It may be an oversimplified view, but I prefer the definition of "civilization" as "city-based society". The predicament is not the technologies and cultures, but the flow direction of useful work and value. The concepts of cities as "good" and growth as "better" are rooted in warfare and competition among humans that are only possible because of the human a priori warfare against Nature and reality. Whether humans are few or many, the application of our efforts to remove resources rather than nurture them is the heart of the long term predicament. In other words, our civilizations die off because they are useless to the future of their places; not because they take "too much", but because they don't give anything in the first place ("more humans" is a cop-out answer, exploited by economic slavery). Our "predicament" is not our circumstances: it is our theft and uselessness. The predicament is evidence that our adopted behavior in any place is backward. "The opposite of consumption is not frugality; it is generosity." -Raj Patel

The opposite of consumer civilization is contributory civilization.

The only wealth that matters is Nature's.