Thanos Didn’t Do the Math

Thanos Infinity Gauntlet.jpg

I keep tripping across this flawed thinking in the Marvel Universe. And with the new movie coming out recently, maybe it’s time to remind us of the flaws. I’m not rushing out to the movie. I’ll see it when it comes to Netflix. But, as far as I can tell, Thanos is an idiot with no math or astronomy skills. Here are some of the reasons I say this:

If you HALVE the population of any critter in a constrained environment – and apparently Thanos’ “snap” halved the population of all critters in the universe, according to this account – then it doesn’t really take that long for the population to recover. Most populations follow a Leaning “S” curve, this is because growth slows as resources are depleted. So, if the population is suddenly reduced by half, it will make a sudden jump in growth rate to compensate and if the resources available are the same, it will recover to the same level. So snapping only has a short term effect. And I’m not even talking about the Avengers returning from the Phantom Zone or wherever they went. But then what?

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