What's so wrong with a little thinning of the human herd? Quora
Thinning the Herd Bill Benda at IMCJ (2020)
...We find ourselves here because we humans, not Corona or Clostridia or Cholera, are the actual pathogens on this planet. We propagate uncontrollably and exponentially, injecting our industrial genetic code into our host to force creation of more of our kind, stripping away vital organs and connective matrix, and leaving nothing behind but our toxic waste. I’m sorry to say it, but we have met the virus, and it is us.You see, we weren't in Mother Nature's plan, at least not like this. She spent billions of years perfecting her balance of life and death, often cruel, but infallible in her symbiosis of predator and prey, growth and decay. She even tolerated us for a few million years, as long as we followed her rules. But a few millennia ago we ate from the tree of technological knowledge, and began to force our own flawed intentions and desires into her master plan. She let us play god for a while, as long as she could continue to process our waste and regenerate her atmosphere. But the past hundred years or so became the tipping point, and she now finds it to be time, in stock market terms, for a "correction." Nothing necessarily new — it's happened before, usually in the form of a plague of some kind, but as there are more of us she is going to be a bit more aggressive.
Anyway, that is my theory. Humanity is simply another herd to be thinned from time to time, and this is one such time.
...we are a part of Nature; she is not a part of us. We have become spoiled, recalcitrant children, used to getting our way through bullying the planet and its creatures. But bullies stop when someone larger stands up to them. Enter Corona.
Here is how I imagine a conversation between humans and Mother Nature went about six months ago:
Humans: "Yeah, well whatever. We're in charge now. What are you going to do about it?"Mother Nature: "Here, hold my beer..."
Thinning the Herd: COVID-19 and the Rhetoric of Trumpian Catastrophe Luke Winslow at Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2023)
As COVID-19 infections spread in early 2020, the term herd immunity drew the Trump administration's attention as a remedy for redressing the pandemic. However, scientific experts warned the Trump administration against adopting herd immunity as a pandemic response. The Trump administration was unmoved. I argue that understanding the Trump administration's incongruous pandemic response is impossible without theorizing the deeper catastrophic formations uniting herd immunity and the political Right. Drawing evidence from the Trump administration and its allies, I analyze herd immunity as a reflection of a catastrophic form of social Darwinism emerging from the Trump administration's coronavirus messaging. By exploring the Trump administration's general enthusiasm for catastrophe, I offer a fresh scholarly contribution at the intersection of rhetorical studies, public address, and health, political, and scientific communication, ultimately illuminating larger theoretical and political lessons for the discipline and beyond.
Thinning the herd: The real solution to population control J Williamez at The Uniter
Thinning the Herd Tim Bryce at Huffington Post
...My friend referred to such accidents as "thinning the herd" whereby it seems certain people are preordained to face catastrophe. Keep in mind, my friend has over twenty years experience witnessing such accidents and has probably seen it all. Obviously the expression was an analogy to animal management whereby weaker animals are cut from a herd, either by accident or deliberately, so the stronger ones can survive and the herd can prosper.
Thinning the Herd: Tales Of The Weirdly Departed Cynthia Ceilan (2007)
Dark humor about those who have removed themselves from the gene poolAn original and irreverent compendium of accidental deaths caused by astonishing stupidity, embarrassing irony and/or really bad luck, in the tradition of The Darwin Awards