*WARNING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD*
It has been more than two weeks since the first Avengers: Infinity Wars debuted on screens, there has been (without a shadow of a doubt) an overwhelming reception for a movie that has taken 10 years, 18 movies, and around 350 million to furnish. No spoilers ahead, because we’re not going to discuss about how the movie should have ended, but of Thanos and his ultimate plan. In such an argument for Thanos, we are obliged to scrutinise his proposal of population control as a viable option to maintain a healthy economy (or in his words, universe). To do so, we have to explore the realms of behavioural economics where scarcity, basic needs, and irrationalities play a vital role in decision making, such as whether if I should get a cup of expensive premium coffee from Starbucks when I can spend the same amount of money for 2 weeks supply of instant coffee (Yes, I should, and off I go).
Firstly, Thanos claims that there are finite resources in the universe, and unchecked growth will one day reduce our share to such thinness that survival becomes an inevitable nightmare for half of the population. For example, imagine a parallel universe, where Earth is overpopulated, avarice drives their innate tendency to accumulate more, individuals who act independently for their own self-interest will do whatever it takes to amass all the resources they can, even if it destroys the natural resources in the near future, rendering the natural resources nonrenewable (think of trees, cut down all the trees and you have no new seeds to plant new trees, then life will be sad because life will have no lemons to throw at people). In this scenario, human beings will eventually face the full blow of scarcity called depletion as a result of the tragedy of the commons.
Next, to understand the logic behind optimal consumption, we need to delve into this one economic theory: Steady State Economy (SSE). SSE is a state of equilibrium with minimal economic fluctuation, and every person has adequate resources in a community that coexists harmoniously with the environment. Imagine a population of cute little bunnies that multiply like crazy, but are susceptible to ferocious predators like snakes, foxes, hyenas, and hawks. They act as a control for each other to construct a balanced ecosystem. Too many rabbits, they will run out of food; too few, they starve their predators to death; no predators, and they’ll run out of grounds to build cute little houses (No, you idiot! They burrow!). Not to be confused with economic stagnation, SSE results from a deliberate political agenda, and it’s not undesirable. Therefore, in ecological terms, the only way to optimally capitalise the finite resources is to ensure that the number of consumers doesn’t exceed that of producers. But as apex predators, we have literally nobody eating us, so it’s way harder for us than our ancestors to be eaten by lions (about dying, an exception has to be made for cases of infant mortality, fatal viral infections, and tide pods. The last one deserves a Darwinian Award for cleaning up the gene pool). So how do we prevent overpopulation? We will have to.
Let’s bring back our friend Thanos, and assume that he has no stones and thus, must do it the hard way. He will have to visit Earth, evenly and randomly segregate our population in equal halves, undiscriminating old and young, rich and poor, and proceed to slaughter half of them. This effectively leaves the other half to bury the dead, rebuild the society, and revive the economy. Such a concept is likened to the one-child policy of China (1980s to October 2015), with the only difference being the PRC government controlled its population via birth control while Thanos does so by actively slaying the other half (bad news for sentimental folks, you will see your unfortunate family members die). With the degree of rationality of Thanos, it should do no harm to us. Imagine a world overloaded with androids, many play no active role in the society, maintenance cost is rising over the top, and they do not emote (Yes, I hear you, boring). Thanos kills recycles half of them and suddenly there is growth. Like a wildfire that burns down forests, it kills part of the population, triggers seeds to be released via pyriscence, and the soil is now more fertile for growth.
Now that I have arrived at the awareness whereby an SSE is necessary and a conceivable plan, but telling me that I must sacrifice my grandmother for that? Hell no! Nobody prepares dumplings like my grandmother does, and thou shall NOT take her life away! Such thoughts are totally normal, and such irrationality of caring for our own family instead of prioritising the survivability of our entire species is what that makes us human (sadly). From the evolutionary perspective, it benefits our genetic counterparts to survive in a short run. Why? I’d like to follow the notions of Richard Dawkins (if I’m not mistaken) that our genes are likened to parasites in our body, and they are merely using us to make more copies of themselves (in human form). Therefore, the intuition to save your family members is akin to keeping your similar genes alive so that there are more copies of them. SSE or not, your genes has only one mission – to multiply, but to survive through another century clutching to current trends of overpopulation will only spell the doom of our species.
At the end of the day, irrationality is what pushes us to donate blood for an accident victim when we know that we won’t receive anything in return (maybe I can silence that guilt of running over a dog with a truck); it encourages us to eat that unhealthy food just because it makes us feel good (then regret it for the next 7 days); it urges us to buy more olive oil when it says “ZERO trans-fat”; but left unchecked and our children will perish in the unimaginable peril of an overpopulated Earth that has ran out of lands for bunnies to build cottages and no trees to grow lemons, unless we have found a new way to colonise Mars.
One may wonder if a responsible global population planning is essential to our survivability through the next century. The answer will be yes, adding a tinge of common sense for people to be distributed economically according to their deed and take no more than what they need, preserving and conserving the entire ecosystem as a renewable source of our basic commodities, and not to start a trade war (what’s justifiable may not necessarily be acceptable). Perhaps until we have mustered the will to take only what we need, we should fear the arrival of Thanos on Earth; perhaps until the day we lose our humanity, we should continue to hope that Thanos continues to sit on a chair floating in the middle of space and not set foot on Earth (at least until I’m dead).
This article represents the views of the author(s) alone, and not necessarily those of Psychronicle’s
Written By: Felix Faraday
The Psychronicle 