and some argue that there were still advancements and progress made during these periods.

4. Is there anything we can do to prevent another Dark Age?

While there is no definite way to prevent a Dark Age, there are steps that can be taken to mitigate its potential effects. This includes promoting education and critical thinking skills, addressing issues such as climate change and political instability, and promoting scientific and cultural progress.

5. How can we recognize if we are entering a Dark Age?

It can be difficult to determine if we are entering a Dark Age, as it is a gradual process. However, some signs to look out for include a decline in scientific and cultural progress, political and social instability, and a rise in anti-intellectualism and misinformation. It is important to continue to monitor these factors and address them proactively to prevent a potential Dark Age.

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