Thanos was fucking stupid and no amount of "cold logic" bullshit will justify the fact that unlimited cosmic power could have just doubled the universe.
Or just the fact that achieving space farring tech in effect makes you a post scarcity civilization.
Thanos wasn't called Mad because his people deemed his ideas too radical, it was because even the premise of his plan was based on him being as dumb as a sack of rocks.
Neither addresses the problem, they just both push it into the future. Half the population/double the resources isn't even a reasonable amount to give much more time. It's better for drama though, because disappearing 99% or more of the universe would have really set back the Avengers, if any of them made the cut at all.
That's exactly my point, he could have made infinite resources, made energy infinite, made resources unnecessary, put the entirety of the universe in Minecraft creative mode, or just make everything into hyper realistic cake. Instead he picks the outcome that hurts the most people.
He picks the outcome that's the simplest to explain. But you could explain it as a sadistic goal, because look at what second Thanos wanted to do upon learning the universe didn't appreciate him the first time. Kill it all.
Really it can only be considered sadism, he absolutely had the power to unmake half of the population from the start of time, they never existed, no one died, no one mourned. Instead picked the option that would hurt the most people at random with absolutely no positive outcomes for anyone left.