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Solar and wind + batteries are providing an increasing fraction of our energy consumption, including things that used to require oil (electric cars). Society wouldn't collapse if we had to cut our oil (and coal and gas) consumption by 3/4.
Even if this is true, it's a solvable engineering problem.
There's a ton of lithium on the planet. The cost of mining it varies, so the cost of cars would go up if all oil disappeared, but that's not societal collapse.
Even among mainstream progressive climate scientists, and in the IPCC, the consensus is that it's unlikely we're getting the civilization-destroying disaster climate change scenarios. Even if 1 in 10 of the places on the planet people currently live were rendered uninhabitable ... they can just move, that wouldn't come even close to threatening civilization, much worse has happened.
A 50% IFR and rapidly spreading pandemic is theoretically possible, sure. But, like, people would notice very quickly that was the case and stop going outside. It'd suck, but 50% of the population wouldn't actually die, and it wouldn't destroy civilization.
This one's actually a problem - technology can, and has, lowered fertility rates faster than evolution can raise them. AGI's coming sooner though!
I mean, the actual answer is that AGI is going to be as or more significant a transformation than societal collapse, and even if I bought all of those ideas, which I don't, they're all coming after AGI.
This isn't true at all, and I don't think you have an accurate understanding of exactly how reliant modern industrial societies are on fossil fuels. You wouldn't necessarily end up in Mad Max land overnight, but you must have an extremely strong estimation of modern levels of social cohesion. How, exactly, would this 75% cut in living standards be distributed? How would your hypothetical society be able to handle the rise of voices talking about how this is all the fault of those coastal elites/rural poors/rootless cosmpolitans/blacks/whites/mexicans/women/trans/gays/christians/hindus? Don't forget the massive increase in the cost of food and actual famines that would result from the sudden cutting of 3/4 of hydrocarbons that are used to produce fertiliser. If you did not implement sweeping, incredibly unpopular changes to the basic rules and fundamental contracts of society you would experience an involuntary collapse as various power/influence groups compete for their share of the pie.
Would society survive that kind of cut? Yes, it would survive - but if you define "collapse" as an involuntary loss of social complexity (which most writers on the topic do), a 3/4 cut in fossil fuel consumption would immediately qualify.
My take on it is the one proposed by Greer in "riding the climate toboggan". Even if you ignore the long term trends (which won't matter in your lifetime anyway) the short term problems that are encountered along the way are actually quite severe - notice any major natural disasters recently? Fires, storms and floods are all going to be on the rise, and even the doomers don't think that this will end society, but the economic costs associated with these adverse weather events are going to be another piece of pressure adding to the strain.
What were the economic impacts of the Covid pandemic? Sure, society doesn't collapse during pandemics like that - but there are measurable negative impacts from these events, and while those negative impacts aren't a big deal for a strong and healthy society... I don't think we're living in a strong and healthy society anymore, and I don't see it getting better in a world with a changing climate, greater levels of natural disasters and substantially more expensive energy/material resources.
That's a big bet - and for everyone's sake, I hope that not only is it correct, but that the alignment issue is comprehensively solved well before the consequences of these current trends make it a necessity.
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