One of the main issues that we as human beings have is that we don’t have a gestalt understanding of social data, and its change over time. Among biologists one of the major recurring problems is the gloominess which is a consequence of the Malthusian mindset (which is understandable because of their professional bias) which has a hard time understanding that the human species is far healthier and wealthier today than it was in 1960. Below the fold is something I cobbled together in 30 seconds with Google’s public data explorer. On the y-axis is the log-transformed total fertility rate, and the x-axis the life expectancy. I’ve highlighted a few polities to show different trajectories since 1960.
