Change My Mind

Mass extinction + authoritarian governments + pandemic + denial of the former facts = Dark Age

Only 0.0225% of 8,000,000,000 people on earth have died from covid. We'd need a monstrous amount of deaths to happen for it to be an extinction. Doesn't look like it's going in that direction.

I was talking about the mass of other species that have been going extinct due to human activity.

The Dark Age often refers to the silenxe or absence of human knowledge or culture. For example, when the Roman Empire "Fell" the period between the 6th to the 16th century was believed by some to be Europe's Dark Age until the Reniassance Age.

So why is the mass extiction of the non-hujman species usher in the Dark Ages for you?

Because human health and economies ultimately depend on a functioning ecology. Most historical civilizations that collapsed did so because they used up too much of their resources too quickly.

I can see the potential in that but thats not how most civilizations end. Perhaps half did meet there end in that fashion, but many more met their demise in either two ways or both:

1. Foreign Conquest
2. Internal Decay.

And not to say that you're entirely wrong, but the historical use of the term "Dark Age" and the cessation of civilization are two different things.

The outcome you're envisioning is certainly dark, it has the potential to end civilizations, and it can last to where it can be called an age (i.e. Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age), but to call the catastropic,ecological dearth "Dark Age" would redefine the term.

I disagree. Nation states tend to collapse through foreign conquest and internal decay, but civilizations tend to collapse through overshoot and overconsumption. And actually, I'd include ecological destruction as a form of internal decay.

There isn't 8 billion people on earth. 7.6

Translation: More or less. lol

Generally discourage political discussions here but I think your're right. I don't think we'll ever return to "normal" after all is said and done.

Not going to