An interesting perspective on the declining birth rate in first world countries is that organisms probably don't just optimize for number of offspring but also for their place in the food chain.
There are few times when organisms can pioneer new niches. For the most part, they balance on complex food chains with little elasticity. For most complex organisms holds that if they cannot put their children into the same environmental conditions as themselves, they may die.
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Does that correspond to the intuition that the number of children of a first world family is strongly influenced not by the threat of starvation, but by the parents' capacity to sustain the socioeconomic status of the next generation? And is that perhaps universally true?
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I think that may be part of the equation but I know parts of the first world which use this only to guide between say 2, 3 or 4 children independent of projected future status. Ever been to Fort Worth, or St. Louis, or San Antonio?So not universal, imo.
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But wouldn't you agree that historically and currently engineer ( technological broadly) new niches almost at will? ( e.g irrigation or synthetic meat) ?
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