Linus Cheung Many might be thinking right now what the environment has to do with a fictional theory in the recent Marvel Film Avengers: Infinity War. Well in there the main villain Thanos tried to wipe out half of the universe’s population with the argument of the population of the universe is ever-increasing and the limited resources to support that population were getting exhausted. Back to reality, overpopulation in our world isn’t so far off from that of the fictional universe. Since the 1400s after the black death, our world has been in a constant increase in population, and for the past 50 so years, advance technology has boomed growth population to over population. This is all due to the growing advance of technology and medical equipment making humans stronger and healthier resulting in longer life span. Picture by Marvel Studios, 2018 What is overpopulation and what leads to it?Overpopulation is a condition where the number of living human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth. Advance medical facilities, and modern world technology are the main factors of the reduction of mortality rate resulting in overpopulation. The problem hasn’t only been recently discovered, our ancestors have long been studying about it. The oldest records of demography, the study of populations can be found all the way back in ancient Greek, ancient Rome, Ancient China and Ancient India, where familiar names like Herodotus, Thucydides, Hippocrates, Epicurus, Protagoras, Polus, Plato and Aristotle all have writings related to the topic. (S.C.Srivastava, 2005) One notable demographer, Thomas Robert Malthus’s work, a book titled as An Essay on the Principle of Population written in 1798 influencing works of famous biologist such as Charles Darwin, has shown a grim estimation of the growing rate of population in the future, which is now. His theory suggests that if a population is supplied with an unlimited amount of resources, the population will grow rapidly, so as to grow twice the amount of the current population in every 25 years. This famous graph is known as the exponential graph. Exponential and Logistic Growth Graphs Since this world that we’re living in doesn’t give us unlimited resources, the Exponential Graph would only be a hypothesis of the population growth if there were limitless resources. On the other hand, a more realistic graph the Logistic Graph shows that at one point when the resources are all used up, population growth will start to flatten. This plateau line known as the carrying capacity defines the maximum amount of population in a world with limited resources. Source from Clio Infra Yet in reality, the current population is indeed closer to that of the exponential graph than we expected, and this is not all of it. The United Nation has predicted that by 2050 the total population of the world will reach 9.8 billion and by 2100 11.2 billion. The horrible fact of limited resources on this planet may tell you that this graph will soon turn in to the logistical graph as the carrying capacity of Earth is estimated to be around 11 to 12 billion people. (Geo Awesome, 2017) Problem Caused by OverpopulationSo, what does Thanos have to say to all this? Quoted from the movie, during a flashback of Gamora’s planet being invaded by Thanos while arguing with is adopted father Thanos, “Going to bed hungry. Scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I was the one who stopped that. You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise.” (Thanos, 2018) Picture by Marvel Studios, 2018 Not far from what Thanos has described, our world right now is indeed in chaos with many people around the world not able to afford their basic living and have to live a life as a scavenger just to survive. Not only is a fact in the current world, scientist from the past have also predicted this. In Charles Darwin’s description of “Struggle to live”, he stated that humans or any other individual species will eventually fight with their own species for the limited resources. As a matter of fact, the graphs above are no longer mere hypotheses, instead in reality both of these curves actually exist as one. Source from Clio Infra As shown in the graph above, it can be seen that the population growth is very similar to that of the exponential growth graph, but our attention has to transfer to the little bumps in between 1800s to the 1900s. Those bumps indicate the depletion of the population, and from the time that the bump has fallen into, it indicates the 2 biggest disasters of human history, The First and Second World War. What are the main reasons for war? Hints have been scattered all over this blog, Resources. As far as ancient times, war has been all about gaining resources for a group of people. From food to economy to land to human beings themselves, all of these can be categorized as resources. (P. Goodman, 2018) Mentioned above, the description of “struggle to live” by Charles Darwin, individual will fight between the same species for resources. This is the basic animal instinct we humans have, we are not so far off as other living creatures in this world where to survive, war is necessary. From the Vikings in Northern Europe to the Ancient Chinese civil wars and the current ongoing wars between the middle eastern countries and America, every one of the them are trying to fight for the limited resources we have left of this world. Because everyone knows that the resources are just not enough to supply the entire world. Is the Theory Nonsense?Picture by Marvel Studios, 2018 So, is Thanos really the bad guy the movie? Aside from the terrible things that he has done for power in the comics, this belief of his to wipe out half of the population is not so far off from what we are doing and what our ancestors have been doing. Technically, even if Thanos didn’t snap his fingers, the same result would have still happened, but not instantly. In many Sci-Fi movies, comics or