Truth. Better yet is one in the right place- but in a pinch if you put 10-20 haphazardly in the “close enough zone” then your odds get better than either.

That was the point. It isn’t about quality with institutions like this- the two biggest factors in quality of education are access and effort. Ivy League schools primarily exist as social clubs. They way they prepare people for success is by having them meet the “right people” and giving them a chance to network with the children of powerful and wealthy or connected individuals. That’s what a “legacy” is. It’s a fancy way of saying entrenched wealth and privilege.

Lol. Yeah. I’m not “s*it shy myself either, but I know some people are. Or are quite... “modest.” Points on the power move.

So- it may just be that in the somewhat distant to not too distant future- the fertility rate will fall far lower and the world population won’t just level out- but it will decline. Because with increasingly advanced automation humanity may be able to come to a point in history where you don’t NEED slaves and servants to build pyramids and coon meals and peel grapes and clean and fix and protect you. Machines may be able to do it. If that were to happen- the rich really wouldn’t need masses of “unskilled” workers to complicate things- just robots and some “lowers middle class” people to Fox the robots when they can’t fix themselves, and for those things the robots couldn’t yet do. Then “someone higher up the class tree just has to design newer better robots as things go along, and the rest is, hopefully not, (future) history.

This is important because historically- they didn’t have a choice. They NEEDED people to exist. Large mobs of people well below their station existing to hold up the other people below them who all, in their mind, basically exist just so they can have the life they want and choose. Large groups of people who can cause them problems, who use resources and have wants and needs that at least need SOME attention sometimes. Large groups who vastly outnumber and out power- who are only kept in line through some idea of mutual need and other thin leashes that are easily snapped.

The private plane (or for the less wealthy, the first class seat that put more space and ability to ignore other people than regular coach.) private clubs and golf courses, private and exclusive restaurants, security and handlers and blah blah- all go help pretend you don’t exist.

Asides risks of theft or revolution or usurping etc- those below are generally unpleasant to those above, with the more layers between your social groups the more that is true. Keep in mind that a major portion of most wealthy peoples lives goes to essentially trying to pretend you don’t exist. Wether it’s a giant mansion they can do anything in without having to risk seeing or hearing you, in a private community or secluded gated location to keep you off the private drive way they don’t have to worry about you or others being on.

Pretty much every society in history has either required an optimum number of people to share responsibilities in a community- OR has required a much larger number of laborers, serfs, peasants, whatever- workers. These workers, from the POV of whoever was in power, existed simply because they need them to. A stratified society is a pyramid. It needs a lot of people at the base to hold up the slightly smaller class above and so forth up to the top where only a few can be.

And ultimately- it’s too long a topic to get into here as I’ve gone on enough, but I’ll try to be brief here too:

There’s also possibilities that certain people, especially those who don’t want to see change in their home demographics, would increase fertility rates in an attempt to avoid an influx of people non assimilated to their culture and way of thinking and living.

Keep in mind however that this flattening is most likely temporary. The demographics who are projected to continue having kids, their kids will likely do the same and so on. In fact- you have to remember that many of the reasons that people from more developed countries are choosing not to have kids are cultural. New immigrants from places where crowding is much more common, and/or values and family are more “traditional,” when introduced in large numbers to countries with much more space- may actually respond by INCREASING birth rates for those demographics as their living conditions and earnings improve- for many of those people, what those from developed nations would call “not enough” after the cost of a child, would still be more than they have now- so to them it could still be a win win.

It all gets incredibly complex- but the main reasons the population is projected to flatten out are as stated- based on current trends in population growth- more people are simply choosing not to have kids- especially in developed countries.

Generally this means shifts in culture, dynamics, demographics, and so on. This creates the potential for a lot of opportunity for those in a place where they feel they don’t have opportunity to move to a country where they do- but for many or most of the world it will mean having to learn to deal with major social shifts.

The other potential problem- and wether it is a problem or not is subjective- countries are already failing to reach fertility rates needed to maintain their populations. That doesn’t mean that these countries will disappear. It means changes. The first wave of changes are things like Japan is going through- having to figure out how to care for a population where the elderly are close to even, or outnumbering the young. But beyond that- it just means immigration. In order to keep that stability of scaling the population- countries will (many already have) start to incentivize immigration to boost falling local demographics.

