They just sit and talk: Senator Armstrong and MCU Thanos

[Guy1]

i wouldn't call either dumb. just very committed to their ideas, no matter how insane they may be.

also, i can kind of understand armstrong's P.O.V.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

i wouldn't call either dumb. just very committed to their ideas, no matter how insane they may be.

also, i can kind of understand armstrong's P.O.V.

Oh, Armstrong is intelligent. MCU Thanos is far from.

[master of read]

given the world he lives in, i can understand of the things he said and thought. think about it. the world of MG has been controlled by shadowy cabals for nearly a century: the philosophers and the Patriots. for so long, armies have fought in wars dictated by these groups, manipulating the masses into what they believe is right and wrong. and because of this control, the world fell into prepetrual war, via the war economy. now, 4 years after MGS 4, the world is free of such control but still has some vestigates of the old order. the war economy is on the downslide but it's still around in pockets and america still rely on it to a degree.

hence where Armstrong's logic comes in. he loves america but hates what it currently is, all because of the patriots and what they created. so his solution? burn it all down and rebuild the country free of any influence from the patriots, creating a stronger america where everyone can fight and kill and die for what they believe in and not what someone tells them to.

keep in mind, i'm not excusing armstrong's actions. dude is a monster. but i can understand his logic and reasoning for why he does what he does.

[The Chou Lives]

His motivation is good just his actual plan to carry it out.

Yeah MG World is messed up. But just making even more war and death is not a solution. Adds to problems. If Armstrong did succeed and America his way, Power players akin to snakes in the grass could/would topple that country and even worse things.

Truly. Bad guys do not understand repercussions at all.

[master of read]

His motivation is good just his actual plan to carry it out.

Yeah MG World is messed up. But just making even more war and death is not a solution. Adds to problems. If Armstrong did succeed and America his way, Power players akin to snakes in the grass could/would topple that country and even worse things.

Truly. Bad guys do not understand repercussions at all.

in his eyes, as long as people are fighting for what they believe, it's all good. plus, i don't think those kind of people would get very far in armstrong's america. he........really didn't like those types of people. hell, he barely tolerated sundowner and didn't mind when jack iced him. above all else, armstrong respected strength and hence why he had a lot of respect for jack, despite trying to beat him to death.

[Guy1]

in his eyes, as long as people are fighting for what they believe, it's all good. plus, i don't think those kind of people would get very far in armstrong's america. he........really didn't like those types of people. hell, he barely tolerated sundowner and didn't mind when jack iced him. above all else, armstrong respected strength and hence why he had a lot of respect for jack, despite trying to beat him to death.

Heck, remember how he recruited Sam?

"Well I sliced off your arm but you cut my hand off so it's all good. Want a job?"

[MorphyVSFischer]

My impression is that he is a guy who suggested killing off half the population of Titan (presumably not the plants or the livestock animals) as a last resort during whatever crisis it was that caused their civilization to just collapse entirely within his original lifespan, and when they didn't listen to him and got wiped out, it broke him and he ended up fixated on the idea that it could have been averted if they just followed his plan, ending up with him passing a Messiah complex and trying to fit his solution to their special problem to all problems.

That same Messiah complex led to him focusing on making the culling as fair, impartial, and impersonal as possible, rather than as effective or logical as possible, which is why he was focused on erasing half of every living thing (even those that would count as vital resources, meaning that the overall situation was just as bad as before, from a purely numerological perspective, and much worse from every other perspective), without evaluating whether the people being called were those hording/wasting/abusing resources or those who were conserving/renewing/expanding then, to try and absolve himself from any sort of actual personal responsibility for his action.

"Sorry Ma'am, I'm not the one who decided that your son the conservationist was executed by my adopted children while your neighbor who only derives sexual satisfaction from starting forest fires was spared, I'm just the prophet through which Fate acts."

What these type of arguments ignore is that Thanos has the infinity gauntlet so such concerns and reasoning are beyond him considering he has the infinity gauntlet. To me, wanting to wipe out half the universe because its going to run out is a way better motivation then wanting to bang death because that is just stupidly comic booky. Yes Thanos has insane reasoning and logic but that's why he's called the mad titan, not the eminently reasonable titan

[master of read]

Heck, remember how he recruited Sam?

"Well I sliced off your arm but you cut my hand off so it's all good. Want a job?"

and he didn't too much care for sam either. respected but found him annoying.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

What these type of arguments ignore is that Thanos has the infinity gauntlet so such concerns and reasoning are beyond him considering he has the infinity gauntlet. To me, wanting to wipe out half the universe because its going to run out is a way better motivation then wanting to bang death because that is just stupidly comic booky. Yes Thanos has insane reasoning and logic but that's why he's called the mad titan, not the eminently reasonable titan

One of his clones took that moniker, surely.

