If you want to collapse just run a system at 100% for baseline, there's no slack, there's no capacity to meet new demands, you're just running a permanent failure mode if there's any perturbation in the system.
Except ... the collapse never happens. Once your engineers burn out or age out you just hire fresh meat and the cycle repeats. The issue I have with these types of articles (and books like Peopleware / Slack) is they never provide any actual metrics that may convince the beancounters to try a different approach.
Your systems just continue working at full capacity when all your engineers burn out and you hire new people who know nothing? Huh, that's a new one to me.
Your baseline capacity is always lower than it would be with experienced, fully trained, happy engineers. It seems normal because the system doesn’t support anything better.