dark ages are the consequence of the fall of the Roman empire. It created a political vaccuum filled by local lords. So not going through the Dark Ages (which by the way saw the developpement of many interesting thinkers, especially political thinkers, economic thinkers, and others, so it's not as dark as it seems) would imply we live in a sort of Roman world or that the empire would have collapsed later and we would maybe still be in this era of political vaccuum and unstability, I believe.
however, most grecoroman technology was preserved by the Byzantine and Islamic scholars, (hence the Rennaisance; if the technology had entirely disappeared, it wouldve taken far longer to regain it. so strictly in terms of technology, not much would have changed, but politically and ecinomically, the world would probably be a far different place. sincerely a guest trying to be helpful
The Dark Ages were important for our development, I doubt our world would be more advanced if we hadn't gone through them. It probably would have caused quite the opposite.
Might I remind everybody that it's called the "Dark Ages" NOT because times were cruel and dark, but because it's a not well documented period in our history?
Oh no also because the people in the Renaissance wanted relive the knowledge of the Roman Empire and forget the Dark Ages as soon as possible -because they thought they were cruel and there was no civilisation
We would have more knowledge of what happened before it burned and would see those mistakes and fail to change our behavior any more than we change our behavior from modern mistakes.
Might I remind everybody that it's called the "Dark Ages" NOT because times were cruel and dark, but because it's a not well documented period in our history?