That's my problem here too. It's a hyperbolic statement to begin with. The Luddites did not live in the stone age. So returning to a pre-industrial type civilization based on something other than economic greed could in fact, save us. We could choose to draw down both the population and our consumption. We could shift our work to cleaning up the planet. We could do so willingly and save as much as possible. Or, we can run the clock out and whatever scrap of humanity is left will start again from a new stone age.