People seem very uncomfortable with the idea of thinning The Herd.  But imagine village life instead of city life.  Imagine living in an area where you were one of 300-500 people, and there was no other village for 50-100 miles.  Everyone would have a job or a role, and if you got sick, people would feel your absence.  It would be noticed.  Because you would live in a world where there aren’t dozens of other people who are available to fill in for you.  Either you show up to work or the work doesn’t gets done, and there are so few people that all jobs are essential: the group is, on some level, going to suffer because you were unable to perform your role.  I’m telling you, dear reader, suicide rates would plummet and the number of people whose lives would “have meaning” would skyrocket.  People born into today’s society are extraneous and they know it.  And they live most of their adult lives with this gnawing feeling that they really are just a number, doing some awful job that was created for them because well, we have all these goddamn people, and they need to work.
Look, there really are too many people.  A society that has time to bitch at each other about what pronouns they want to be called and which bathroom they get to use is a society with far too much free time.  If we cut the population in half (or better), people would be far too busy surviving to have time to be stupid.

N.P.: “Don’t Bring Me Down” – Electric Light Orchetstra