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[–]Jacinda[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Myth of the 20th Century cover the same topic albeit from a eugenicist angle:

They have their own set of references which are behind the link.

It was interesting but a little too discursive for me. I think Edward Dutton's take was better.

The bulk of the podcast was taken up describing how life at the Malthusian limits influenced genetic selection in the UK (and by corollary Western Europe) where the better off had more children and this had a eugenic effect on the general population.

The last section talked about how this trend in modern society is reversed so that the most conscientious and intelligent members of society are leaving the least number of offspring while welfare (shades of Malthus) enables the least capable members of society to proliferate.

There was a short but excellent discussion about how population density destroys the quality of life. They pointed out that Tuscany is considered a pleasant place to live but if everyone moved there it would lose it's attractiveness.

The podcast was still interesting, mainly because so few people address this topic, but the information could easily have been condensed into a moderately sized article. It would been good if they could have broadened their scope and used some of the information that Dutton presented.