gwern comments on On the unpopularity of cryonics: life sucks, but at least then you die - Less Wrong
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Both Clark and Tainter (Collapse of Complex Civilizations) disagree with this claim as stated. A massive reduction in the population means that the survivors get increased per-capitas because the survivors move way back along the diminishing marginal returns curve and now have more low-hanging fruit (sometimes literally). In fact, Tainter argues that complexity often collapses because the collapse is the only way to increase per-capita wealth. Hunter-gatherers spend much less time per calorie than do advanced agriculturalists eg.
Or
(Quotes brought to you by my Evernote; it's a pain in the ass to excerpt all the important bits from a book, but it certainly pays off later if you want to cite it for various assertions.)