
536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018) - jonathanjaeger
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive
======
lgl
The 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull [0] was a small sample of the
perturbations that a volcanic event can have on day to day lives. And it was a
relatively small eruption. Anything much larger than that will most likely
have devastating effects on modern society on pretty much all levels and it's
not really a matter of "if" but "when".

Besides eruptions, many other scarier events can cause huge shifts on the
planet's thermal equilibrium including our current state of global warming or
many other unknown events (like whatever happened to cause the Younger Dryas
[1] "only" ~13k years ago which is theorized to have been either a mega
eruption, impact event or stellar supernova).

It's pretty scary and definitely not something that we're at all prepared even
with all our technology so we're basically in a permanent state of risk of
complete reset which is guaranteed to happen eventually. Sadly it's not
something most of us spend too much time thinking or preparing for. I guess
this is largely because we live very short lives and that make these kind of
events appear much "larger than life" so they go mostly ignored except for
some underfunded science departments or the occasional billionaire. To me this
is the main reason that going multiplanetary or space habitat based is
basically the only way to escape this inevitable doom even though that is also
a huge barrier to overcome on so many levels.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas)

~~~
yummypaint
It's also a good reason to leave fossil fuels in the ground and not just
extract them as quickly as possible wherever we find them. It seems
conceivable that we could eventually find ourselves thermodynamically unable
to recover after a catastrophy like a big solar flare. Unfortunately there is
no way for anyone to make money by being responsible in this way. We are
effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund and spending it on cocaine.

~~~
Nasrudith
I am not too certain of the logic of the arguement - namely because fossil
fuels are actually pretty damn advanced in terms of "actual technology and
societal infastructure to access and exploit them". We already went through
this long ago with surface deposits of copper ore as well essentially millenia
ago.

Effectively the time when it is useful is "when we don't have cheaper
alternatives yet". We still should strive to make renewables and storage the
cheaper option though.

To get really pedantic our 20th century understanding of power and energy are
exactly backwards colloquially from what is really provided. Power is energy
over time. The "power" infastructure was actually largely an energy
infastructure with the exception of say hydro electric dams - you can only
burn fuel once no matter how clever your ability to extract it. Meanwhile
"renewable energy" provides power over its period of existence.

~~~
mark-r
Good luck with those "renewable" solar farms when the next eruption happens.

~~~
Dylan16807
...wait a week then wash them off?

~~~
azinman2
The article suggested 18 months of non-stop no sun.

~~~
jsjohnst
> The article suggested 18 months of non-stop no sun.

If there was no sun at all, do you think the temperatures would only drop 1-3°
as mentioned in the article?

------
MannishMan
I know this is pedantic, but based on the order of events in the article
wouldn’t 543 be the worst year to be alive? By then you would have experienced
the cumulative horror of starving and freezing through two volcanic events and
watching a third to half of your friends and family die of plague. 536 would
have a been frightening and confusing as the volcanic fog began to roll in,
but you couldn’t know the terror of what was to come.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
Objectively you are right, subjectively I think what matters is short term
contrast. 535 vs 536 has a much steeped drop in quality of life than 542 vs
543.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
But the title is "worst year to be alive", so while the contrast of 536 was
likely the biggest, measured objectively by food availability, life expectancy
etc 543 was _the_ worst.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
Objectively you are right, subjectively that statement is technically correct
and that is worst kind of correct :)

------
pureliquidhw
How susceptible are we to another catastrophic volcano eruption?

After COVID-19 shut down supply chains, there were some problematic delays,
but seems like we quickly recovered. If the entire planet's crops were wiped
out, we're all just SOL if we don't get canned goods in time? If we had 12
months notice, could we as a planet get it together? 6 months? 3 months?

Is there forecasting for volcanoes? (looks like yes:
[https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/forecast.html](https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/forecast.html))
How often do geologists cry wolf?

~~~
pmiller2
In what sense have we “recovered” from supply chain disruptions? I go to the
store and still routinely see empty shelves where TP should be; have
experienced meat shortages in recent days; and stores are still rationing
things like hand sanitizer (when you can find it), canned goods, meat, and
rice.

