> And those people re-engineer society in a more stable way. I am envious of your optimism, but I see no evidence to suggest that small communities of highly s

> And those people re-engineer society in a more stable way. I am envious of your optimism, but I see no evidence to suggest that small communities of highly stressed and resource-starved humans can produce anything better than a much larger number of relatively non-stressed humans with easy access to abundant resources. I wasn't proposing any particular scenario that would cause a civilisational collapse, merely that a large supply of free, easy to obtain, high-density energy may be a prerequisite for any transition to an industrial age (and naturally all that may follow). I accept we only have one data point to hand, but it doesn't contradict this proposition.