And the very best thing about that answer is that WE COULD DO THAT - without needing magic rocks or special powers or killing people. We could do all that. If we really wanted to. Which apparently not enough people actually do want at this point in time to really make a difference.
There is really NO way to remove half the people in a short time frame without all sorts of negative effects and damage.
Humanity isn’t immune to the forces that keep other animal populations in check. The whole thing will occur naturally. That’s not to say we can’t jump in to try and make it less hurtful, but it’s gonna happen.
And Thanos’s solution was stupid because it cut half of many of the resources. I actually think sticking with the comic book version makes more sense. What’s so bad about the motivation of killing to impress someone? If you can’t use Death because you’ve not introduced her, pick someone else.
Why? Do we not have enough trees now? By eliminating ½ of the population, housing pressure would go down, which means we’d slow down the encroaching of pristine natural lands, rain forests, African plains, old growth forests, etc. which means we’d slow down the level that we’re currently eliminating them.
With ½ the population, there’d both be less need for transportation & less need for products, which means greenhouse gases would be cut, which would, at least, stave off global warming for some time.
We have wiped out ½ the population before (the Plague) & could do such again (Ebola?); it would obviously be heartbreaking to the survivors but given it would take a disproportionate percentage of the elderly, young, & otherwise infirm we, as a species would be stronger for it in the end.
Thats true. After the black plague, Europe got healthier in part because the weak and the sick died off. Natural selection in all its horrifying starkness.
I don’t think killing off the young would be good. The elderly or infirm I could see, but killing the young wouldn’t really help society out.
Except that it killed 80% of the population in some areas and both the young and the old are usually the first to go in any epidemic.
It depends on the epidemic. Diseases that cause the immune system to overreact end up killing healthy adults disproportionately like the spanish flu did.
But even so (and again I’m not saying I support this) the fact that diseases do kill children mean the survivors are by nature healthier. Generation after generation means those of us who are left are fairly healthy considering everything. Assuming you have good public health, many people can go most of their lives with very little medical care until they reach their senior years because the sickly have been culled in history before they could procreate. Those of us who are left are fairly healthy most of our lives.
I read a interesting article that some of the Spanish flu deaths among the healthy may have been due to big overdoses of aspirin.
I Am Not An Epidemiologist, but I don’t think that’s actually true. Just because a person is more resistant to one specific disease doesn’t mean that they are more likely to be resistant to any other diseases, much less that they are healthier overall.
The gene mutation that causes Sickle Cell Anemia, for example, has been plausibly linked to malaria resistance. A single gene mutation can create resistance to a specific disease without causing a general increase in disease resistance, and may have significant detrimental effects. A super-maleria pandemic might leave a population of survivors with a high percentage of mutated hemoglobin-Beta gene carriers, which would be a population more resistant to malaria, but not one that’s healthier overall.
Not to mention, humans are social, organized, technology-using animals. Even if a population of survivors were more disease resistant and healthier, they’d also have lost a lot of potential innovators. What if one of the “weak and sickly” that died from whatever super-plague would have been the next Norman Borlaug and ushered in a new Green Revolution?
Since OP has decided my elaboration of wevets’s suggestion doesn’t count as a “finger snap idea”, for whatever reason, how about this. I finger-snap into existence an increase in the population of sapients throughout the universe, by, say 10%. I do this through an increased fertility rate, so the increase is gradual, and the “extra” people are naturally integrated into their societies. However, all of these “extra” people are geniuses with natural inclinations for hard work, sociability, problem-solving, math, engineering, and science. Sure, it’ll take a few decades, but I’d bet my pro-social geniuses would do a lot more to resolve the “Malthusian Dilemma” through economic, political, social, scientific, and technological innovation than Thanos’ finger snap would.
I’m also not an epidemiologist, but I would ass-u-me that being able to survive a general injury or illness meant you probably had at least some broad spectrum resiliency abilities. Based on the assumption that your immune system in general was healthier in many cases (the same way that deficiencies in things like vitamin A make you more susceptible to a wide range of infections, not just one).