~~~
Cerium
One angle on the TP problem is that we didn't just have a shock, we had a
shock and then lasting change in demand. I saw an article that says demand for
residential sized TP rolls is up 40% because a lot of bathroom visits are
happening in homes that used to happen in work places.

~~~
pmiller2
I know that, but the point remains that the supply chain has not “recovered”
in any meaningful sense. Capitalism, in fact, guarantees it will not (too
expensive to switch production from commercial to residential TP). We’re going
to be seeing this phenomenon until people can go back to work.

~~~
leetcrew
on the other hand, commercial-sized TP works just as well and is readily
available. it just won't fit on your nice TP holder. if this is what
capitalism failing looks like, I'd say it's not so bad.

~~~
pmiller2
I didn’t say it was a _failure_ of capitalism, merely a property. Had it
become necessary to do so, yes, I would have either ordered some commercial
TP, or bought a bidet.

Now, if you want to talk about how we have zillions of brands of TP, but
they’re all made by the same handful of companies (illusion of choice), I
might argue _that’s_ a failure mode of capitalism.

#ShitYouCantSayOnHN

~~~
leetcrew
sorry, I've seen so many memes lately comparing US grocery stores to soviet
bread lines that I read a bit of that sentiment into your comment.

it was a bit unsettling to see how much stuff was out of stock in the first
few weeks of the crisis and wonder whether that was going to get better or
worse. now the greatest hardship I face is having to settle for my second
favorite brand of eggs sometimes. overall, I'm surprised at how resilient our
system has turned out to be. despite the federal government totally dropping
the ball, the individual states have more or less taken appropriate steps to
handle their particular circumstances. I suspect we may be reopening a little
early, but only time will tell.

also as an aside, there are certainly some positions that are very unpopular
on HN. but if you post stuff like "#ShitYouCantSayOnHN", you will _definitely_
get downvoted.

~~~
pmiller2
I'm actually surprised there wasn't more supply chain disruption. Cleaning
supplies, meat, TP, cold medicine (initially), disinfectants of any sort,
canned goods, rice, dry beans, baking supplies, thermometers, masks, and
gloves are the major things I noticed had gone "missing." My girlfriend and I
could have certainly survived by modifying our diet and, as I mentioned,
possibly buying a bidet.

But, we are both fortunate to still have jobs, and places to store a small
stockpile of these things. I literally was able to turn a spare closet into a
dry pantry by putting a wire shelving unit in there. We still have basically a
lifetime supply of rice, and a nice selection of staple canned goods, just in
case things go further south. We were not real particular about brands. We
have access to Amazon and Costco. We will be fine.

This was nowhere near Soviet bread line status. In the Soviet Union, perhaps
you had to stand in line for bread, but, at least there was bread. Here, we
let some people go without bread, because they're drug addicts, mentally
unstable, or just don't want to have religion pushed on them.

I'm sure this also falls into #ShitYouCantSayOnHN, and I don't care about the
downvotes. I know you can't say anything against the free market or capitalism
and expect to win any points here. That mildly annoys me, but I'd rather have
my gray comment out there for other people to see, and sacrifice a couple of
fake internet points to do it. I win enough points back in technical
discussions that I'm in no danger of losing my downvoting, flagging, or
vouching capabilities, so it literally does not matter to me; I've net gained
12 points just today. I'd rather draw the lightning rod to myself so people
can see how rabid free-market capitalists don't even bother to argue a point,
instead mashing that down arrow.

People dismiss socialist perspectives here without even comment, which is sad.
They don't even give the ideas the consideration that those who claim
socialists are all economically illiterate 14 year olds in their mothers'
basements do. They ignore that Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other
prominent intellectuals espouse socialist philosophies.

Honestly, I'd be pleased to get downvotes, if there was any actual discussion,
but that's appararently _verboten_ here.

