[entropi]

I tend to view this as purely an optimization problem.

Basically all aspects of traditional values, systems in place and the whole lifestyle, established mostly after the agricultural revolution; seems to be laser-focused on increasing surviving offspring.

I feel like it should be obvious that if you take a solution that optimizes almost exclusively for x (surviving offspring), and replace it partially, optimizing for a,b,c (industrial output, female participation to workforce, etc.); you necessarily get a lower x in exchange for higher a,b,c.

Now it looks to me like everyone is trying to increase x back again, but without decreasing a,b,c. It seems obvious to me that you cannot do this (unless you have been doing a terrible job at optimizing before). You have to trade some value off from the other side. But in our current society, I don't see how can this happen.