Granted thats not always the case. The Delta 32 mutation seen among white people of european descent helps protect them from HIV, but it evolved because it also helped people survive black plague and smallpox. So even in that situation a single mutation, it seemed to confer benefits for at least 3 diseases. But for diseases that do not affect that particular biological attribute, it offers no benefits. The same way sickle cell doesn’t offer broad benefits.
But I guess my point is that if your immune system, as a whole can withstand an infection, then it can probably withstand other infections a little better too
Not to Godwinize the thread - and really, not - but wasn’t part of the Holocaust about eliminating those with mental disorders, handicaps, etc.? (although they were still a fraction of the total Holocaust victims, compared to the Jews and Slavs and Roma, etc.)
Based off of thread responses here and elsewhere, I suspect that if people decided that the world’s population had to be halved, many would vote for something Holocaust-like - some extermination program based off of targeting people with low IQ, or ugly looks, or mental/physical handicaps, and the elderly, those with Down’s Syndrome, etc.
I’d make it so people are biologically unable to reproduce until age 25-30. More time to get an education, have fun, etc., then settle down and be in a better spot financially and emotionally to have children, and less time in which to do it.
Of course, on a bad day, I’d say mass sterilization of dumbasses and those specific ultra-religious “man was made to dominate woman, woman was made to bear her husband many children” folks. But this is a good day.
Hmm, that* is* a easy "finger snap’ solution, and could work.
Yeah, we would if we had to vote for it. And as I mentioned above, I’d be in the bottom half.
Life is hard, and pretending that a sociopath in prison has the same value to society as Maurice Hilleman is fantasy. His life may have value, but one is far more productive and pro-social than the other. If we were forced to cut life in half, it would be nice if the most productive, pro-social, intelligent and healthy half survived. The world would still see massive contributions to medicine, economics, sustainability, science, etc. if that happened. If we start colonizing other planets, the first people to go will be in the top percentiles of intelligence, health and pro-social dispositions. They have to be because life is hard and you need those traits to survive and thrive.
Negative eugenics is just natural selection and on this board and other places I’ve been labeled a depressed crybaby for decrying how evil natural selection is, and I’ve been labeled a monster for supporting it too. Granted determining who would be in the top half is difficult and somewhat arbitrary.
As far as Downs syndrome, the condition has almost disappeared in Iceland due to prenatal screening, and it is declining in other places.
You don’t need to do anything. It’s a ‘problem’ that is already self correcting. But if we wanted to speed things along that are already happening, I’d probably make space travel easy or give access to the solar systems resources (and while I’m at it, fix global climate change AND give the planet fusion technology, better batteries and, of course, flying cars…the later just because it would shut up all the folks who are constantly whining about ‘where are the flying cars we were promised!!!’ :p). Seriously, fusion alone would probably fix most of the issues, but access to the solar systems resources would essentially render the rest moot. Prosperity is basically the solution to Thanos non-problem, and we are already fixing it. My WAG is the rest of the universe is as well, as, for all intents and purposes, any space faring race or even highly technological race isn’t going to have long term resource issues in the real universe. Sadly, Thanos didn’t actually ever look around when he was flying around the universe, going from star system to star system killing off half of the population because reasons.
This is a problem that faces any ecosystem, human or otherwise. Of course the Avengers are more concerned about earthlings, but as pointed out above, the Snappening didn’t do anything that wouldn’t just be undone in a few generations anyways. Populations increase exponentially but rarely collapse the same way, so Thanos provided no long-term solution.
Remember that in this universe (and maybe our own), intelligent life abounds in the cosmos and several civilizations we’ve seen so far have exceeded their carrying capacity and/or have a way of life that’s on the way there. Geology and biology can rarely keep up with technology.
This isn’t just a point-in-time population control problem. It’s a problem of evolutionary biology, post-industrial resource management, and post-abundance governance. The same genetics that predispose a lifeform to make use of all available resources to sustain its offspring and in-groups do not necessarily qualify it to govern a civilization of 7 million members of that lifeform, much less design a management plan that ensures their continued thriving.
Keep in mind that as of the Avengers, earthlings are already on the brink of readily available faster-than-light interstellar travel, with a psychology largely unchanged from primates of 200,000 years ago. They ain’t ready for that shit. Give them fifty more years, Avenger babies will be overrunning other star systems themselves. It’s a vicious cycle that we haven’t really successfully dealt with because so far as we know, this is the first time ancient evolution has survived to planetary-scale technology and ambition. So far the Avengers’ only solutions to problems are violence and _______ (you’ll have to find out yourself, no spoilers), but mostly violence.
