Societal Singularity

Major societal changes aren’t invisible and are perceivable. The Romans obsessed over the eventual fall of Rome. Fall from pride, defeat from barbarians, the Carthaginian threat, and the eventual passage of time ate at Rome’s heels until it finally fell to its obsession with its fallen enemies, “barbarians”, and the pride of Byzantium. The fall of Rome’s affect is the part that no one perceived. Rome connected the Mediterranean world. Without Rome there was no common nation, currency, and culture to connect various groups together. The “dark ages” that followed were the loss and reestablishment of new monarchial and religious mediums. This pivot represents a societal change, and singularity not involving the way in which people did things, but how their society operates.

Societal singularities are common in history. The creation of technology, the rise and fall of empires, and the aftermath of large scale natural events permanently change the way in which societies operate. These events act as markers for humanity, and as signs that historians use as eras and triggering evens. This does not limit events and eras to singularities.

The idea that independence from the British or the Declaration of Independence were significant is not the defining factor for a societal singularity. The defining point is the pivot backwards, that at any point there will never be a regression from the point taken to a previous point. That for better, or worse, the entirety of that community now operates in a new fashion. The dark ages, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment, and the Atlantic revolutions were all important, but as steps to what followed. An end must always have a new beginning, but the end is always an end.