Thanos' Main Flaw: The Neo-Malthusian

Thanos' Main Flaw: The Neo-Malthusian, also stylized as Thanos' Main Flaw | The Neo-Malthusian, is an essay written by Trailblazer101 regarding the (MCU) character  and his plan from  (2018).

Introduction
Population growth has been a heated debate for several years and continues to be a necessary topic of discussion to this day, with the world’s population being on a rapid rise. There are several people around the world who believe that there is a way to prevent these high increases in population growth from causing problems for the planet in the future by establishing population policies to limit the number of children a family can have and how we consume our resources, which plays a factor into the wide-gap of population growth in the United States and South Sudan, for example. The United States is a developed country, with an average of 0.7% to 0.9% population growth per year, while South Sudan, which is a developing country, has a total population of 13.066 people, with the country’s population being equivalent to 0.17% of the total world population growth of 7.7 billion people. This type of gap in population growth is largely due to the number of resources that a country has for its’ people, the number of people that receive good health care, and how many people have stable jobs and earnings to provide these resources and health care for their families. The people that believe in this type of population growth are called “Neo-Malthusians”, which are described as being modern-day believers in Thomas Robert Malthus’ theory of population growth and the impact that it has on the world. Malthus believed with his theory that the world will one day reach a point where overpopulation will outweigh agricultural production and people will not have enough food and resources, with Neo-Malthusians also believing in environmental degradation and catastrophic famine. This is where Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War comes into play with his plan to eliminate half of all life in the universe to save life and prevent overpopulation, which correlates to the beliefs of the Neo-Malthusians and how Thanos took his ambitions and goals to the extreme with this belief.

Part I: His Actions Are Flawed
In Infinity War, Thanos symbolizes the beliefs of the Neo-Malthusians and sets out with a plan to eradicate half of all life in the universe to combat the fears of overpopulation that these people believe in. Thanos carries out his actions in the film by collecting the six Infinity Stones and using them to randomly turn half of the population into dust. This is seen as horrible and inhumane, although Thanos proceeds with his plan and carries it out to the end as he believes it is the right way to solve the problems that he has seen plague the universe, and he will do anything to enact his will upon the world, hence his statement from the film, “The hardest choices require the strongest will.” This type of belief is where Thomas Malthus’ theory and the Neo-Malthusians come into play. Since Neo-Malthusians believe the world will fall into a collateral state of famine and lack of resources as a result of overpopulation, Thanos is a perfect example of a Neo-Malthusian taking this belief to the extreme as evident by the points that he brought up while discussing his plan with Gamora after kidnapping her from Knowhere and Doctor Strange during their duel on Titan. Thanos believes in what Neo-Malthusians have believed since the time of Thomas Malthus and fears that it will happen to the entire universe just as it has happened on his planet Titan, which did not have enough resources for everyone to remain alive and, as Thanos put it, had “too many mouths, not enough food to go around.” Thanos has also claimed to have seen this happen on Gamora’s planet and how it developed and grew into a paradise after he eradicated half of its population to save enough food and resources for the survivors, although this is believed to have been a lie as co-director Joe Russo stated that Thanos lied about one of the planets’ fates, which can determine that he lied about Gamora’s planet as he told her “I never taught you how to lie. That’s why you’re so bad at it.” Thanos is shown to lie to prove his point about universal genocide and goes about with his actions with a flawed yet reasonable mindset as he justifies the wrongdoings he knows he’ll commit with the belief that he’s saving the universe from itself and preventing overpopulation from coming to the planets, although what he believes is right for all is countered be those that see killing half of all life as a horrendous act due to the brutal and extreme measures that Thanos takes to fulfill his prophecized glory for the betterment of the universe.

Part II: It Only Delays the Inevitable
Thanos saw his plan to wipe out half of all life in the universe to preserve resources and decrease population growth as the right path to eliminate overpopulation across the universe, although there are several attributes that make this unable to last forever. As analytics have proven, population growth has only increased throughout the years all across the world, and with such a rapid change in the population decreasing, the economics of the universe would be off-set as civilians attempt to find balance in this eradicated new world and lifestyle, given that a majority of the lives gone had played an important impact on the economy. By decreasing the population of the universe, the planets are more likely to fall into a chaotic state that the Neo-Malthusians believe is occurring due to overpopulation, albeit, it would happen because of the fears of overpopulation. The planets would attempt to rebuild from the remnants of what’s left behind and they would continue to thrive as Thanos claimed, but only many years later. The immediate effect on the universe from Thanos’ decimation would have long-lasting ramifications and repercussions that would take years for the planets to get back intact. Evidently, once the planets do fall back into place economically and cope with the travesties of losing half of all life in the universe, they would start to reproduce across the universe to grow their families to only gain more workers to take part in aiding the planets due to the loss of the others, which would require more and more resources to be consumed for the growing population. As a universe, our population and high-demands for resources is only increasing and will continue to do so for many years on, so, Thanos’ actions only delay the inevitable lack of resources for the growing population with or without his interference.