The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to mere cogs in the social machine and permanently destroying whatever is left of wild nature. If the system breaks down the consequences will be very painful, but the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.