"Dark Ages"

Every once in a while "civilization" collapses. That is global trade and the corporate state, and corporate entities collapse. All the glitz and propaganda and industries associated with the corporate state can vanish for generations.

The corporate civilization is pretty unstable almost by definition. It's a replacement of natural systems by some alien contrivance. It's pretty interesting to contemplate where the impetus for it comes from. Would deer, if given the chance, try to create a deer world?

The Wuhan Plague is a reminder that civilization is constantly sowing the seeds of its own destruction. It either came about from a mutation of some disease that is carried by other animals, or is a product of a bioweapons lab, which seems plausible.

Global trade accelerates the spread of disease, not only among humans, but among animals and plants too. In just my lifetime three species of trees that span the Americas have come under pressure from pests introduced through global trade.

The global trading corporate civilizations come to rely on a web of scattered resources... a proverbial house of cards. At the same time, they create more sources of shock to that foundation. The departure from nature's ways, the Tower of Babylon, inevitably falls.

The notion, though, that nothing happens in the "dark ages" is pretty stupid. It's akin to the notion that nothing happened prior to written history, a big collection of the lies of liars, for the most part. There's a huge emphasis on corporation civilization in school history classes, because history is really the product of corporate entities.

A focus on material or family culture, instead of the "arts and letters", would probably be a truer representation of human history. Making things. Learning trades and techniques like canning or spinning is probably a closer reflection of the productivity and creativity of human beings.