Why do people agree with Thanos’ plan when he is talking about mass genocide?

- May 02, 2021

Because some people are edgy. Because some people are small minded. Because some people cannot comprehend what genocide is or how it works.

See, many people believe the underlying philosophy of what Thanos was doing. Or rather, they believe a sentiment similar. Earth does seem overpopulated. We have many people living in poverty, homelessness is a cancer among every country in the world, and people starve to death in the streets.

Surely, there is an easy answer, no? Surely if we just cut down the number of people on the planet, say by half, these problems would be solved, right?

Well….no. Not really. They would be exacerbated. But more importantly, the people who agree with Thanos simply don’t understand reality. At the time that I write this answer there are two other published answers. Both say that Thanos was right in what he wanted to do, even if it meant a genocide.

The problem is, our planet’s resources are not stretched thin. We are not on the verge of a world-wide societal collapse due to lack of resources.

No, homelessness, poverty, and starvation are all the result of human greed, and killing off half of us would simply open new slots in the power hierarchy for some other narcissistic asshole to fill, wherein they would continue to hoard wealth and continue to cause all the same problems that Thanos thinks he’s fixing with this culling.

Homelessness, Poverty, Starvation. These 3 things have been around since the dawn of mankind, and they would still be around after Thanos’ plan is executed. Without fundamentally changing human nature, this would do nothing but serve to kill off billions of people. And in 50 years, we’d be right back where we were when he first snapped. It’s almost as though he doesn’t realize that people procreate exponentially, not linearly. (He’s supposed to be a genius, and he couldn’t figure this out?)

This was the best possible outcome for his snap. Anybody who agrees with him, who thinks he did nothing wrong, is nothing short of an edgelord. Anyone who thinks his solution was correct, simply fails to see the bright side of humanity. The side of humanity that wants things to be better. Hell, there was a group of 6 people which ballooned up to a group of roughly 20–25 people who saw the brightness of humanity. They saw the good, the best, of people and fought, and some gave their lives, to keep that flame burning.

The people who agree with Thanos simply don’t understand. And that’s fine, it’s hard to grasp the fact that all “scarcity” on earth is artificially generated. We grow more food than we can consume in nearly every country on Earth. But the wealthy hoard this food, and waste it, while people on the streets starve to death.

We have enough houses built in the U.S. to completely eradicate homelessness, but the banks own the houses, and won’t allow the homeless to live in them.

There is enough wealth between the 3 richest people on the planet to completely end poverty among humans, but they hoard it like dragons, while people die because they can’t afford 30$ medications.

Thanos’ snap was, at best, a band-aid. At worst, one of the stupidest and most poorly conceived plans to save all life in the universe that I could have thought up as a 5 year old.

“There are too many people? Just kill em!” - a 5 year old’s idea of a good solution.

It was a terrible plan that only makes sense if you spend less than a second thinking about it. Which, unfortunately, seems to be the capacity that most MCU fans have for thinking about the plan.