~~~
vxNsr
> _This was nowhere near Soviet bread line status. In the Soviet Union,
> perhaps you had to stand in line for bread, but, at least there was bread._

Please stop. this is outright demonstrably false by every account.

It's a nice reminder that someone with a lot of intelligence and dare I say
talent in one area can be so wrong in another.

But seriously dude, please educate yourself on the history of socialism and
how it's totally and completely failed everywhere it was tried from Germany to
Colombia to Sweden it's never worked and every attempt has either resulted in
a civil war, a world war, or just years of economic pain to walk it back.

~~~
throwaway4666
Were you educated in the American school system by any chance?

~~~
vxNsr
An appeal to authority how fallacious of you.

In fact I’m getting this from the source. My own family lived there for most
of their lives. Only left in the late 80s.

~~~
throwaway4666
Well of course if you're an emigrant you're going to have a poor opinion of
it. Meanwhile the majority of Russians have a positive view of Lenin.

~~~
MagnumOpus
The fact that there were a sufficient number of emigrants that they were
prevented from leaving by travel prohibitions, walls, barbed wire, minefields
and snipers should tell you about living conditions by itself.

The majority of people in every place where media is tightly controlled will
believe what parents, teachers, papers and TV tell them. North Koreans have a
positive view of Kim Jong Il, mainland Chinese have a positive view of Mao.
That doesn't mean that either of them weren't objectively horrible in terms of
competent leadership or morality.

------
bwanab
I’ve recently gotten through this period in the “History of Byzantium” podcast
series. Justinian had just recently retaken many of the old western Roman
provinces, not least of which was Rome itself, and the breadbasket of North
Africa. Things were finally looking good for the Romans again when the plague
hit. The armies were unfortunately overextended and now half their ranks were
dead or dying. It was an irresistible target for the Persians, the steppe
horsemen and the Goths which ultimately weakened them all just in time for the
Arab invasions.

~~~
koheripbal
Wonderful series. Absolutely amazing. ...and he's now producing the set that
extends through the Crusades.

If you haven't listened to it, the one on the Siege of 717 deserves it's own
bowl of popcorn - super super entertaining.

I loved the original The History of Rome podcast that goes through to the fall
of the West, but I think I've come to prefer this one even more.

The first few episodes require a little patience as the author gets his
footing - but it pays off. Awesome podcast.

~~~
phist_mcgee
Link?

------
LukeEF
I don't mean to be too precise, but the article is slightly undermined by the
claim in the graphic that the 543 Justinian plague hurried the collapse of the
eastern Roman Empire. The 'Eastern' Roman Empire fell in 1453 when the walls
of Constantinople were breached by the Ottomans. Very difficult to claim that
the Romans fell in the 6th Century. I mean nearly 500 years later Basil is
rolling back into Syria on the back of repeated victories over the Bulgarians.
Always feel let down by these sorts of overblown claims that are easy to slap
into an info-graphic.

~~~
indigo945
The precise date of the fall of the Roman Empire -- and the point where it
became Byzantium -- is a subject of debate. There is no unanimous agreement
that referring to Constantinople as the Roman Empire is much more useful than,
say, calling the Holy Roman Empire "Roman". Whatever your personal views may
be on this matter, there indeed are some scholars that date the fall of the
Roman Empire on the failure of Justinian's restauratio imperii, which
coincided with the plague. [1]

[1]:
[http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=F33DA79F872937C22C8...](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=F33DA79F872937C22C8F78FA3CCAFC3F)

~~~
hodgesrm
> There is no unanimous agreement that referring to Constantinople as the
> Roman Empire is much more useful than, say, calling the Holy Roman Empire
> "Roman".

Except that Constantinople had essentially continuous government dating from
the 300s AD until it was sacked by the army of the 4th Crusade in 1204,
whereas the Holy Roman Empire's first emperor--Charlemagne--was crowned in 800
AD, some 324 years after the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the West. The
Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne was, as you imply, an entirely different
beast from the original Roman Empire.

