Technology is the hope, basically. Can tech advance enough before things get really bad?

I think we’ve absolutely been in a “soft” collapse for many decades now. It’s something that will accelerate, it probably won’t be any one thing all at once unless someone starts shooting nukes or something, but that’s a total wildcard scenario. Most likely things will keep collapsing as they have been, just more quickly. Climate change is going to push humanity to the limits over the next century.

But, at the same time there will continue to be rapid advances in technology, food production, medicine, transportation, etc. Because a soft collapse is unevenly distributed advances will continue while the other side of the continent is on fire or falling into the ocean.

In the coming decades automation should enable us to live comfortable lives with nearly zero work, sustainably. We won’t undo the damage, but if we can eat hydroponic veggies grown by Alexa or 3D print out houses lots of people will have everything we have today, despite the collapse.