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50% was such a dumb number anyways.
It requires a single doubling to get back to where we were. To double, you'd need about 10 times a 7% growth. Probably within less than 100 years you'd be back at the same problem
Not to mention that when you murder a shit tonne of people, and when it's over you'll likely have lots of people getting babies, so you get a birth wave about 9 months later. That regrowth starts FAST.
Hang on, do you mean “with the least capacity to be smart,” or is he killing all the babies and children?
I mean, the average newborn is smarter than the average politician, so maybe it's not as bad as we think.
Bruh babies cant even talk or have object permanence, don't try to spin that as being smart.
I once convinced a 9 year old that dogs are just cats but older. Little humans are smart as hell 😎
I think the whole 50% depopulation is a flawed premise, of the hundred of thousands of years modern humans have existed that would throw total population back to... 1970
Yup. His movie motivation was dumbed down. The whole resources thing is stupid for exactly this reason.
In the comics, Thanos became infatuated with the Marvel Universe incarnation of Death. ...And naturally he figured that if he killed half the universe at once, he'd get her attention. (cause girls love it when a boy makes a huge amount of work for them...)
Anyway, his plan was still moronic, but "manchild does stupid thing to impress girl" is a classic for a reason.
There is an addendum to his plan that might have made it make sense. If he had said something like "I'm giving the universe the chance to make better decisions", suddenly having half as many people means (probably a little more than) half resource consumption, half the carbon emission, and more time to figure out and implement solutions to these problems. I'm not sure how the housing crisis would pan out, I expect it would get worse. It also makes more sense that he destroys the stones after "I gave the universe its chance, now the ball is in its court".
This also solves the doubling resource problem. His motives are to pressure people to change their ways. Giving them more stuff might cut hunger, but you'll just have that hunger again in 50 years and we'd probably increase carbon output to boot, and destroy more environment to get these doubled resources.
I don't know enough about the stones to say whether "infinite resources" or whatever cheat code would have worked, but they certainly could have dropped a line that it wasn't possible, or that it would cause more problems than it solved (how does chemistry even work in this universe? If nothing ever gets used in reactions then the chemistry that makes our bodies work is borked)
But anyway, as the Russos did not put this line in, the premise was flawed
Maybe the classic: "Impossible to create something out of nothing", even with the magical stones
Ant-Man: Well come on, wait, you know, there are different kinds of intelligence, right? Please someone tell me I'm not making that up.
Thanos could have literally chosen 1000 other options that were better than killing 50% of all living things, and I'm sure nobody would have disagreed!
Isaac Asimov, a very intelligent person, wrote a lengthy essay to the effect that he had no idea what intelligence was. He talked about how society would generally consider him more intelligent than the nearly illiterate man who repaired his car, and yet whenever something went wrong with his car he would go to his mechanic and listen to his advice as if it was being handed down from the mountaintop by Moses himself, because Isaac Asimov knew fuck all about car repair. He talked about how he thought that supposedly objective IQ tests were generally a series of gates designed by people already considered intelligent to keep themselves in power, and that they totally disregarded huge swaths of indispensable human knowledge and talent. Isaac Asimov, who has been published in literally every section of the Dewey Decimal System, concluded that he had no firm idea as to what exactly "intelligence" even was.
In short, how could one even define "the dumbest 50%"?
And that's why Thanos should have made everybody half as large as they once were.
The definition for intelligence changed over the last 2 centuries because we keep discovering how an animal can fit the definition, and intelligence was used to separate humans from animals. Now it's even worse because people are trying to separate AI from humans.
I like the concept laid out by Delany: in a novel he describe 3 levels of intelligence based on the understanding of various point of views, but it's not a ranking.
The first stage is simplex: people don't understand the science of the world, so everything is kind of magical but this concept of magic make the world hold itself and they can grasp everything and use everything with this conception of magic.
Second stage is complex: people have an understanding of science and they can explain many things, but not everything. And when they can't explain something, they can't cope with it, because they don't have the conceptual tools for it. Thus they will either deny this thing existence of plug it into their existing concepts by ignoring the feature that can't fit.
Third and last stage is multiplex : people can accept that there are theories different than the ones they know, ideas also. Point of views can shape the way you see the world, and even the scientific theories you have to explain the world can be seen as a point of view on the world, so changing this point of view can bring a new or different understanding of a phenomenon or thing or person. These points of view all coexist at the same time, none of them is more true than the other. Like the concept of magic, this allows to grasp, use or accept even the ununderstandable and the unknown, but with a better ability to understand than the simplex stage.
I like this model. But it's more a model for open-mindedness than intelligence. But maybe that's the thing.
I love the entire story, then your very solid and succinct answer
Why couldn't Thanos just wish for unlimited resources? Or universal peace? Or literally any number of things that would have solved the problems he was trying to solve without anyone getting hurt or never existing? His method was stupid.
I think that the motive should be allowed to be dumb, and their mistake was making Thanos appear lucid and competent. They really should have leaned into "the mad titan" thing and made him act more like an unhinged despot.
His method was stupid
He would be part of the dumbest 50%.
Thanos was a fucking stupid character in the MCU. The human population is currently doubling every 61 years with a growth rate of about 1.14%. Assuming similar numbers across the galaxy, he didn't do anything except cause suffering. He's a very poorly written villain.
I guess to stay on topic, they would have looked at population growth, and determined that his plan was moronic, and fought him.
I agree that Thanos is dumb, but he's well written. He's supposed to be stupidly short sighted; that's his whole deal. He experienced a problem with his own society, and invented an idiotic solution that was readily rejected (rightly) by his own people. He saw the downfall after that and said to himself that the cause was that they didn't listen to him.
When he grew powerful enough to do it, wanting nobody else to suffer the loss of their entire society like he did, forces the universe to participate in his little exercise with little to no regard for the losses people suffer, nor the long term consequences of his plan.
He has no ability to think beyond the small scope of time that encompasses his plan.
Sure, resources will be far less scarce for people in the short term, but, as you've correctly pointed out, in the long term, he's simply delaying the inevitable, which is why his statement near the end of endgame is so poignant: "I am inevitable". Then he snaps, and nothing happens because Tony stole the infinity stones, proving he's not inevitable and underneath it all, he's not thinking of the inevitable outcome of his plan (which is only delaying things at best, and is an actual war crime).
He's convinced himself so throughly that his way is the only way that he refuses to even entertain the idea that there may be other solutions, which bluntly, other solutions may have an actual effect in the long run (more than 100 years out).
He's meant to be fanatical about it being the only option and unable to be convinced otherwise. He's written perfectly for that role.
Other means of population control should be considered, but he'll have none of it. I see it as analogous to so many humans in real life that deny long term damages to the planet and to future generations because of short sighted "freedoms" or benefits that they may reap in their lifetime. A whole "fuck the distant future for immediate gains" kind of mentality; something that, quite bluntly, is the prevailing mindset of most capitalist businesses. It's all about maximizing the present and damn the consequences.
Thanos is a literary tool to describe problems we have right here and right now, on a fundamental level. People do convinced that their way is the only way that they will do immense harm to their fellow humans (and/or other living beings) just to do what they think is in the best interest of themselves and others, without considering evidence or any discourse that may prove that their way may not work out long term.
Yeah, because it’s so morally defensible to eliminate all of the developmentally disabled and republicans.
I'd bet good money that most republicans are smarter than AOC