> has basically always been true at every point in time across history.

The Late Bronze Age collapse in 1200 BC.

The Dark Ages, 500-1500 AD. Ended with the Renaissance (literally, “Rebirth”).

Both of these times saw significant ‘backward motion’ in the amount of technical capability people could wield.

> This, too, has basically always been true at every point in time across history.

1 person, right now, could launch a large enough portion of the worlds nuclear arsenal to cause a near simultaneous response of the also nuclear kind, immediately wiping out the bulk of the human population, infrastructure, food, educational institutions, factories, housing, transportation and shipping, etc and effectively dooming much of the remaining population.

That's comparatively new over the past 20k years of human history.