I will not attempt to make a judgement as to the effects of this, but just so you get an idea of the enormity of the change:

World population:

1960: ~3B

2025: ~8.3B

It was a VERY different world. That growth might not have gone anywhere but it’s not a very significant amount of wealth in today’s terms.

People are very worried about birth rates because for a while it will mean that there will be too few people of working age, which will be a disaster. But big picture, perhaps a correction is overdue, we cannot make people’s lives better if we keep adding people faster than we are growing the world economy.

You always need to put history in the context that the world was pretty empty. Less value was created but there was less competition for resources and it was easier for certain groups to stand out or dominate.

1900: ~1.6B

1750: ~750M

1500: ~450M

1000: ~350M

1: ~250M

Competition for what resources? Food we still have plenty of, green revolution and all, and almost everything else is limited by labor so it should scale fine with population.

Land is the main thing that's limited, but getting a smaller yard doesn't fix much.