And it turns out that if you reduce the quantity of people, you don't increase the quality of life; life was not better in the rubble of Europe, even if 30 million people had died. Whereas if you increase the quality of life - give relative prosperity and education to women - then they decrease the quantity of people themselves without any compulsion or genocide.

You are using the aftermath of World War II to "prove" that less people is not better? Why don't you throw in the plagues of the Middle Ages while you are at it? If you really want to help your hypothesis, compare conditions before and after Noah's flood. Also, throw in Nagasaki and Hiroshima before and after a nuclear bomb was dropped on them - everyone would have to agree conditions were worse after the population declined...

If we only had 200 million people in this country - as we did in 1970 - think about how affordable housing would still be. Think about how much less oil, water, natural gas, coal, aluminum, phosphorus, etc. we would need. Think about how much better traffic would be. Think about how less congested our airports would be. Think about how much worse all of that will be when we make it to 450 million.