Blame the Gerbils(lrb.co.uk) |
Blame the Gerbils(lrb.co.uk) |
This period also coincided with the renaissance and the European wars of religion. Europe was a busy place.
Gamora : I was a child when you took me.
Thanos : I saved you.
Gamora : No. We were happy on my home planet.
Thanos : You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm 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.
Gamora : Because you murdered half the planet.
Thanos : A small price to pay for salvation.Just because it goes against someone's taste doesn't mean it isn't true. Historical analysis obviously shouldn't depend on whether it jibes with the sentiments of people who write Marvel characters.
We do have a real world example of this effect that's much more recent than the plague, China's one child policy. And one outcome is exactly what's observed in the article, higher household saving and educational spending per child and as a consequence accelerated capital accumulation in one generation. By creating a smaller cohort and funneling all resources into that cohort they leapfrogged over the high population growth low per capita investment Malthusian trap that the article talks about.
If he has to get rid of 50% of the people, shouldn't he at least put them into some sort of computer system, so the remaining people could at least talk to them after?
Then put a guardian system in orbit around every planet to protect the uploads and prevent any recurrences of problems.
So are you interpreting that the book is framing European expansion post-plague as Europe "saving" territories that didn't experience the advantages that they did?
If so, good catch and a cautionary tale.