------
runarberg
Two things strike me as odd in this article:

> 536 Icelandic volcano erupts, dimming the sun for 18 months

I’m not aware of any evidence that the 536 eruption happened in Iceland. Ash
has been found in both Antarctica and Greenland indicating that the eruption
was probably much closer to the equator[1].

> 541–543 The “Justinian” bubonic plague spreads through the Mediterranean,
> killing 35%–55% of the population and speeding the collapse of the eastern
> Roman Empire.

The Roman empire stood for another 9 centuries after the Justinian plague. I
was under the impression that Justinian the Great had overextended the empire
in the sixth century so it naturally shrunk to a more manageable size.

1: [https://kvennabladid.is/2018/11/20/ekkert-bendir-til-ad-
risa...](https://kvennabladid.is/2018/11/20/ekkert-bendir-til-ad-
risagosid-536-hafi-ordid-a-islandi-segja-eldfjallafraedingar-hi/) (Icelandic)

~~~
asdff
Historical consensus favors the plague as quite significant, even if the city
of constantinople managed to survive independently for several more centuries.
The weakened mediterranian presented opportunities for the gothic tribes to
take territory in gaul and italy in the decades following, and the economy nor
the manpower of the empire never recovered. By the fall, Constantinople was a
hollow shell of what it was, controlling hardly any territory and partially in
ruins, ultimately abandoned by its few remaining allies in the face of the
Turks.

~~~
koheripbal
You are way way way oversimplifying nearly 1000 years of history between the
plague of Justinian and the fall of Constantinople.

The Justinian expansion was untenable. If you look at it on the map - there
are strong enemies on literally all sides. It was a desperate but hopeless
attempt to regain the Western Empire.

The plague made it worse - but was hardly the catalyst. ...and the East Roman
Empire was far more than a city state for a majority of the remaining NINE
centuries.

------
sprainedankles
While an 18-month fog sounds terrifying, I'm absolutely fascinated by the
amount of clues we can gather from geological formations like glaciers. The
universe has encoded information in so many neat ways, and our ability to
cross-reference these measurements with written histories is pretty cool.

Fascination aside, this is another one of those sobering reminders that
whatever I spend my time on as an engineer might be worth absolutely nothing
in the near-term, and that's a bit frustrating. What could I be doing to help
engineer a better world for future generations? How do I optimize my
individual talents so I can achieve the most impact in my lifetime? How do I
find the right team of other humans to work toward this? Convince others or
myself that it's a worthy cause? (I could care less about legacy or personal
comforts/gains - I just want to help humanity move forward, not maintain it)

------
chadlavi
The worst year to be alive _so far_

~~~
izzydata
I imagine there will come a time when the earth is just on the cusp of no
longer being able to sustain the massive population that it has grown to or
human life at all. Since the earths human population will be so high even a
5th of people dying off will be drastically more deaths than any worldwide
catastrophe of the past. Maybe within another 1000 years.

~~~
harryh
Current projections of Earth's population have a peak population of about 11B
(only 40% higher than today) towards the end of the century and then
declining. It's always hard to know what's going to happen in the future, but
currently it's pretty unlikely that we'll ever see a worldwide population all
that much higher than what we already have.

~~~
caogecym
Curious - did the projection say what’s the cause of the decline after the
peak?

~~~
TechBro8615
I'm just speculating, but probably declining birth rates as economies develop.

------
cs702
Not just the worst year to be alive, but also the beginning of the worst
_century_ to be alive:

 _" The repeated blows, followed by plague, plunged Europe into economic
stagnation that lasted until 640."_

Imagine the kind of horror and suffering that a century of global economic
stagnation inflicts on _generations_ of people.

~~~
bhaak
You can take that even further as the sewage systems in Europe didn't recover
until the 18th/19th century.

