I think there is high variance in the growth rate of developing countries. My own country (Iran) certainly does not seem to be converging much. I also think that the areas where most convergence happens are the areas that are more materialistic; The medical textbooks get imported (and somewhat learned), but the institutions and attitudes that produced the textbooks in the first place, not so much.
I definitely think the more broad appeal of fiction does make it worthwhile as an outreach effort (though it needs to be explicitly educational. Mother of Learning, for all its good writing, doesn’t teach how to think better.). The concepts touched in the fictional works (that I remember) were all very low-inferential distance from the common culture, so they were confined to beginner concepts without an in-depth overview. For example, the Frozen fanfic by Wales touches on AI safety and effective altruism, and is fun and beautiful, but I did not learn anything from it.
As you say, fiction teaches less concepts and teaches them less well. I do think it might teach more memorably though.
I have heavily updated on you being a bad faith actor. If you seriously believe your argument is not significantly pro-censorship, I suggest studying censorship historically in cases it clashes with your political views. Then compare those historical cases with what you advocate. Political censorship always believes itself to be something else. As the theocracy I live in says on my textbooks, “Freedom is not to do what anyone wants. Freedom is doing what the divine leader says.” Or as famous fiction has it, “war is peace.”
I had written a good answer here, but it got deleted because I accidentally tapped a link. Comments should save drafts ... The TLDR of it is:
Can you provide some links on the latest IFR estimates? A quick Google search leads me to the same 0.5% ballpark.