Understood but lower population could also mean less people trading and that would impact quality of life quite badly. Steve Jobs living in a world of 10,000 wo

Understood but lower population could also mean less people trading and that would impact quality of life quite badly. Steve Jobs living in a world of 10,000 would have been living in abject poverty no matter how good his entrepreneurial skills. A larger population can do more things, and with trading increase quality of life in important ways (medicine, technology, arts) that may be better off than ghost towns with cheap property. My point is your parent commenter is right to ask whether lower population really means higher quality of life, I don’t think it necessarily does.