So the task of designing resilient sustainable populations could maybe potentially fall on one of other Marvel universe beings (Vision? The Ancient One? Dr. Doom? Dr. Strange? The cat?), some being of super-intelligence, ultra-wisdom, capable of seeing across many timelines and such. Maybe better AI? Maybe a race of hyperintelligent galactic fungi? Not some gym rat man-child like Thanos…
Populations don’t increase exponentially, and they do (in fact, are right now) decline. And we AREN’T a species utilizing space outside of the planet. It’s ridiculous to think that any space based species, able to utilize just the vast resources in their own solar system, wouldn’t have sufficient resources and have to look beyond. Our solar system alone could support trillions…that’s with a ‘t’…of humans. Easily. And that’s without magic future tech. That’s just if we could actually access and use the resources in our own solar system. Toss in fusion, say, and that trillions figure could easily be hundreds of trillions or quadrillions. All without ever having to leave the solar system, and all with a higher standard of living and more space and stuff than the highest current standards of living.
It’s the basic flaw of the movie that Thanos would even think of such a stupid thing or need to, or that space faring civilizations would ever need to resort to such idiotic measures or be starving or whatever. As to earthlings spreading out the way you describe, that’s so silly that I practically choked when I read it. The trend with humans NOW, even with the less than ideal standards of living in much of the world is a downward trend in the population. Even if this wasn’t the case, why would any humans NEED to leave the solar system, even if they have magic FTL travel? Just being able to access the vast treasure trove right in the solar system would be sufficient for, well, ever…certainly for the few generations you are talking about. Explore or learn new stuff? Sure. Spread out into the galaxy like a virus or whatever? Good grief, that’s silly. 
What the heck are you talking about? 
I read Theranos and was very confused for a second.
In the comics, Thanos wasn’t killing half the universe like he was John Hinckley and Death was Jodie Foster. Death specifically resurrected Thanos because he was best able to complete her plan, which was… kill half of all life in the universe to restore “balance” before everyone goes extinct due to overpopulation.
works for me, i watched my mother go from a vibrant highly intelligent woman to a turnip sitting in a care facility. I have made my husband understand that if I ever get a dx of alzheimers, or an injury that removes my mind I do not wish to live.
excellent. also remove barriers to women controlling their choice of birth control - I have never wanted kids, mine, adopted or step, and I have no idea how many people over the years have been shocked at my total disinclination to having kids of any sort.
combine with answer to trucelt
one type of SF scenario is the mandatory birth control with the requirement of passing a course in parenting and the requirement of using a license of some sort [in one universe every person has 1 reproduction available, if they want more than one kid they have to find someone willing to share the license - in that universe you have the ability to create a clone of yourself if you don’t have a co-parent of some sort] I have always thought that there should be some requirement for everybody to pass a basic life skills course that involves sex ed, personal finance, cooking, cleaning and basic first aid …
yes they did have that policy, the death certificates tended towards lots of deaht by pneumonia, or children not thriving if i remember correctly.
If i were making the choice, those who are in a persistant vegetative state, have alzheimers/dementia/no effective mental ability to learn simple tasks and perform rote jobs [this is assuming it is an SNAP this instant thing, not necessarily an ongoing thing] and you could volunteer yourself if you felt it would benefit society.
Unfortunately while it is tempting to do the religious thing, no. the next bunch in power may be the ones you just tried to kill off … but I do like the enforced birth control until a certain age.
Oddly, I would like a change in marriage contract, removing all religious basis and rendering it to the legal aspects, which makes it suitable for any gender combination, also limited in term, with contract clauses covering children, and also if you want a plural marriage, with the consent of all that want to be in it [so hubby/wife cant just bring home another spouse without the current spouse/s consent] I think a 1 year ‘trial marriage’ length to see if the two people work out, no reproduction, a 5 year recurring where you have to opt out, and perhaps a nonsexual reproduction one where 2 people contract to have one or two kids but not a sexual/love relationship that lasts til 18 and the kid is finished cooking …