> It is always unclear to me if this is a bad thing. In a shrinking population, are individual people worse off, or does it just look like a decline when you lo

> It is always unclear to me if this is a bad thing. In a shrinking population, are individual people worse off, or does it just look like a decline when you look at the country in aggregate? There is no shortage of squandered talent in the world. So many people work below their capability because there are just more people than opportunities. It seems like it’s not a problem to keep running the modern world, even with a fraction of the current world population. It's debatable. Population declines are good for the environment. But rapid drops has cultural, political, economic and geopolitical consequences. e.g. South Korea doesn't really trust NK or China or that they can't really be a manufacturing economy without young workers.