Eating chocolate is bad for dogs.

Breeding under the replacement rate does not imply population shrinkage. It's a better strategy for a rich nation state to have lower birth rates and poach the best and brightest from other countries. That increases the wealth of native-born citizens as well as improving the lives of those who immigrate whereas overbreeding disperses accumulated inherited wealth.

And brain draining the countries of the emigrants? Maybe we should be working to fix those places up and not hoover up all the talent.

But I thought we need immigrants to do the low paid jobs we don't want to do, not the hard well paid ones? /s

it can indeed be both (no sarcasm intended - the menial jobs nobody else wants and the high-skill ones not enough people are capable of doing).

Right because we should all emulate over populated India and China.

Keeping the population down allows for a better standard of living for those who are alive already, and allows for sustainable growth.

A population explosion is just not possible to deal with. Imagine more people trying to get into the top schools, thereby killing your chances.

Hong Kong's density is an excellent example of how it could look. For America though, there's enough room but for certain metropoles throughout the world as well as The Netherlands... no, they're pretty much full.

The Netherlands doesn't feel very full compared to many huge metropoles though. I mean I'd prefer the population size to stay the way it is, but I don't think it's close to some theoretical limit at all.

Not compared to Hong Kong, of course. There's still some rural areas, farms, etc. The cities are full though, unless you are OK going vertically or buying (read: stealing) land from the peasants.

For reference see population density statistics here [1]

Either way, the housing market is troubled in The Netherlands. It has been the past decennia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density

It might be the human race’s best longterm chance to survive the damage we’ve done to the environment.

In our automation age, it is if you are labor seller and not capital owner.

Why?