~~~
bleuarff
Interesting, can you elaborate?

~~~
bhaak
The water supply and sanitation in Europe took a deep dive where the Roman
infrastructure broke down.

In many places it was rather recently that sanitation was on par or better
than in Rome (but of course, not everywhere in the Roman Empire the standards
were as high as in the capital).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome)

------
deanCommie
These kinds of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions could happen today right?

What's.......our intended process for dealing with this?

Are there any technical solutions for dispersing ash from the atmosphere?

I know this is a stupidly naive question to some degree - how do you prevent
acts of god, but I am curious if someone has thought about it.

~~~
komali2
> What's.......our intended process for dealing with this?

The extent of the USA's preparedness, from the federal agency in charge
handling Emergencies, is a website with a bullet point list of what you should
have in a first aid kit in your house:

[https://www.ready.gov/kit](https://www.ready.gov/kit)

I'm being only partially facetious. There are of course multiple agencies at
the federal, state, county, and local level with their own plans and processes
in place for this kind of thing.

But! We can look to the past for what would happen.

Katrina taught us that the US federal government doesn't have the resources,
means, or disposition to rescue people from disaster zones. It also taught us
that as an individual or family, the best thing you can do is take evacuation
warnings _very_ seriously, and be ready to be able to provide for yourself and
your family for the short and long term. So, ready.gov build a kit, and stuff
it full of cash while you're at it. Keep the cars gassed up.

Katrina also taught us that the US government will choose to enforce "property
rights" before it will ensure people in disaster zones have shelter, water, or
food. You could flip from one channel with a helicopter view of people waving
for help on a roof, and another channel would be showing National Guard
soldiers with rifles chasing off "looters." Hm.

The COVID pandemic also taught us that partisans and capitalists are motivated
to prioritize the wellbeing of the stock market over humans lives - all the
more reason to prepare to protect yourself and family rather than count on the
Gov coming to your aid.

I'm not saying the homesteaders and preppers aren't a little crazy, but I'm
also not saying they don't have the right idea...

~~~
pmiller2
Spot on. We no longer have a government for the people, by the people, of the
people. Just take a look at the net worth statistics of our congresscritters
and their voting records.

In fact, we never really have. Initially, only free, white landowners could
even _vote_!

Edit: ah, found yet another “thing you can’t say on HN,” I suppose. :) Talk
about lack of TP in stores: +6. Talk about how our “representatives” don’t
represent most of us: -2

~~~
perl4ever
"thing you can’t say on HN"

This seems like a thing that people are suddenly saying a lot on HN.

Why can't you talk about lack of TP in stores? Where? I thought that was over
a few months ago?

------
hn_throwaway_99
Hmm, you know you feel lucky to live in the present when a sign of coming
_out_ of the worst time in history was a _rise_ in "airborne lead".

------
subsubzero
How many people reading this have a years worth of food? Could any of us
survive something similar to this eruption? I think covid really opened alot
of peoples eyes to extreme worldwide disasters (volcanos, large earthquakes,
pandemics) and how most are not prepared for it at all and yes these things do
and will continue to keep happening.

~~~
ghaff
I'd just point out that keeping a year's worth of food for a rapid and
unexpected event is nuclear bunker level prep. It also requires spending a
_lot_ of money and storage space on something that's going to have to be
rotated out every few years. And while some things can last pretty much
indefinitely, other things have shelf lifes and you're probably not going to
use all those canned goods during normal times.

So there's a very significant annual cost to maintaining that perpetual one
year supply of necessaries.

~~~
grumple
You've got to buy things that you'll eat anyway - like canned beans, etc, and
use them and replace them regularly.

~~~
ghaff
I do not eat canned beans (other than baked beans) or canned vegetables
generally. Most of the things I would buy for "prepping" would be just thrown
out in a few years.

~~~
koheripbal
Canned foods can last a decade. It's not like you're throwing out the entire
store every year. Perboiled rice lasts 15-20 YEARS if kept dry.

