Reminds me of an article in The Atlantic in the early 20th century. Demography is destiny, it argued. The most fertile nations must dominate. And for that reason, it forecast that the most powerful European nations of the latter half of the 20th century would be Italy and Spain. https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1277053136008441858

This thread and comments also remind me that humility about our ability to forecast the future is easy in the abstract, hard in the particular.

Fun fact: At the time of decolonization in the 1960s, experts were confident that Africa has the better prospects. It was Asia that was doomed. (Literally doomed. Forecasts of starvation and collapse were commonplace.)