That also means that for someone “waiting” to get in to one of these positions- to work up to it- they may be 15-25 years older than traditionally was the case when someone got that role. So the salary and the learning the job and all that which used to happen in the 30’s or so- now may start in the 40’s or 50’s of at all. So there is both a personal impact there as well as a societal one as more workers in senior positions start later, or people get “skipped” over because they were too old when the slot opened, and are now stuck in their role unless the 28 year old boss retires or dies before their 50 year old employee who has 30+ years of experience that are now stuck where they are.

The other problem of course, is that people living longer generally means more entrenchment. Thy have longer to accumulate power and wealth, and keep it. People living longer and working longer, and women who used to be moms at home now competing for the same jobs as men- means that the competition for jobs becomes fiercer and advancement in a career becomes harder. At my work, we have 70 and 80 year old men in Jr. executive positions which not so long ago, they would have given up to much younger workers about 15-25 years earlier.

An economically disadvantaged area is going to have cheaper labor- people live there and have to buy things, so they can’t change more than what people there can pay right? So if someone else comes from a place labor is much more because people make more, they can get the low labor rate but then sell the goods to people who make more so can and will pay more. That all disappears when demand disappears.

In order to make those vacuums cheaply- you need an exploitable labor force. Those two things are major forces behind the current world economy. There are enough people to but the things being sold and new consumers every year, and there are so many people to do the jobs that it devalues labor. I’m not advocating slave labor- I’m just saying that the world is a very different place than the one we know when you’re paying 10-1000x or more the current cost of labor.

Simply put- if you need to make $X in profits- you either need to sell a few things for a much higher price than you paid for them, or MANY things at a very very small profit per item. In order to sell 1 million vacuum cleaners a year every year- you need to always have new customers unless your vacuums break every year.

But- this goes a little off the question but is relevant- this is potentially problematic. You see, we’ve created an economy that HAS to scale to work. The traditional model is basically that you need 2 people of age to enter the work force as 1 person leaves. This not only allows (in theory) for social services and costs associated with an elderly population that largely doesn’t work- but it also is necessary so that businesses who largely use some form of “velocity model” can scale profits to expand and keep up with inflation.

So for a lot of people- the idea of putting more people into a world where they already feel crowded, where resources are dwindling and what not- isn’t appealing. But moreover- many people feel that it’s just... not a world they want to bring someone in to. We don’t REALLY know if peasants 500 years ago had these sorts of thoughts commonly- but they didn’t really have a choice. Up until fairly recently in the history of humanity, and still in some parts of the world- daily survival relied on having kids to help do work and what not. It would certainly seem more imperative to have kids as a desert nomad who goes months without seeing anyone but their own family, then when you can’t get your mail without bumping in to 5 people.

And while the fact is that many countries- America, Canada, China- have more than enough room to fit the entire population of the world with LOTS of room to spare- technically everyone on earth could fit in the state of Texas (although not REALLY...) personal space depends on where you grew up. Most people who didn’t grow up in a place where people are stacked on top of people in tiny apartments, and streets and shops are so crowded that people basically stand on your toes- don’t like the idea. In America we get upset about the traffic, but our “worst cities” aren’t nearly as congested as some places in the world.

The fact that child care in many countries will offset most or all- or even more than- a persons working wages has also played a role. Wether you are struggling but not quite “poverty level” or wether you are doing well and would rather use your earnings on yourself and your other goals- more people are choosing to forgo children all together.

The combination of being able or having to work, having the freedom to decide how to live their life, and in most developed countries having access to better birth control and family planning options as well as a voice and a choice, and not needing to rely on landing a man and locking him up or having a male child to take care of them for women has really changed the game.

This is where the detail comes in. Firstly- “fertility rate” doesn’t mean the biological ability to have kids- just to make that clear. It means the ration of births to population demographic. So one thing that Lowe’s the fertility rate right off the bat- more new borns survive birth and childhood than in basically any time in history. Back when you had a very good chance of dying before 18 of any number of causes or conditions we am now treat or prevent- people tended to have more kids so that at least a few would survive to adults, or have kids to offset the one(s) that died. So that impacts fertility rate even if it doesn’t directly effect the number of people who are alive at 18 necessarily.