------
Avalaxy
Could we use this against global warming? Artificially put something in the
atmosphere that bounces part of the sunlight back?

~~~
Symmetry
Many people have proposed putting sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. It
looks relatively easy and could potentially be within the means of even poorer
countries like Bangladesh which have a lot to loose from rising sea levels.
But we can't predict exactly how it would turn out and it would certainly make
ocean acidifcation worse so it's very much a desperation play.

~~~
walleeee
Yes. Marine cloud brightening has also been proposed. IMO we'll almost
certainly see either that or stratospheric aerosols as nations begin to feel
the increasing effects of climate change and grow more desperate.

Whether it might be uni- or multilateral is also interesting, given the
possibly serious effects on e.g. agriculture in "downstream" geographic
regions. It's not much of a stretch to imagine it kicking off some kind of
war.

~~~
koheripbal
Seems more likely that populations will just move to new stable areas.

~~~
walleeee
I think this will happen, yes, but mass migrations and refugee crises aren't
usually a stabilizing force on international relations

~~~
koheripbal
I meant environmentally stable - not politically stable.

ie - Inland.

------
ummonk
> What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out
> one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and
> hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

Hastening its collapse several centuries later?

~~~
asdff
It did. Justinians gains in italy were lost not long after the plague to the
lombards, who saw a power vacuum. The empire had just spent quite a bit on
wars and capital expenses, and the tax base never recovered. It hobbled the
economy and manpower of the empire and left it susceptible to attacks from
enemies virtually on all sides, and territory shrunk by the century until
Constantinople was merely a city state, mostly abandoned within its rotting
walls which it no longer had the manpower to fully defend, with a few Grecian
possessions and vassal states by the time it succumbed to the Turks.

------
01100011
And this is why we, as a species, need to embrace science and technology, and
engineer solutions to ensure our survival and prosperity.

We need geoengineering now. If a volcanic eruption occurs and blocks out a
significant portion of light, we need a way to compensate for it(solar
mirroring/concentration?), or eliminate the particulates.

------
iomind
"What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out
one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and
hastening its collapse, McCormick says."

Considering when the ERE "fell", the plague did a pretty poor job of hastening
it's collapse, no?

~~~
lioeters
Not being familiar with the history, the dates that I found seem to support
your point.

> The Plague of Justinian (541–549 AD)

> The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire..[was] in
> 555 under Justinian the Great, at its greatest extent since the fall of the
> Western Roman Empire.

> It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the
> 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until
> it fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.

------
duxup
From 536 through the end of the Justinian plague in 543... what level of
mortality are we talking about?

The article indicates that the plague killed 35%–55% of the population.

------
contrapunter
Don't disagree with the facts but the suffering of humans depends as much on
the content of their _thoughts_ as it does on material conditions. A
civilisation at the apparent height of its power and security can eat itself
from the inside and decline rapidly. A wealthy individual living a privileged
life can be beset by anxiety, and so on. Both of these things are strongly
affected by the _ideas_ that predominate in a given era. These include subtle
ideas which can't readily be identified and which nevertheless spread and
cause harm. So those ideas are a relevant part of the environment when
considering which was the worst year so far.

~~~
opwieurposiu
Ahh yes, the Buddha teaches us that the root of suffering is desire.

------
ardit33
Note, that after this period (536-600), there were huge swaths of Europe that
was depopulated, and or decimated, and this enabled major migration
movements...

Eg. After this period, in the early 600's, Slavic tribes migrated south, all
the way to Greece/Egean sea, but eventually were pushed back to current/modern
areas....

So, these events contributed heavily to even modern borders and some
events....

I know, there are some weird post-modernist movement to say 'dark ages were
not that bad', but indeed, these were some of the darkest/harshest time in our
recorded history....