manga, if any other entity exists along with humans, we will be described as stupid, weak creatures. The reason for that is there are many unnecessary things that we humans must do to survive while it may actually be a waste of time. This is considering that the main goal of existence for any living creature is to achieve a particular goal and humans in general get distracted too easily. Quoted from An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus stated the two fixed laws of our nature. First “Humans cannot exist without food” and second “the passion between man and women” Both of these seems unnecessary if the goal of existence is to blindly achieve a goal. Not only is it not necessary, it also results in the following problem of not able to save the universe as shown in the movie. Let me explain. If the world is to have an opportunity to be saved by killing half of the population by random choice such as the scenario suggested in the movie, and if everyone had no feelings, exactly opposite of what Malthus has said where humans are passionate creatures, Thanos snapping his finger would not be such a big problem as everyone is looking at the greater good. This may sound confusing and crazy at the same time and many might think I’m high on weed right now but isn’t the greater good more important? The heroes of the movie are actually selfishly fighting for the people they love and themselves to not get wiped out. It’s not like Thanos didn’t lose anything when he snaps his fingers. As quoted from the movie again Thanos: “Daughter.” Gamora: “Did you do it?” Thanos: “Yes.” Gamora: “What did it cost?” Thanos: “Everything.”. Thanos has admitted that he has lost everything in order to achieve the greater good, he wasn’t just killing half of the population for fun, but he did it for the greater good. In which that all the remaining creatures can live in a happy paradise. If it were to say, the remaining population are selfish as they are not willing to lose anything due to their passion between one another. Picture by Marvel Studios, 2018 SolutionsYet, these are all just mere fiction, hypotheses and simulations of a world with such conditions. What can we actually do to in order to deal with the everlasting growth of population in the world? Is there any way to solve the environmental issue before us? Picture by SCMP, 2017 For starters, the main countries with the most population in the current world is China and India, both having 1.3 billion people. (The World Bank, 2018) As both countries have traditions to have many children indicating wealth and prosperity, birth rates have constantly been high here. However, the Chinese government is aware of the problem and since November 2013, they have set up the “One Child Policy” This plan lasted for about 3 years until January 2016 when a new “Two-child policy” has come to play. According to studies conducted by the Chinese government, the birth rate between 2000 to 2013 has been a steady 16 million per year. Since the “One Child Policy” has taken effect till it’s termination, the birth rate has been 5 million per year. (SCMP, 2017) Another main solution is through education. As mentioned above by Malthus, Men and Women are passionate for each other. This means sex is inevitable. While sex doesn’t necessarily mean a new born child, many people don’t take birth control or and precautions while having their wild nights, ending the night with a math equation of 1+1=3. Family planning also falls into the same category of all these talk about the birds and the bees. In general, just take birth control pills or wear a condom when you’re having your intercourse section at night. Conclusion (Wait, it’s ending already?)From the movie Marvel Avengers: Infinity War to overpopulation to birth control, what can we conclude? To make it simple, I would say that what we are doing right now in this realistic world is not far from what Thanos is doing from the start. In fact, one of the main topics that the movie is trying to bring to the audience is overpopulation. Wow, didn’t see that one coming. (Implies Sarcasm). The movie is one way to advertise the problem to the audience to prevent the population from hitting the carrying capacity. Not only has the movie become one of the biggest box office records in the world, it has also succeeded in telling people about this problem. Just look at the online posts, blogs, videos, vlogs trying to debate whether Thanos is actually the good guy and the hero of the movie. Good Guy Thanos, 9gag, 2018 Many may think what Thanos did was a little bit overkill (literally), yet when you look at the facts, the truth maybe even scarier. The significant drop of birth rate is all thanks to the Chinese government doing their job, like Thanos. As we all know, not everyone will obey to rules and regulations. Rumours has spread among the Chinese nation saying that many people who had two or more children during the commence of the policy have either been caught and was forced to choose from one child and execute the other, or they had to hide their second or third child from the government, these children lived without a name nor any record in the world, literally ghosts of this world. Truth or fiction, doesn’t the part where the Chinese government has to force to kill one of the child sound much like what Thanos did? Thanos may be one side of the extreme but we are all walking on a grey area, most of the time we step foot into Thanos’ side of the balance. Wars and horrible government policies are the solid proof that we are not far away from what Thanos is doing. So finally, is the Thanos theory feasible? We know his ultimate goal was to reduce the universe’s carry capacity, in which he succeeded. So technically, that would be a yes. His theory works and does the universe a favour. But whether the way of approach was correct, I’ll leave it to you guys to decide. References
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