Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.
Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.
Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.
Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.
Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.
Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.
Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.
Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.
Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.
Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme.
Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.
Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation.
Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.
Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break from illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.
Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.
Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.
Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.
Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the majority.
Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology.
Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.
Jensen
These premises mix empirically grounded claims (about violence, hierarchy, policing, environmental overshoot) with normative and psychological claims that go beyond what evidence can strictly demonstrate. Empirical grounding is strongest where the premises overlap with research on environmental limits, colonialism, state violence, economic inequality, and political power; it is weakest where they assert totalizing claims about “civilization,” universal hatred of life, or inevitability of collapse.
Below, “grounding” means: indicating relevant empirical literatures, typical findings, and where the premise overreaches what those findings can justify.
Premises 1, 6, 7, 8, 18, 19, 20: Sustainability, collapse, and power
Evidence from Earth‑system science and ecological economics supports that current industrial civilization is ecologically unsustainable: human activity has pushed several planetary boundaries (climate, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, land use), and material/energy throughput remains tightly coupled to environmental impact despite efficiency gains. This empirically grounds the claim that the current global industrial system is unsustainable, but not that any complex civilization must be unsustainable in principle.
Demographic and resource‑use models show that overshoot followed by contraction is a plausible trajectory under continued high consumption and slow decarbonization, which lends partial support to the idea that delaying structural change increases the risk of more chaotic “crashes.” However, the strong claim that “civilization is not redeemable” and “will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation” is a prediction, not something that can be empirically established in advance; historical cases (e.g., partial transitions in energy systems or pollution control) show both meaningful reform and severe path dependence.
Premise Eight and Nineteen—that any economic or social system that systematically harms its ecological base is unsustainable and morally defective—align with sustainability science: long‑term human well‑being depends on intact ecological systems, and ignoring this dependence leads to eventual decline. The added moral judgment (“immoral and stupid”) is philosophical, not empirical.
Premise Twenty and its modifications claim that social decisions are driven primarily by the pursuit of wealth and power by elites, often at the expense of others and of wild nature. Political economy research documents that policy outcomes in many countries systematically reflect the preferences of economic elites more than those of average citizens, and that state institutions, including police and military, are often structured to protect property and the interests of powerful groups. Analyses of law enforcement argue that the state’s coercive apparatus frequently operates as a defender of property and oligarchic interests, reinforcing class and racial hierarchies, which supports the idea that economics and power, rather than broad community well‑being, often dominate decision‑making. However, calling the sole or exclusive driver of decisions a desire to destroy wild nature overstates the evidence: harm to nature is pervasive but often emerges from growth and profit logics that treat ecological damage as externalities, rather than from a consciously articulated aim to “control or destroy wild nature.”
Premise Eighteen, that current senses of self are “no more sustainable” than current energy use, connects to research on consumer identities, status competition, and how modern subjectivities are entangled with high‑consumption lifestyles. There is empirical support that prevailing norms of success and identity drive environmentally harmful consumption, but the claim that this “sense of self” cannot change is again predictive and normative.
Premises 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13: Violence, hierarchy, property, occupation
Historical work on colonialism and resource extraction supports Premise Two in many cases: indigenous and traditional communities have often resisted selling or ceding land and resources central to their survival and culture, and external actors have frequently responded with coercion, legal manipulation, and violence to gain access to those resources. Documented patterns in the Americas, Africa, and Asia show that land dispossession and resource extraction have repeatedly involved the weakening or destruction of traditional communities rather than purely voluntary transactions.
Premise Three—that industrial civilization requires persistent, widespread violence and would collapse without it—connects to theories of the state’s “monopoly on legitimate violence” and political economy analyses of how coercive institutions underpin property, labor relations, and empire. Empirically, modern states do rely on police, military, and other coercive tools to enforce laws, protect property, and secure access to resources, and these tools are regularly used violently, especially against marginalized groups. However, the necessity claim (“would collapse very quickly without violence”) is more contentious; social orders do rely on a mix of consent, norm internalization, and coercion, and quantifying the exact dependence on violence is difficult.
Premises Four and Five describe a hierarchical order where violence from above is normalized and property rights of those above are prioritized over lives of those below. Critical criminology and sociology point to systematic patterns: state and elite violence (e.g., structural poverty, environmental harm, police killings) is often underreported, depoliticized, or framed as necessary, while violence from below is highly visible and severely punished. Research on policing shows that law enforcement is disproportionately deployed to protect property and maintain existing social orders, and that harms against marginalized people frequently attract less institutional concern than damage to property or threats to elites. This empirically supports a strong bias toward protecting property and elite security, though the claim that property is always valued over life is too absolute.
Premise Eleven—civilization as “a culture of occupation”—is partly grounded in the historical record of settler colonialism, imperial expansion, and military occupation used to secure land and resources. Many modern states are built on earlier occupations, and contemporary geopolitical strategies continue to involve military and economic forms of control over territories. However, applying “occupation” as a totalizing descriptor for all of “civilization” collapses varied historical experiences.
Premise Twelve claims that categories of rich and poor are “delusions” tied to property systems enforced by police. Empirically, there is overwhelming evidence of persistent economic inequality, with wealth and income distributions correlating with access to political influence, security, and health. Research on law and policing argues that formal institutions (courts, police, property law) enforce these unequal distributions, often in ways that privilege the wealthy. Calling wealth “pieces of green paper” dramatizes the social‑constructive nature of money and property; this has grounding in social theory, but the normative conclusion that these categories are “just delusions” goes beyond empirical description.
