> Humans are not bears. A large number of people have essentially unlimited access to food, and yet done reproduce en masse. I expect, though I haven't looked, that birth rates would actually inversely correlated with wealth.
You should look, then. Wealth is positively correlated with fertility.
What's inversely correlated with fertility is education, but fertility declines with rising education only because parents realize it is advantageous to spend more resources per child.
> Evidence suggests that in developed economies, people do precisely the opposite.
That's because you're arguing from a false premise. Perceptively, then, maybe things are not as good as you would think (especially not as good as people in the SV developer bubble think), otherwise people would multiply at a much higher rate. I implore you to do some actual math to see how much one needs to earn to be able to have kids above the replacement rate (so, around 2.2), without receiving any government assistance (thus entering a poverty trap) and where that earning rate resides relative to the median household income in the US right now.
The results may surprise you.
> A preposterous non sequitur, given that it's quite possible to imagine ways to eliminate poverty without reverting to totalitarianism.
One great way to eliminate poverty is to keep redefining the poverty line until there are no longer people in poverty! And it's completely totalitarianism-free.
You should look, then. Wealth is positively correlated with fertility.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1692/2015...
What's inversely correlated with fertility is education, but fertility declines with rising education only because parents realize it is advantageous to spend more resources per child.
> Evidence suggests that in developed economies, people do precisely the opposite.
That's because you're arguing from a false premise. Perceptively, then, maybe things are not as good as you would think (especially not as good as people in the SV developer bubble think), otherwise people would multiply at a much higher rate. I implore you to do some actual math to see how much one needs to earn to be able to have kids above the replacement rate (so, around 2.2), without receiving any government assistance (thus entering a poverty trap) and where that earning rate resides relative to the median household income in the US right now.
The results may surprise you.
> A preposterous non sequitur, given that it's quite possible to imagine ways to eliminate poverty without reverting to totalitarianism.
One great way to eliminate poverty is to keep redefining the poverty line until there are no longer people in poverty! And it's completely totalitarianism-free.