A question of balance

This question seems to lie at the very root of "civilization" as we know it. Even the development of agriculture meant people were less healthy than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. Whether or not the price of growth and technology is worth it is really up to society. Of course, large civilizations tend not to make those decisions consciously, instead being focused on which sports team won the recent game, or on increasing their own political power...

So, I'd say an eventual crash is inevitable for us--just as it happened for countless civilizations before our own in an endless boom-bust cycle of technological expansion and collapse.

That is, unless we wake up... It has happened before--if you look at the archaeological record for Aboriginal Australia, it actually gets simpler over time. At some point they developed sophisticated tools, then gave up on them and went back to a simpler lifestyle. However, life isn't a "survival of the fittest" game to them (Survival of the fittest is a gross oversimplification of evolution anyway); they take care of their elderly and other non-contributing members of society; but they also understand when it's time for someone to die and they deal with it.

"Civilizations" on the other hand, resist death at every turn--like trying to hold back a river--and when the pressure builds too high, the entire civilization collapses, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces.

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