It bothers me that Thanos's plan was so bad because either the writers were not clever enough when making the claim that Thanos is a genius or it was actually a decent example of Dunning-Kruger which would not be a good choice in my opinion because the movie didn't make that the focus or explain it enough to communicate it to a general audience. Now that I've mentioned why it bothers me, how am I so sure that the plan was bad?
Let's start with the near constant assertions by Thanos that his plan is fair. He frequently claims his plan is fair because he's not deciding who dies. But he completely skips past the part where he's deciding that people are going to die. It's like a person firing shots into a crowd claiming it's fair because he was shooting people at random. Don't shoot at people. The claim of fairness is absurd. Now either Thanos is stupid for not being able to make that simple connection; the writers have failed to make that connection; or the writers wrote something that they expected their audience to understand clearly without calling it out in the movie. The lack of calling it out means we have to question whether they intended it or not.
So, we know the plan isn't fair, but is it a bad plan? What's the goal of the plan again? Thanos states that there are too many people compared to the resources available. His plan is to murder half of living things so that there are ample resources for those who remain. But it's simple to understand that removing half of a population also removes half of its production ability. Half of farmers are gone. Half of cargo haulers are gone. Half of construction and maintenance crew are gone. Half of teachers are gone. Half of medical care providers are gone. Half of plumbers and electricians are gone. The ability to maintain existing infrastructure and to provide food, utilities, and health care for the people who remain is cut by half.
But that's not the worst of it. If it's truly random who goes, some areas of need would be hit harder than others, and we need all of them. So, even if a couple of them worked out, the others could fail completely. And think about a farm with a set number of workers to tend to the farm. Would the farm recover and just be able to produce half of its normal yield? Or would the loss of workers mean the organization fails and then everyone who depends on that farm loses a supply? Organizing the remaining work force to tend to the needs of the remaining people would be an insanely complicated task that would require people moving closer to resources and how many people could do that? How many people could survive with half their family and friends missing? Could they get food for themselves if grocery stores failed? This situation is bleak.
Speaking of family and friends, how many of the survivors would be happy? I would guess zero sane survivors would be happy at the loss of people dear to them. How many people would just crumble to depression? Are they thinking about maintaining societal infrastructure? Or are they despondent over the loss of loved ones? And if they manage to push forward, they're still not happy.
The plan Thanos enacts is unfair, unlikely to succeed, and unbelievably harmful psychologically. It's a bad plan that I'm unhappy with the writers for. We had what was a pretty good build up that lead to a disappointing time travel story that didn't even solve the problem of the harm that was done. Infinity War and End Game have writing that is emotionally engaging, but logically disappointing.
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