I keep arguing that overpopulation is a myth, and it's a 1-time quirk in human history that population ever exploded in the first place. For most of human history we barely hung on with a barely increasing population. The rate of population growth has been in decline since 1964. Every generation after the Boomers has produced fewer offspring, and it wasn't even the Boomers that created the peak (Silent Generation).
The industrial age and especially fossil fuels created an explosion in population. The technological progress that led to rapid population growth is also going to bring about population decline. Now that we're in a materialistic age, people don't want expensive liabilities, and we have the technology to control reproduction. Not only that, but people are depressed and lack meaning, and increasingly look to porn and other distractions. My hunch is tech like VR porn is going to really affect birth rates since real women cannot compete, and both sexes are going to find each other undesirable.
The US has a flat birth rate except our 1 million per year (legal) immigration causes a slight increase in population.
In the future, overpopulation isn't going to be a problem, but underpopulation. The only thing less sustainable than an increasing population rate is a decreasing one. We're going to have to figure out how to incentivize people to have children within my lifetime.
