I was more interested in population decline, quantitative and qualitative, 10 years ago than I am now. Biotech and AI advances have been fast enough in recent years that I no longer think population trends are predictable. Also, they may not matter at all, since I rate AI as likely to eliminate humans altogether within a few decades. The value of non-legibility arises from a culture that has lost trust between individuals and seeks to compensate in bureaucratic fashion. This creates scleroticism, inflexibility, lost opportunities. Another reason for excessive legibility is the ever growing reach of the state, which includes a statist/fascist preference for large corporations. Large corporations are nearly as bureaucratic as government agencies: they understand each other and prefer each other's company. The agencies like that they can outsource control functions to these corporations; the corporations benefit from regulatory capture and rent-seeking assistance. This non-legibility issue is one area in which libertarian economists really add valuable insights. Cowen underestimates how unhappy Americans are. They're not in a positive sum mood, for the most part. Their elite has never been so flagrantly contemptuous of the people and so grotesquely parasitic as they are now. Why he thinks things going well in places like Panama or Chile matters at all. They have very little human capital, ie, a low average IQ. The countries that matter are the core Western countries and the major East Asian countries and, possibly, India. In realist terms, the remainder simply do not matter for the human future. They cannot matter for lack of human talent.
I'm no Malthusian, but I don't get what the great danger of population decline is. Normally it would be difficult to support an aging population without a sufficient labor base, but we're entering the era of AI where the economic value of labor will approach zero.
FYI, Milei was an IMF World Bank plant. Argentina had the highest IMF Debt. They needed Argentina to get its spending under control so they could get paid. Mike Benz has covered this extensively.