Premise Thirteen—that those in power rule by force and illusions to the contrary obscure this—is consistent with state theory emphasizing that governments reserve the right to use force and that this threat underpins authority, even when most interactions are peaceful. Empirical studies of policing, surveillance, and repression show that force or its credible possibility is central to maintaining many regimes, especially when challenged. Still, power also operates through ideology, institutions, and consent; force is central but not exclusive.
Premises 9, 10, 14, 15: Population, “insanity,” hatred of life, and love/violence
Premise Nine discusses future population reduction and consumption declines, noting they can occur through violent or less violent paths but that given current structural violence, some suffering is likely. Demography and sustainability literature support that global population growth is slowing and may peak, and that per‑capita consumption in wealthy countries is ecologically excessive. Scenarios include both catastrophic and managed transitions, and current conflicts and environmental stress already generate violence and deprivation, which grounds concern that unmanaged overshoot will be harsh. However, any detailed claim about how population reduction “must” occur is speculative; evidence can show risks and tendencies, not certainties.
Premise Ten—that “the culture as a whole and most of its members are insane” and driven by a “death urge”—is essentially psychoanalytic and moral language applied to societies. Empirical research does show widespread behaviors that undermine long‑term survival (e.g., fossil fuel dependence despite known climate risks, large‑scale biodiversity loss). Psychological and sociological studies discuss denial, system justification, and short‑term bias that sustain harmful systems, but they do not typically frame this as literal insanity or a death drive; that is metaphorical and evaluative.
Premise Fourteen claims pervasive enculturation to hate life, the wild, bodies, emotions, etc. There is evidence of cultural patterns of domination over nature, patriarchal devaluation of women and children, and stigmatization of bodies and emotions in many modern societies. Environmental historians and feminist theorists have documented how these attitudes are embedded in institutions and narratives. Yet “hate” is a strong term; empirically, cultures also show attachment, care, and reverence for life and nature, so the premise generalizes beyond the evidence.
Premise Fifteen—“love does not imply pacifism”—can be connected to ethical and political debates where love or solidarity is seen as compatible with defensive or even revolutionary violence. Philosophical discussions and critiques of pacifism note that nonviolence is a specific moral and strategic stance, not a necessary consequence of love. Empirically, many movements that see themselves as motivated by love for oppressed people or for the earth have used both nonviolent and violent tactics, so history is compatible with this premise, though it does not prove any normative conclusion about what love should entail.
Premises 16, 17: Material primacy and fear of “fence‑sitters”
Premise Sixteen—that the material world is primary and that real actions have real consequences—is broadly aligned with scientific materialism: physical processes and human actions have observable effects, and relying on supernatural rescue does not alter material trajectories. This is a metaphysical stance, but its practical core—that ecological and social crises will not be solved by divine intervention and require human action—is consistent with empirical observation.
Premise Seventeen warns against basing strategy on whether actions will frighten “fence‑sitters” or the majority. Empirically, social movement research shows that movements constantly negotiate between radicalism and respectability, and that public perception can strongly influence outcomes. There is evidence that both disruptive and moderate tactics can be effective in different contexts, so the claim that concern about frightening the majority is a “mistake” reflects a strategic judgment, not a fact that can be empirically proven.
Overall assessment
Many of these premises are sharpened, totalizing formulations of themes that do have significant empirical support: ecological unsustainability of current industrial systems, systematic violence and coercion underpinning state and economic order, hierarchy and property protection as core functions of policing, and the dominance of elite economic and power interests in policy. At the same time, several premises overgeneralize (e.g., about all civilization, all members of a culture, inevitable collapse) or use psychological and moral language (insanity, death urge, hatred of life) that cannot be rigorously tested.
An empirically grounded version of this framework would keep the documented patterns—environmental overshoot, structural violence, elite‑driven decision‑making, and the role of coercive institutions—while softening universal claims, separating descriptive findings from moral judgments, and acknowledging both variation across societies and the existence of partial reforms and counter‑tendencies.
You are right that Premise Eighteen, as written, does not explicitly say this sense of self cannot change; it says our current sense of self is “no more sustainable” than our current energy or technology, which points to “this has to change or it will break,” not “this cannot change.” The “cannot” in the earlier answer was about what the premise seems to imply if read strongly, but that goes further than the text strictly warrants.
Sense of self and material conditions
There is strong backing for your second point: changes in “sense of self” are deeply constrained by underlying material and structural conditions. Historical materialism explicitly argues that social existence and material conditions shape consciousness, identities, and dominant ideas, and that when the mode of production and social relations change, people’s self‑understandings tend to change with them. Contemporary work on consumption and identity similarly shows that norms of success, status, and “the good life” are tied to economic structures, inequality, marketing, and infrastructure that make high‑impact consumption normal and desirable.
At the same time, there is evidence for feedback in the other direction: identities and norms can shift somewhat “ahead of” material conditions, for example when social movements build alternative values or when people adopt lower‑impact lifestyles and then press for structural change. But these shifts are more durable and widely adopted when institutions, incentives, and infrastructures—the material conditions—change to reinforce them rather than constantly pulling people back toward high‑consumption, competitive identities.
So a more precise way to put it is:
Premise Eighteen is claiming that the currently dominant sense of self is structurally coupled to unsustainable material conditions, and will have to transform along with them or it will remain part of the crisis.
Empirically, identity can change, but deep, large‑scale shifts in identity are very hard without corresponding shifts in material and institutional arrangements; the two co‑evolve rather than one changing in isolation.
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