Anyone else miss the Dark Ages?

Those sure were the good'ol days, amiright?

Looking for a sign that civilization is headed in the wrong direction? Then look no further than Guédelon Castle in Burgundy, France, where fans of the Middle Ages are building a castle, like, an actual Thirteenth century castle. And to be clear, I'm not saying that this group of medieval enthusiasts are a sign of civilizational decline. I actually think they're pretty rad for doing this. I'm saying that the twenty-first century is such an unforgivable trash fire that I completely understand why people miss the Dark Ages. 

Ready for my uncontroversial opinion:
The Castle Lego sets were, and still
are, objectively the best Lego sets.

Ok, maybe it's not just that the people involved miss the Dark Ages. Guédelon Castle is about archeology and the past and learning how to exist without electricity and modern convinces. Which, I mean, give us a few more years going the way we're going, and those skills will become very much in demand. But bleak outlook aside, according to this, craftspeople who are working on the castle and the techniques they developed (or rediscovered) at Guédelon are being used to rebuild Notre Dame, so it has real-world applications in addition to being wish fulfilment for anyone who ever had legos as a kid. 

Above: Michel Guyot, seen here
inviting us to party like it's 1299.

The project was started back in 1997 when a French entrepreneur called Michel Guyot discovered the ruins of a medieval castle on some land he owned--because I guess in Europe, you can't go ten feet without tripping over the ruins of something--and thought, hey, why not build a new old castle? The European Union gave him some Euro funbacks for funding and he was off to the races. Or the tilts. Or whatever it was medieval people did. Crusades? 

Anyway, the design is based on the nearby ruins and the construction project employs craftspeople who use 13th century techniques, including period appropriate cranes and hoists to try and be as authentic as possible.

This suggests that someone, somewhere, is a 13th century French hoist expert.
Like, that's their area of expertise. They probably wrote a dissertation on them.

Also, I suspect that there probably weren't
a ton of craftspeople skilled in medieval
French building techniques living in Arkansas

Oh, and get this, the whole thing is open to the public. It kind of sounds like a Ren Faire writ large or Colonial Williamsburg without being painfully boring and I definitely want to go. Obviously it's a bit of a hike to go to France, although Guyot also started a similar project in the US. Called the Ozark Medieval Fortress, it weirdly set out to build a medieval French Castle in Arkansas, although I guess in some sense a castle is as out of place in the twenty-first century as it is in Arkansas. Either way, the project ran out of money and was left unfinished and closed indefinitely.

Anyway, I get it. In many ways, things suck right now and maybe it's human nature to long for what we don't have, but there are days where I think I'd rather just pack it in and go live in the Middle Ages. Sure, there were plagues, near constant warfare, religious zealotry and--oh...Well, everyone was eating organically grown produce, and there was no social media, so it still wins over now. 

"Ugh...bo-ring... if only I had a way to hear everyone's uninformed and
often hostile opinions about politics and culture twenty-four hours a day."

-Some medieval peasant