[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

It took everyone and all of history up until now to come up with it, even if just a handful of people provided the incremental technological improvements. I could just as easily argue that 1 person could have invented everything in the world, but the reality is that it takes millions of minds to produce the best ideas.

Besides all that, it takes the labor of the many to provide for the needs of the few that innovate.

Hardly. As a pretty obvious example, suppose that as of start of the industrial revolution, the entire population of Asia, Africa, and South America had died from a plague. Would the technological development of Europe and North America been significantly different?

I'm able to gather ingredients from around the world for every meal. Bananas in the winter is no problem. I'd never eat one if I had to gather it from the PNW.

But there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of equally edible things which you could gather from your own neighborhood (assuming it's rural): everything from blackberries to camas to salmon. Likewise many things that were quite usual in at least some European-culture diets until the last century. You may be able to get a banana in the store, but how often do you see quince, cornelian cherries, gooseberries, currants, medlars, and more? (I happen to have all but the medlar growing in my garden, and I assure you they're all as delicious as that banana. Especially cornelian cherry jam :-))

Birth control and machines that accomplish labor intensive tasks make children unnecessary.

But in this world, the vast majority of parents don't have children because they're necessary; they have them(simplistically, of course) either for ego gratification (think Duggars here) or to meet societal expectations. Consider the number of people in the west who resort to fertility drugs, in vitro fertilization, and the upcoming uterus transplant.