Urban write that Applewhite 's life display " the intense ambivalence and alienation shared by many individuals lost in late twentieth @-@ century capitalist society " . He note that Applewhite 's condemnations of contemporary culture bear similarities to those of Jean Baudrillard at times , particularly their shared nihilist views . Urban posits that Applewhite found no way other than suicide to escape the society that surrounded him and state that death offered him a way to escape its " endless circle of seduction and consumption " .