This leads to a great paradox. I don't, on the surface, disagree with you. If everybody had 12 children the world would rapidly descend into chaos and dystopia.

This leads to a great paradox. I don't, on the surface, disagree with you. If everybody had 12 children the world would rapidly descend into chaos and dystopia. So it seems rather self evident that people should not have 12 children as a matter of, as you said, common sense. Yet the issue is that today there is a strong correlation between high religiosity, low education, low income and high fertility. This is worldwide and nation wide. For instance this [1] is a table of fertility by income in the US. People earning < $10k reproduce at a rate about 50% greater than those earning > $200k with a perfectly smooth transition between those two incomes. This is a source to also demonstrate the religiosity scaling, which is similarly smooth. [2] Think about the lives of people growing up in those < $10k homes. Their parents are going to be disproportionately poorly educated and highly religious. And on the scale between completely irresponsible and completely responsible, where do you expect a person who chooses to have children when they have income of less than $10k to fall on average? And outside the home it's not going to be much better. They're likely to live disproportionately in high crime urban areas which tend to be viral. Dysgenic fertility also ties directly in to this all. The generation of tomorrow is determined in large part by the generation of today. What values will they be raised with? What will they think of education? What will be their views towards other people? Will their hereditary factors be favorable or unfavorable? These questions are largely answered by whom their parents are. And so this leads to the great paradox. Those that would engage in 'responsible fertility' are the exact people that should be doing the exact opposite. If somebody has the willpower and social consideration to voluntarily cede the strongest urge available to a human, they need to pass their genes and views onto the next generation. Yet by engaging in responsible fertility, they are doing the exact opposite and effectively removing themselves from the gene pool or, at best, minimizing their effect upon it. If you look at any given baby we can view it as a lottery in determining who their parents are and consequently what life they will live. By engaging in 'responsibility fertility' we're all collectively rigging the game against these babies. Ultimately responsible fertility is paradoxically anything but. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam... [2] - https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/income-distribution/ https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/income-di...