Leave the birthrate alone

I’d add that a lot of pro-natal folks and governments these days want to have their cake and eat it too. They want:

  1. High birth rate

  2. A young global population

  3. Small global population

Those things are mutually contradictory. You can’t have that without some sort of mandatory euthanasia program for all elderly folks, and that’s not happening for obvious moral reasons. But these pro-natal folks complain every time their magical good-Catch-22 scenario doesn’t unfold. Planet reaches 8 billion? Too many people! Societies like China, Japan, etc. are becoming elderly-heavy age wise? Too old! People having 1.1 kids per couple? Too few!

The only thing I’d disagree with the OP about is the argument that “collective free choices lead to the overall best outcome.” We can see lots of examples in capitalism, climate change, shopping carts in parking lots or elsewhere where collective free choices make things worse, not better.