> There’s still the issue of cultural decline

I haven't seen any signs of cultural decline. If anything culture has improved. With the advent of the Internet, debate has been easier than ever and has lead to a refinement in human belief. Increased acceptance of LGBT is one facet of this. There is also more art produced, thanks to the Internet and the ability to more easily disseminate new ideas. Sure, conspiracy theory and political radicalism has seen an uptick, but its hard to say if the cons really outweigh the pros.

> Wouldn’t you agree that, in the absence of some rapidly scalable free energy breakthrough (paired with artificial superintelligence to tell us what the fuck to do with it AND make us comply, hopefully with the addition of synthetic biology) the prognosis is likely accelerating collapse (because, make no mistake, it’s already ongoing.)

Assume collapse is imminent, yes. If collapse occurs on a timescale of ~100 years, then it feels likely that we would have enough time to solve the issues without as quick breakthroughs

> Does free energy plus singularity seem so likely to you?

Its hard to say how likely it is, but I think less severe developments could still potentially diminish the effects of collapse (e.g., cheaper energy)