In what year was the average, or even marginal person better off? Yes, there may be more income distribution, but would you prefer to be born into a different time under the veil of ignorance?

Even the poorest in our society have incredible access to goods.

Just to list a few:

Wikipedia

Ability to talk to relatives from across the world to little or no cost (Skype and alternatives)

Ability to send money and store wealth cheaply (low cost ETFs, bitcoin, free checking)

Social acceptance of previously marginalized lifestyles

Access to wide variety of foods and entertainment

There has never been a better time to be alive, and I expect that to continue, despite greater inequality.

How is it that we're on a technology forum and people continually insist that we've achieved the maximum rate of advancement? Also we most certainly do not spend all of our resources advancing areas of technology that would sustain more people, for instance I think there could easily be more research put into food growth/production/sustainability and perhaps things like housing development than are currently being done, but since there is no impending doom from overpopulation we tend to spread our interests around as the free-ish market allows. Everything we produce isn't going to make it easier for more people to survive, but I'm sure much could be done if it became a priority.

The "carrying capacity" of earth is well, well above (constantly revised) estimates.

What will need to change is the efficiency of how we as a species make use of the earth. We can feed many times the current world population easily. We can house many times the current world population easily. What we can't accomplish is doing those things the same way we do things now.

Advances in agriculture, energy and housing are needed. Advances which are happening as we furiously type at each other.

Either we all die horribly or we'll all be fine.

I would put any research or estimates into perspective. We have well surpassed predicted carrying capacities, but maybe these estimates are different?

Example:

> In a 1994 study titled Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro estimated the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million

The dangers of over-population myth assumes a naive view of a static society. For instance, we can reasonably have X land for food production, from that we can grow Y food and that can feed Z people so anything above Z would be harmful. The problem is that Y is dependent on human innovation and technology. Same can be said for most resources. We never did reach peak oil.

These predictions of inevitable decline have been wrong for a long time. I don't know why you put so much faith into the modern day equivalents.

The carrying capacity of Earth is seemingly revised constantly. The overpopulation crisis we imagined decades ago never materialized.

I think lack of ability to plan when and if you have a family is a contributor to poverty in many places. Children are expensive and time consuming.

I've noticed here in the USA young girls getting pregnant and not being able to pursue higher education. I've also met some of my family in the Philippines who had many children by age 14. The husband's salary would pretty much all go to the children, and the wife would spend all day taking care of them. They are just trying to survive day to day-- little thought was given to trying to reach for anything higher.

Most people with access to birth control have children-- just when they're more ready for it. Not only does this make them more financially steady, but they are happier, and the same goes for their children.

"I find suggestive evidence that individuals’ access to contraceptives increased their children’s college completion, labor force participation, wages, and family incomes decades later." - Martha J. Bailey, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. Here's the article and link to her work. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/09/the-long-term-effects-of-...