I didn't understand the concept of the "dark ages." How can information and knowledge just disappear?

[Gast]

I didn't understand the concept of the "dark ages." How can information and knowledge just disappear?

This is doubly so considering my ancestors have a proud history of 5000+ years of continuously recorded history.

I am starting to understand now.

It's actually not that hard to make information disappear. You can lose a lot of wisdom and institutional knowledge in one go. You can set your society back really fast to believing in rain gods over weather radars.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/08/climate/noaa-ends-disaster-database