[wjowski]

What these type of arguments ignore is that Thanos has the infinity gauntlet so such concerns and reasoning are beyond him considering he has the infinity gauntlet. To me, wanting to wipe out half the universe because its going to run out is a way better motivation then wanting to bang death because that is just stupidly comic booky. Yes Thanos has insane reasoning and logic but that's why he's called the mad titan, not the eminently reasonable titan

Except the MCU works because it embraces the stupidly comic booky, whereas DC fails because (among many other reasons) it keeps fleeing from the moniker.

[BitVyper]

To me, wanting to wipe out half the universe because its going to run out is a way better motivation then wanting to bang death because that is just stupidly comic booky.

His plan IS stupid and comic booky. Like it's a completely over-the-top expression of the book jacket on something by Thomas Malthus, trying to change The Universe in response to personal emotional trauma. That's way comic booky.

As for Armstrong, I think everyone is being way too generous to the guy, to be honest. His belief is born of being insulated from the consequences of his actions by his own power. Of course he thinks power should rule everything; he's the guy with nanomachines. You can debate whether he specifically falls under the definition of "idiot" or not, but he's definitely not thinking beyond himself in the least. You might say that's logically consistent with his philosophy, but then trying to shape the world from that direction is ridiculous.

[master of read]

i'm not trying to argue about the effectiveness of his plan, since MGR is the last in the timeline. i'm just talking about his motives and how the influence that the shadow groups of the past created such beliefs.

[The Drunkard Kid]

What these type of arguments ignore is that Thanos has the infinity gauntlet so such concerns and reasoning are beyond him considering he has the infinity gauntlet. To me, wanting to wipe out half the universe because its going to run out is a way better motivation then wanting to bang death because that is just stupidly comic booky. Yes Thanos has insane reasoning and logic but that's why he's called the mad titan, not the eminently reasonable titan

My commentary was more about what led to him having his beliefs and his actions in the decades/centuries before he gained the Infinity Gauntlet, though it also counts the fact that he used functional omnipotence to deal with overpopulation and resource scarcity by *randomly* killing off half the universe without any regard for how the individuals that lived and the individuals that died were using said resources, the fact that a majority of the living things killed off would constitute resources themselves (don't worry, surviving members of a Neolithic society who have lost most/all of your skilled laborers or able-bodied youths to the vagaries of Fate, there's still plenty of plants and animals to rebuild with; for example, the nearest surviving tree that the primary pollinator for your crops nests in is a mere 250 miles away, in a direction that you have no way of knowing with your current level of technology and infrastructure). Not to mention all the unintended deaths that would throw off the 50% metric, just from a few bus drivers/train conductors/pilots suddenly not feeling good.

Thanos' philosophy being based on religious fervor rather than an actual socio-economic plan also explains why he didn't just user the Infinity Gauntlet to create new resources, renew used resources, mentally force everyone to strictly regulate their population and resource user, etc... It would also go a ways towards explaining why he let known backstabber Loki have the Mind Stone to get the Space Stone, or outsourced getting the Power Stone to a genocidal racist like Ronan (who plans to use it to wipe out 100% of a population); he had used faith that only he was worthy of obtaining omnipotence because his plan was righteous.

I do miss his comic book bombast, though.

[MorphyVSFischer]

His plan IS stupid and comic booky. Like it's a completely over-the-top expression of the book jacket on something by Thomas Malthus, trying to change The Universe in response to personal emotional trauma. That's way comic booky.

As for Armstrong, I think everyone is being way too generous to the guy, to be honest. His belief is born of being insulated from the consequences of his actions by his own power. Of course he thinks power should rule everything; he's the guy with nanomachines. You can debate whether he specifically falls under the definition of "idiot" or not, but he's definitely not thinking beyond himself in the least. You might say that's logically consistent with his philosophy, but then trying to shape the world from that direction is ridiculous.

There are actaul people in the world that believe in the sort of thing Thanos did. No one is in love with death and does things just to impress a anthropomorphic representation of it. That sort of thing only happens in a comic book.

[The Drunkard Kid]

There are actaul people in the world that believe in the sort of thing Thanos did. No one is in love with death and does things just to impress a anthropomorphic representation of it. That sort of thing only happens in a comic book.

Discounting the fact that there is almost certainly a subset of people who are in love with the concept of eath in the real world, and the fact that falling in love with Death had happened in myths, poems, novels, movies, games, etc... The people who believe MCU Thanos' philosophy aren't existing in a universe with cosmic artifacts and cosmic beings that enslave/take over entire universes, or somehow managed to convince an entire planet-overthrowing army into fanatic loyalty with their weed-fueled ramblings on inane resource and population management philosophies.