He also criticizes what he sees as the dominant social paradigm, what he calls the "expansionist view", and the belief that technology will solve all our problems: "Confusing life expectancy with life-span, the gullible begin to believe that medical science has accomplished a miracle—lengthened human life!" Abbey takes this theme to an extreme at various points of the narrative, concluding that: "Wilderness preservations like a hundred other good causes will be forgotten under the overwhelming pressure, or a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment, for my own part I would rather take my chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world".