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Comment by Radim | Hacker News Reader

That's literally what the article says! I suggest reading it, it's fairly short ;)

How similar (~similarly historically biased) is the story of bronze-age-collapse Dark Ages though?

That one is based primarily on the even flimsier evidence of "fewer texts and large human settlements recovered by archaelogists => less literacy and commerce => less culture => dark ages"! Horror! Boo!

How about "people got fed up with the rigid social system and corruption and slavery and massacres, and once a cause materialized (natural disasters, famine), gladly revolted en-masse and destroyed the ruling class, their BS palatial "economy", temples, palaces, scribes, clerks, priests and everything they stood for… including writing"? "Mysterious Sea Peoples" followed by "Dark Ages" my ass.

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Obviously the Bronze Age Collapse is not nearly so historically attested, and there's a lot we don't know. But your proposed series of events is not plausible. Temples, palaces, scribes, etc. are the sequelae of a highly productive economy with a lot of surplus. They disappear when the surplus disappears, which is not good for the common people either. People don't usually revolt in order to intentionally destroy their own standard of living.

Likewise, there was in fact a "Dark Age" between antiquity and the Renaissance. It's the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the high Middle Ages proper, around 500-900 (whereas the high Middle Ages are more 1000-1400). This Dark Age is marked by the collapse of population centers, long-distance trade, economic activity and standards of living in general, just like after the Bronze Age Collapse. And neither of these have much to do with the Europe of the High Middle Ages, which was a thriving civilization with plenty of surplus and thus effort to spare on science, the arts, etc. (albeit not yet as rich as classical civilization).

> They disappear when the surplus disappears, which is not good for the common people either.

I contest that. The disappearance of this "surplus" (and if you follow history, you know where such surplus typically went – not the common people) was a blessing for all but the palatial elite.

It took over 10 generations for people to forget the horrors of the Bronze Age, with its "economy surplus", and agree to come together again to form centralized societies. That is no co-incidence. You underestimate human intelligence if you believe "the Sea Peoples came and made a boo boo and everyone had no choice but to go dark for 400 years".

> The disappearance of this "surplus" (and if you follow history, you know where such surplus typically went – not the common people) was a blessing for all but the palatial elite.

Really? You have the peasants producing a surplus that goes to fund the palace elite and the military. Then the surplus disappears. And what happens next? The peasants plus the military kill all the palace elite, and live happily ever after? Or the military takes everything that's not nailed down from the peasants, and the peasants starve? I'd say human nature (of the military) favors the second, and that sure isn't "a blessing for all but the palatial elite".

> You underestimate human intelligence if you believe "the Sea Peoples came and made a boo boo and everyone had no choice but to go dark for 400 years".

Yeah... um... I'd like to see your actual archaeological evidence for your claim here. All you've said so far is wishful thinking.

I mean, no, this is just bullshit.

Surplus is what enables complex economies and trade. It also means you have governments trying to take over places, but this comes with surplus because without surplus everyone is too poor to even try.

The life of the peasants in a simple no-surplus economy is brutal and boring and precarious. Getting ruled by kings and emperors, in exchange for getting to participate in the high-end economies they come alongside, is almost always a very good deal.

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