Extinction: Why is Thanos' dogma puerile?

We have set foot on, reclaimed, and "bettered" 75% the land and 66% the oceans on the planet. Agricultural practices and livestock alone have taken over 33% of the land area and 75% freshwater. Thus, it provoked little wonder when a 2019 Nature's article evidenced that humans had pushed over 1 million flora and fauna species to the verge of extinction [7].

Paradoxically, humans, albeit accounting for merely 0.01% of the Earth's total biomass, are reigning the Earth. 94% of mammal biomass is human, and livestock (60% are domestic animals). And only the remaining 6% are wildlife [8].

The planet is, to all appearances, overflooded with cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, born and raised to be served on a plate. We are little by little ousting Mother Nature from her position, taking the wheel to decide which species to die away and thrive.

"Humans are ruling on how resources should be distributed, which has spearheaded sufferings and injustice. Humans are viruses to their planet" - the dogma over and over prompted on movies.

That said, as far as I'm concerned, this is somewhat nonsensical.

3. Why is Thanos' dogma puerile?

Scientifically speaking, wiping out half the living creatures to secure the universe's resources is puerile, dull, and nonsensical.

On the one hand, resources aren't limited as if people had to "eat one's cake and have it too". Instead, it's we humans who have step by step turned them auspiciously unlimited. Forasmuch as we've, in small doses, improved the energy conversion technology, utilizing such infinite sources as sunlight, wind, and atoms. Given that they're now, for the most part, inefficient, things would sooner or later get radically different.

In a metapopulation, the existence of organisms is, withal, crucially dependent on the environment. Things have never gone in the opposite direction, which means a forest having 1,000 trees instead of 2000 or 500, banks on its capability of satisfying 1000 individual nutrient demands (let alone other factors). Insomuch as 7 billion people inhabiting the planet since it can afford to feed them all. Indeed, humans could hardly have tricked Mother Nature into rearing them.

On the other hand, this "wipe-out" thing seems somewhat nonsensical to humans and their livestock. It would rarely cost large population species to recover to the status quo. To illustrate, the human population bloom for the last 100 years has facilitated us to double the population size from 3.5 to 7 billion [9]. Given the all-too-available facilities and scientific achievements, it would, in all appearances, take much less a period to achieve the status quo.

It's not to mention that it would distort the original rigid dogma, catalyzing an even more straightforward world.

The argument mentioned above has it that having the population size of such metapopulations as humans, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, mice, cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies halved would be pretty much absurd, for they would thrive and bloom shortly afterward.

In contrast, this dogma, to species of few individuals, already on the brink of extinction, would be nothing but a death knell. They would have less chance of finding mates, get their competitiveness lowered, and go extinct shortly afterward.

Thanos' story was not the first "scrupulous" blockbuster. Passing every buck to the human civilization (as if the scriptwriter had never been a part of it), once thrived and shortly withered.

In the context of the pandemic, many have again dug up the so-called theory of "humans - the planet's virus", "Mother Nature's virus purification," or "humans get dogged, but other species recover".

The problem is, if you have already devalued human life, your thinking of the Earth and other species are puerile instead of something benevolent. You are, in all likelihood, merely supporting what you cherish, and the viewpoint you hold only indirectly expresses your hatred towards this civilization. Which means you're either without solid philosophical foundations or holding extremism ideologies.

Our previous post has it that [10], only by accepting humans as the ultimate could we gain the privileges of being born humans. Wesley J. Smith, an author-lawyer, once proposed that since humans enjoy their opportunities, they rule what should or should not be done to nature.

In other words, were humans not one of a kind, who, other than humans, would enjoy the rights to coerce them to "humanely" treat other species?