How Much More Technologically Advanced Would we be if There was Never a Dark Age

I'd be the greatest jedi in the galaxy.

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Dark Ages?

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But Neil Degrasse Tyson told me that we'd all have our own rocket ships now if it wasn't for those religious fanatics suppressing progressive science in the dark ages.

Well, the Romans had the prototype for the steam engine, hot and cold indoor plumbing, and complex geared machines back in the year 100 A.D. and we just started getting that stuff in the 1800's so...do the math.

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But Neil Degrasse Tyson told me that we'd all have our own rocket ships now if it wasn't for those religious fanatics suppressing progressive science in the dark ages.

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And Carl Sagan told me that we'd probably have destroyed the world by now.

Brilliant scientists aren't always right about everything.

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You realize the dark ages weren't really all that dark

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The city of Rome declined in population from 2 million people in the time of Constantine, to 1 million before the aquaducts were destroyed by the Visigoths, to 10 thousand after they were demolished. The population density of Italy, Spain, and France completely cratered. So much knowledge was lost regarding engineering, mathematics, astronomy, botany, metallurgy, ect. The Dark ages did not produce nearly as much scientific invention in the former Roman region as had existed during. What was invented during the dark ages in the former Western Empire? Pretty much nothing.

Every "dark age" discovery or invention came about in the Eastern Roman Empire, in the Middle East, or in China. Western Europe, which had been the center of progress in the world for the 500 years prior to the dark age was all but extinguished.

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he Black Death helped to end feudalism and spur on the Renaissance

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This is barely true if at all. What killed feudalism was the return of the Roman Law. Following the Crusades, returning Crusaders brought back innumerable scrolls and manuscripts from the Holy Land and Constantinople which had been lost to the former territories of the Western Empire for centuries. Among these was the Roman Laws of Justinian. Dozens of Universities were founded to teach wealthy second sons of nobles the ways of "the great treasure trove" of the Roman Law on problem solving. From this, entire courts were developed. The system of exchange and governing of how things are owned and exchanged was nearly completely standardized across the continent of Europe in the span of just a couple centuries. This new system of ownership enabled the rise of the merchant class, and the jurist class, which would become the backbone of the new professional middle class. This new middle class is what broke the feudal system because they were too wealthy to be controlled by bread and circuses, not born of the right family to be able to influence the crown to protect their interests, and too essential to just be destroyed.

The black death served as an inspiration to live life to the fullest, leading to an explosion of artistic expression, but that expression was made possible by the return of the classic literature by way of the crusades, and the implementation of the Roman Law.

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Can't underestimate the burning of the supposed incredible Egyptian library at Alexandria in around 300 AD. A huge portion of the worlds written knowledge was stored here and lost forever. Read some articles that space flight may have occurred 200 years earlier had the knowledge in this library not been lost. Fascinating to think about.

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It truly is. The most important thing about the library was that it was basically the repository for the blueprints of all of the world's inventions. Every scientific discovery in metallurgy, every mechanical device, every chemical mixture, every mining technique, every manufacturing tool, ect was lost.

They have found evidence of carts being moved on rail, nearly identical to modern railroads minus the engines, in Greece. They have found water-driven factories resembling those at the outset of the Industrial Revolution in 18th Century Britain, in Italy. They have found faucets, nearly identical to modern ones, in Spain. They have found machines capable of calculating, with great accuracy, the movements of the planets and the stars, in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean. They have found ancient odometers in France, concrete which could set underwater in Israel, clocks in Turkey, ect, all existing 2000 years ago. All of this was destroyed with the Library. With the library gone, the knowledge of how to build, maintain, and use these devices died with those who used them.

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They have found machines capable of calculating, with great accuracy, the movements of the planets and the stars, in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean.

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Ah Yes the Antikythera mechanism or Device as it is called. Absolutely fascinating piece of machinery. Sponge divers found it in the early 1900's It calculated planet movements to an incredible degree of accuracy. Some scholars think that parts of it may still be on the sea floor and may hold even more astounding advances never thought possible for that era. It was from approx 200 BC. Let that sink in for a moment ...2200 years ago the knowledge to build this device was not theoretical but accomplished and practiced. Possibly the first computer ever. If some are not familiar with this device read up on it.

I'm enjoying this thread. Keep it up guys

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Wow. bullshite.

No one could know that.

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Exactly. While it's possible to see what inventions existed prior to a given calamity, it is not possible to know what inventions would be added on.

For example, the Romans invented a prototype steam engine, but it was basically a toy and there is no evidence that the device was ever applied to anything useful. They invented the concept of moving goods using wheeled carts on metal rails, but never invented a means of artificial propulsion to move them. They had the two ingredients for the steam locomotive, but they never put them together to create train travel.

The Chinese had rockets, and they had chairs, but they never invented the rocket belt (aka Jet pack).

The Byzantines had Greek Fire, but they never invented the internal combustion engine.

The Baghdad batteries could hold a charge, yet there is no evidence of any devices it was ever made to power (It is surmised to have been used for electroplating jewelry and the like).

It is impossible to know how the seemingly advanced machines which archaeologists have discovered could have been developed further had their civilizations continued to thrive.

It is easy to say, hey those guys had indoor plumping and concrete, I bet they would have built an international space station. No, of course not. Just because a people figured out some parts of modern society doesn't mean they would have been able to make the conceptual leap from one invention to the next.

Just because you can store static electricity doesn't mean you can use it to power a light bulb. Just because you know how to make something that explodes doesn't mean you can figure out how to harness it to safely move people. Just because you can figure out how to move water across great distances doesn't mean you know how to pressurize it and pump it up hill.