if you are concerned about lives, think about this. much of our civilization's efforts, technology, and means of distribution are devoted to maintaining the current global population. a corollary of this is that the current global population is unsustainable using pre-industrial and pre-agricutural revolution technology. so if civilization ends, probably 95% of the current human population dies.
who are those people who die going to be? sure as hell not the people on top of your current "violence hierarchy". so how is ending civilization going to benefit them? they'll be the first to die.
on the other hand, the benefits of our current technological civilization with respect to reducing our footprint are only starting to be realized. therefore we need to intensify these efforts rather than ending them. also, the effect of Western civilization on reducing birth rates and shrinking population is well documented. so continuing this lifestyle and extending it worldwide is really the only realistic solution to reducing human populations to a desirable level.