Benjamin, I have just one word for you: Genetic Engineering.
Marley23,
I should have been clearer. I don’t believe it will happen soon. But I imagine when we really start to try to explore space we’ll have alot of frustration ahead. We’ll have most of the important questions of earth solved while we putter around space hoping that hyperspace/wormholes/etc will actually be real.
Erm… it’d be nice. That’ll still require a lot of work. Literacy, education, disarmament, global economy stuff, cures for a LOT of diseases, solutions to poverty and famine and natural disasters… that should keep us busy for a while.
Heh. What happens when the 1,200,000 economically insurgent Chinese develop a taste for beef? Or SUV’s? Or Air Conditioning, for fuck sake?
Space travel? Literacy? Disease? Tu sais Marxiste, you better think about economic determinism, so far as it goes. Which is farther than us.
eh maybe I’m an optimist but I don’t think viruses/disease will be a problem much longer stem cell research looks promising give it another 100 yrs…
Same with famine I saw somewhere that claimed we were already producing enough food to feed the world just corruption/capitalism was stopping it (it maybe a tinfoil hat site though I’m too tired to look it up)
Literacy/education/disarmament/economy I don’t think really fall into what I was talking about scientific discoveries.
I just wonder what it will be like when we first start to creep into the stars taking decades/centuries to get anywhere with most of the ‘local questions’ answered if you will.
But I’m growing incoherent (I got 3 hours sleep last night) So I’m going to shut up before someone really slams my half baked question.
You misunderstood me and Eliot.
Yes, Wisdom comes from knowledge (though, not only) and knowledge comes from information (though, not only).
But information does not necesarily mean knowledge and knowledge does not necessarily mean wisdom.
A telephone book contains information but no knowledge.
Knowledge about a situation does not mean that you have the wisdom to behave propery in the situation.
No, Theodosius.
Well, it depends a bit on when you want to place the end of the Western-empire. If you want to place that with the last ‘official’ emperor, Honorius, be my guest but the actual defeat of Rome was before that.
I’m talking about the 410 invasion, the sack of Rome and the Italian countryside, which was the deathblow to the empire.
Adrianople was a big setback but not yet defeat. The religious war of 394, against Arbogast, and Theodosius’ inactivity in 410 in the face of an invasion broke the back of the empire. The heartland lay devastated and the Germans were the de facto rulers.
Yes, the ‘empire’ continued on for a while after that but was effectively powerless.
No, Honorius. Really. Theodosius died in 395 and had been at peace with, in fact allied to, the Goths since 382. It was after his death that Alaric rebelled. His sons Honorius and Arcadius succeeded him in the West and East, respectively, and it was Honorius that was sitting in Ravenna in 410.
If you want to place that with the last ‘official’ emperor, Honorius, be my guest but the actual defeat of Rome was before that.
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The last ‘official’ emperor in the West was Romulus Augustus, deposed by Odoacer in 476.
Disagree. I think far too much attention is given to Alaric’s sack. At most it was a symbol and symptom of ailing strength, not a deathblow per se.
- Tamerlane
Latro: Perhaps you are thinking of Theodosius II, Arcadius’ son and Honorius’ nephew, who was the East Roman Emperor from 408-450 and was the one ( well, more or less - he was all of nine at the time and a puppet ruler ) who sent 4,000 troops to help defend his uncle in Ravenna in 410.
- Tamerlane
Oopsy, yes you’re right. Should really check the books before posting.
Honorius was emperor of the West in 410. Theodosius II was boy-emperor of the East at the time.
I dig Lissa’s post.
Also, doesn’t diminishing returns enter into the equation at some point economically (concerning scientific discoveries)?
And I was always under the assumption that “Dark ages” was a period of stagnation and perhaps some degeneration but not necessarily “loss of information”.
Anybody have the exact definition?
Of course, if Theo had just had an M-16…
Or a 1920’s “Death Ray”
Runs away before he is beaten to a pulp
The Empire carried on for more than a millenium after that, and it had quite a bit of power for parts of that millenium.
I don’t think there is an “exact definition”. In fact, there are some historians that dispute there actually was a Dark Age in Europe. There was a loss of central authority (Roman Empire), and a few plague-driven population decreases. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.
It sure would be interesting to know how things would’ve turned out if the Roman Empire had sustained itself for another 1500 years.
Why, thank you!
Always nice to know my genius is recognized and appreciated by the masses. 
Very much so. Peter Brown has singlehandedly revolutionized Late Antiquity studies. For two beautifilly written books on the subject, see The World of Late Antiquity and The Making of Late Antiquity.
So do i. (Although, being British, i wouldn’t of course say, “dig” )
I recognise the same things in UK culture and i think this is one of the biggest challenges to our continued scientific and living standard progress. Less and less people wanting to study or go into science and engineering, increasing belief in astrology etc, the growth of celebrity worship - i think they are all symptoms of the same thing. I don’t think we’re anywhere near this being a serious problem yet, but if this trend continues then it may indeed lead to another dark age.
Isaac Asimov wrote the short story Nightfall, positing an earth-like planet with six suns (of varying intensity). Because the inhabitants are constantly illuminated with natural light, they had no real concept of “dark” (along with “stars”, other planets, etc.). Because they have no concept of outer space, they think they’re alone in the universe.
Every 2,000 years, though, there’ a convergence of events that cast the planet into darkness as we know it at night (something to do with a six-sun eclipse that’s then eclipsed by another planetary body on an extremely eccentric orbit). Since no one knows what’s happening, there’s a world-wide freakout during which civilization is destroyed. What do they do when darkness falls? They light fires to provide light, burning everything to the ground. Their collective knowledge is lost, and civilization starts over.
Good book. This time around, various people figure out what’s going to happen: an astronomer and his students posit the eccentric-orbit planetary body to rationalize observed movements of the suns with their theory of gravitation; an archeologist discovers layers upon layers of cities at her dig, indicating that, every 2,000 years, the city is burnt to the ground. The story is about how these people prepare for the coming collapse, and what they do to preserve civilization through it.
hansel: Moons, not suns, no? But yeah, it was a fine story.