The volcano being in Iceland, could explain on why Britain was one of the
harshest hit areas by the dark ages....

~~~
restalis
_" indeed, these were some of the darkest/harshest time in our recorded
history"_

I'm still inclined to believe that this is just nowadays optics. The life was
very harsh in general for pretty much all but recent history. There were _a
lot_ of life risk vectors all around and the capacity to do something about
that was modest at most. For us looking back only the major events stand out
-- the pandemics like the black death, the major depopulating military
campaigns like that of the Mongols, or the climate altering events. People
died of diseases, wars, famine, or whatnot all the time though. Not just a few
here and there like we see nowadays, but community-wide wipe-outs, with
survivors having no-one-they-knew left alive. I doubt that for them it made
much difference that the faced calamities were limited only to their region or
were world spanning, or that the cause for the latest bane was this or that
out-of-control event.

~~~
kristjankalm
pretty much any metric you could come up with to "measure" civilisation --
literacy, urbanisation, economic output, monetary economy -- went to historic
lows.

slightly orthogonal to this, but the original motivation behind the 'dark
ages' label was that for large parts of europe there are very few written
records for the 5-7th centuries. e.g., we know practically nothing what
happened in 5th century england because the only written source -- gildas --
is mostly concerned with pontificating about sinful behaviour in artful ways.
even some actual people he mentions in passing get biblically coded nicknames
so we have to make wild guesses who's he referring to. and that's our only
source for pretty much a century.

~~~
ghaff
Also Bede although that was written somewhat later (8th century).

When writing _Why the West Rules for Now_ Ian Morris attempted to quantify the
overall level of social development in the Western and Eastern cores in a very
detailed way. (It used to be available online as a sort of appendix but I
don't immediately see it.) In any case, you see this decline in the West after
the fall of the Roman Empire that wasn't reversed for many centuries.

------
avibhu
Reminds me of the year without a summer[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer)

~~~
_kst_
For those who don't follow the link, it's 1816.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Since this article, there has been new research indicating that the Plague of
Justinian may not have been as bad as previously thought.

[https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/12/02/maybe-first-
plague...](https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/12/02/maybe-first-plague-wasnt-
bad-say-researchers)

~~~
throw3fj43
That claim should be greeted with skepticism, if you are interested in
learning more please consider this reply:

[https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-%E2%80%98Justinian...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-%E2%80%98Justinianic-
Plague%E2%80%99%3A-An-%E2%80%9CInconsequential-A-
Meier/8223a0b66b46065f0678d990d02ccb864ce88053)

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Excellent article. I guess it is especially important to be somewhat skeptical
of “exciting” new research that hits the popular press and make sure to read
all the analyses.

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datenhorst
It's interesting to imagine that the ramifications of this were still felt in
the 620s when Mohamed united the Arab tribes and he and his successors pretty
much overran the Byzantine and Persian empires.

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emptybits
Obvious, yet still interesting to imagine IMO ... all of us here had ancestors
who suffered and survived that year and we're all, in some way, a result of
what they went through in 536.

------
dang
Discussed, a little, at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469891)

~~~
twic
I didn't realise HN had been running _that_ long.

~~~
labster
Back then, people had to downvote by bleaching only a portion of the
illuminated manuscript. Unfortunately the original karma logs were lost when
the Knights Templar were disbanded.

~~~
dentemple
The Defenestration of Prague made for some real lively debate here.

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afterburner
> Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt.
> What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out
> one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and
> hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

I dunno, sounds like 541 was the worst year to be alive. That year also had a
second volcano eruption according to the article.

~~~
ardit33
It seems to have been over a decade of misery.... and I guess 536 was the
start/first year of it....

------
tromp
I couldn't help but notice an ambiguity in the phrase

> Summer temperatures drop by 1.5°C to 2.5°C

While I now understand that it means a drop of roughly 2°C plus or minus
0.5°C, my initial reading was that the temperature dropped from 4°C (in the
previous Summer) to 2.5°C (in Summer of 536).

Is the meaning of "a drop by A to B" always to be inferred from context?

