Blame the Gerbils
lrb.co.uk
Blame the Gerbils
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#2Re: Blame the Gerbils
#3After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain.
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.Re: Blame the Gerbils
#4After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
Unrelated, but surely thanos would need to murder half the universe every few years to keep the charade running
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#5After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
Thanos had a horrible policy. In many cases it wouldn't help (either it would cause societal collapse or things would go back to being a problem), and even when it does it would usually not be worth it.
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.
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#6There was talk of gerbils !!!
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#7After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
I don't exactly know how you drew your conclusion from the text, but the justification that you've identified with the aid of that movie dialogue makes sense to me. Although I don't read the justification itself from the book review, the example you're giving seems to indicate to the inherent bias that I would expect from a book that covers European expansion.
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.
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#8After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
Unrelated, but surely thanos would need to murder half the universe every few years to keep the charade running
Yeah, he divided a geometric curve by 2
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#9After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
> It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain.
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.
Re: Blame the Gerbils
#10After reading this, "Celebrating the Gerbils" may be a more apt title. He is "blaming" them for the rise of Europe via the after effects of the transmission of a terrible disease. It is a sort of justification for the policy positions of a recent Marvel villain. 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, scroungin…
[deleted]