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OTOH far away from light pollution you get so used to the dark you clearly see the galaxy in the middle of night.
So I think it was rare to have perfect thick cloud coverage so not often a pitch black dark.
i mean yeah, but even then starlight is basically fuck all. The moon overpowers those, it just makes the sky look pretty. That's it.
Cloud cover would be primarily lit by moonlit. And even then, moon light is very dim. Just look at early moon light towers used to light up residential areas early in the electrification period.
It's literally the difference between being in your home, at night, and you can't see shit. Vs you can just barely make out where things are, and navigate properly.
Also semantic point, light pollution is not "dark" that's why you can't see any stars. Ever looked at a highway lit with LEDs recently? They have tons of light pollution that can be seen as what's referred to as "sky glow" My point here being, when you go outside in a light polluted area at night, it's literally not dark.
I think their point was that there isn't anything humans could do during the night. Stars might give some light, but without a full moon you really can't do anything at night without lights.
stars would only be good for guidance, until you run into a tree or something.