[harshreality]

The implication is that some sort of population control might be necessary, if psych/soc pressures don't stabilize the population by themselves. Population control is antithetical to western individualistic values, so people reject the premise because one of the potential policy consequences (population control) causes an emotional melt-down. If desire to believe in an abstract principle is strong enough, facts will be rejected.

[jerf]

"if psych/soc pressures don't stabilize the population by themselves."

Since at the moment, the evidence strongly suggests that they are, "population control" measures sound even more evil to me than they did before.

The problem is that when you go to concretize the abstract question, you end up with the question "Who gets the power to decide who lives and dies?" (or reproduces) and one need not study history for very long to become very nervous about the possible answers. Those of you who casually assume you'd be on the "live" side are unjustified in your confidence.

[GFischer]

Well, China did have such a policy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

[hx87]

It has been of questionable utility since the decline in fertility began before the policy was implemented. In fact, the policy was conceived to counteract Mao's pro-natalist policy where a large(r) population was supposed to be a hedge against nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

[splintercell]

People forget that resource pressure acts as a population control measure, and it isn't an 'if'.

It is to be noted that resource pressure is not the same thing as poverty. A lot of poor regions produce more babies than say people in Manhattan, because people in Manhattan have higher life quality expectation for their kids, than people living in a poor region.