Population growth is an opinion-shaper, true. More people means more difference. I personally am not sure I'm with the crowd mentality argument. As I told ArcMis above I view it as a free-will question, devoid of any moral argument. There are things we do today and take for granted that people 100 or 200 or longer ago would've been horrified and offended by. There are pluses to crowd-thought; sometimes the things that become normal lead to a better-functioning society. An example I've thought of, while not exact to this particular case, is one of the agitation against Uber/Lyft. Taxi companies are against it, defending their own turf of course, but using the argument that taxi services are a good source of middle-class jobs. Fine. By the same measure should there have been a law passed banning the combustion engine because horse-led Hansom cabs were a good source of well-paying jobs? Things change. Even the most hide-bound of traditionalist wouldn't demand that women go back to wearing (ankle length) dresses only. I know gender issues seem different and more extreme, but so did the idea of women wearing pants at one time.