Im reading "Collapse" by J. Diamond now, so this caught my eye..

Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0R09YzyuCI

EDIT: Perhaps I should say why this is relevant. Xrisk isn't just things which could destroy humanity outright, but also things from which we never recover. I'm also interested in building robust institutions which can survive unexpected circumstances, and have positive impact over centuries to influence the far future. (Nobel Prize Foundaton, DARPA's 100 year Starship, Long Now Foundation, etc.) Perhaps cryonicists will also find it interesting.

There was a recent TED talk on what makes systems robust in changing environments.

He starts with the example of the immune system, then mentions long-lived social systems (catholic church, roman empire), but goes on to focus mainly on applications to businesses that want to survive black swan events and industry disruption.

This flows somewhat counter to conventional wisdom, which says to optimize for growth by putting all your eggs into whichever basket has the largest growth rate or market.

He lists 6 characteristic that all these robust, long-lived systems have in common: Redundancy, Diversity, Modularity, Adaptation, Prudence, and Embeddedness.