A old comment of mine that seems somewhat relevant:
If a form of civilization based on agriculture is maintained after the technological fallback the next time around it seems plausible that we may also have a higher IQ and be generally better adapted to life in mass society. Human brains are pretty good at finding substitute resources.
Good observation that easily accessible energy is what makes technological machine based civilizations go. Speaking of which in the long term there would still be wood to burn, wind and water power, animal and human muscles. Also remember you can use selective breeding to make animals (and plants) better suited to human purposes.
Much better.
Maybe no industrial revolution, but at the very least given enough time... Also there is still coal, lots of coal, much of it hard to reach though.
If the human brains adapted that much genetically during the existing relatively fast ramping up of civilization, powered by cheap accessible energy sources, then it can unadapt in the event of collapse and subsequent slower ramp up, starved of cheap energy.
Human brains are pretty good at finding substitute resources.
We demonstrably are not pretty good at finding substitutes! Look at how well the existing highly experienced and technically sophisticated civilization has done at the task!
A reminder for everyone: on this day in 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world.
It occurs to me this time around that there's an interesting relationship here - 9/26 is forgotten, while 9/11 is remembered. Do something charitable, and not patriotic, sometime today.