~~~
hnuser123456
Proposing the following modification to the English language:

For your interpretation: "drop by X, to Y"

For author's intention: "drop by X-Y"

~~~
carl_dr
In the timeline on the page, it uses both uses - "Summer temperatures drop by
1.5°C to 2.5°C" and "Summer temperatures drop again by 1.4°C–2.7°C in Europe".

It took a few reads and an internal debate over whether European summer
temperatures could possibly have been 4°C in the 6th century to understand
what the author meant.

------
supernova87a
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that the graphic shows the
years increasing downwards, where if you take this to graphically depict the
ice core dug out of the ground, going down is decreasing in years (going back
in time, earlier)? Things lower in depth were laid down earlier.

------
kazinator
> _Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the
> coldest decade in the past 2300 years._

Yikes! What can we do to make sure _that_ doesn't happen again? Oh, right,
nevermind.

------
chromaton
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535–...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535–536)

------
danharaj
Maybe not for Americans :) The eruption was hypothesized to have occurred in
North America but did the team try to cross reference with native accounts of
that time period?

~~~
jandrese
North American natives were not good about writing stuff down, and by the time
Europeans showed up it was almost a millennium later so the records would have
been scanty even if the Europeans hadn't gone on insane rampages spreading
death, disease, and destruction everywhere they went.

~~~
anonAndOn
Doesn't "not good" in this context mean NEVER. Are there any native
tribes/peoples that had a writing system before European contact? AFAICT, it's
one of the main causes so many native languages are dying/extinct.

~~~
yorwba
Writing developed in America long before Europeans showed up and continued to
be used until Europeans showed up, but the Europeans destroyed most books they
could find and forced the natives to learn the colonizers' languages. That's
the main cause why so many native languages are dying/extinct.

Further reading:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems)

~~~
anonAndOn
It looks like writing developed in present-day Mexico and never made it north
of the desert border (Mojave/ Sonoran/ Chihuahua). So NONE of the estimated
296 languages spoken by natives in US and Canada had a written language that
we have evidence of. [0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Language_families_and_unclassified_languages)

------
Tepix
What are the estimates for those volcanic eruptions on the volcanic
explosivity index? Was it an VEI-8? If it wasn't, what would a VEI-8 eruption
cause?

------
suryabeep
Good thing I wasn't alive in 536 then.

------
totorovirus
"Winter is coming"

------
shoes_for_thee
Not for me it wasn't.

------
freetanga
2020: “Hold my beer”

------
Synaesthesia
The Christian revolution around that time in Europe also put civilisation back
there. See “The Darkening Age” by Catherine Nixey

~~~
AnimalMuppet
A glance at Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darkening_Age))
indicates that the book was _not_ well received - not by Christians, but by
academics.

~~~
freehunter
I have no skin in the game either way but it seems like any book that tries to
tackle controversial materials would have some people who don't like it.
Interestingly the Wikipedia page _only_ lists negative feedback in the
Reception section, despite the book having generally good reviews and
accolades from multiple different experts.

The fact that the book won awards from NYT, Royal Society of Literature, BBC,
and many other publications and is well-reviewed, yet Wikipedia only lists
negative feedback in the Reception section indicates to me that there must be
bias in the Wikipedia article. I don't see any other answer for why more than
half of the article is just listing criticism that doesn't seem to be
reflected across the broader industry.

Again I haven't read the book and don't really care about the subject matter
either way, but the Wikipedia does not seem to hide its bias.

------
umaar
I noticed there are a number of popups/stickies/banners on this site. How do
folks feel about blocking them with uBlock considering it's a nonprofit, and
one of those banners was asking for a donation?

The page in incognito:
[https://i.imgur.com/EHhGjJ9.png](https://i.imgur.com/EHhGjJ9.png)

The page with uBlock, sticky elements removed, and the sidebar removed:
[https://i.imgur.com/mNJFMyj.png](https://i.imgur.com/mNJFMyj.png)

~~~
yesco
Personally I find them obnoxious, if they weren't glued to the bottom of the
screen it'd be better. In fact if they weren't already being blocked by ublock
I would have immediately added them to my filter list manually.

