idle thought #552

[madimpossibledreamer]

Incoming Thanos rant. Again. Because it sucks that we have to keep explaining that no, genocide is never a solution, thanks.

It’s not that the means is bad, but the end is noble. It’s that the end isn’t even achievable by those means. Thanos was presented as horrifying, but really the major repercussions shown weren’t really thought through. Oh yeah, online people, sure, this is going to be a utopia. Get ready for:
*Cancer is cured. Well, not really, but you sure as hell aren’t going to be living long enough to develop it. Unless you take over a factory, you’re not getting any medicine, and if you do that, it’s an open question if you’re getting food. Maybe you could do the basic stuff and trade, but a lot of prioritization has to go on there, and some people’s lives are going to be ultimately considered and discarded as worthless. (Which is just a continuation of existing societal ableism, but.) Have a deadly allergy? Better hope you never get exposed. Need heart medication? Sorry, you’re out of luck. A deadly worldwide epidemic? Sure, it’ll help that no one is taking plane flights because no one can afford to spend the time flying the planes or keeping the planes in working order over basic survival, but if it gets around your local community, thousands of scientists aren’t working on a cure because they can’t afford to do that, they have to try to survive, so hope you’re not one of the ones that get it or need medical care. Have a lot of really nice crops? Pray your neighbor doesn’t decide they deserve it more, or that you live in one of the areas where society and infrastructure haven’t completely collapsed.
*Any small pockets of society that remain having to decide whether to just remain entirely insular to protect themselves and their people from disease carried by traders or those wanting to join the society, and probably having to go military state to be able to keep out anyone who won’t take no for an answer.
*Alongside this, hope you’re a good hand with plants, because with infrastructure collapse, you’re not buying groceries from your local store. You might be able to trade with your local farmer, maybe, but you’re definitely not getting anything from too far away.
*Along these ableist stuff: Not everyone can actually farm, Thanos, you genocidal scum. You snap your fingers and think people are suddenly going to become happy to share their food, or are people just going to continue with the selfish ‘screw you, I have mine’ mentality? Because, historically, it tends to go one way and not the other. And sure, a few lucky people with disabilities are going to have family members who will take care of them. Even fewer of those groups are going to be able to support everybody.
*We’re actually doing pretty well in our food output, though obviously global climate change is messing with this. Our issue, right now, is distribution. Food isn’t getting where it needs to go. If anything, that’ll just get worse, because distribution and infrastructure are going to collapse—both need workers and things like transportation, and if you don’t have either, sorry, nothing’s getting moved. So yeah. Most people are going to have to farm or die.
*This point really bothers me, thinking about it. They had a support group. A support group ain’t gonna cut it after genocide. Pretty sure they didn’t show the statistics of how many people would commit suicide after, or just...be too depressed to farm and thus starve. It’s gonna be way more than half.
*Accelerated mass extinctions. Those endangered species with low populations barely hanging on? They’re not going for long past that.
*Last I checked, vegans and meat-eaters alike eat formerly living things. Halving our food supply is just going to make the problem worse.
*An acceleration to the “the world is awful, why the hell would I want to condemn a tiny offspring to live in it” mindset. So, dwindling populations. Not stable. Not fixed. (Though, on the other hand, we might go back to the “tons of children” days, which would also break your “final solution” [yes that phrase is chosen on purpose to evoke certain imagery because you know who would agree with genocide] pretty quickly. And women would not have a good time, because a lot can’t fight back and who’s even going to be making a token effort to preserve women’s rights and protect from partner abuse?)
*Like, your best-case scenario is small cities like the one in Fist of the North Star. And while that and Mad Max are interesting worlds, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there, at constant risk of some warlord deciding to come and kill you or have the army commit war crimes against you.
*None of these situations changing in your lifetime. Assuming disease or war doesn’t wipe out most of everyone.