> Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:53:28 +0200
Quick and Dirty and even more simplified calculation:
Assume 4 children / person (same as 8 oer couple)
born simultaneously when the parents are 30 years of age. First parent
generation arrives at 30 years of age, first batch of children are born in
year 1 = 2070 the 121 years until 2191 allow for 5 generations.
Thus: total number of children born = 4^5 * 1 million = 1024 million
The original settlers and the first two generation of planet-borns will
have died. Subtract 1 + 4 + 16 million = 21 million people (almost
negligible compared to recent generations)
Total population of the order of one bilion people ( 1 000 000 000). Repeat
for several planets, and they may indeed outweigh Earth's population.
However, I think the above assumptions are VERY optimistic
Moving one million people is no mean feat. Sustaining such extreme population
growth over such a long period will be very hard. Will agriculture, schools,
health care, general infrastructure be able to keep up? AFAIK, all historical
human populations had either lower life expectancies or lower birth rates than
those assumed above.
North and South America eventually reached population levels similar to the
parent continent Europe, but there was sustained, fairly massive,
migration over more than a century. Also the N+S American total is
rather less than a Billion
Greetings Karl Heinz
G'day guys,
Laserlight asked:
> Let's say the colony Hypothetica starts off with 1 million
Assuming no war, famine, accidents, disasters, reproductive break throughs or
immigration, then most likely between 7.5 and 9 million depending on social
welfare policies.
Karl commented:
> Moving one million people is no mean feat.
Very true. Though the biggest hurdle is getting them into space in the first
place I'd say. The space elevator Kim Stanley Robinson uses has probably been
the best mechanic used to get around the problem I've come
across in my limited scifi reading (I know he didn't think it up he's just the
only one who's used it in a book I've read).
> Sustaining such extreme population
Exceedingly difficult to keep up for more than a few generations if our own
history is any indicator. However, this is assuming that no state run system
comes into play.
> Will agriculture, schools, health care, general
Not everywhere, but in some spots I could see the governors letting some
slide to concentrate on others, funnel people into labour intensive jobs
and away from higher education for instance.
> AFAIK, all historical human populations had either lower life
4% growth is VERY high for a human population. On the flip side there's still
a lot of argument on longevity, if you can beat
childhood/adolesence
then you quite often stand a chance of being in the 70s and maybe low 80s
regardless of what era you were born in.
Tom's turn:
> I can see the models that some
As a side note, Derek and I opted to lean towards the high side (not through
emigration but mostly social attitudes and medicine) in our parameterisation
of the OU modelling as it gave more scope for a military large enough to
justify having the figs Derek wanted within the timescale Jon had laid out.
> 1) I looked at the economics in FT
Do you mean economics or logistics?
> 2) I base my conclusions on Earth as
For those that are interested there's three routes the UN population modellers
can currently see (I think I may have said this before but I'll ramble forth
again anyway): A. Growth at levels of the mid to late 80s which would see us
hit 50 billion in the 2100s. Current growth suggests that this is not going to
happen and of the three paths its now considered the least likely.
B. Growth levels out at about 15-20 billion or a bit below and then
stabilising a little lower still (now favoured). This is based on current
growth which sees the African nations dropping quickly (both in birth rates
and due to AIDS), Asia not growing as quickly as it used to and the western
nations either at a standstill or turning negative growth wise. C. We hit 9 to
10 billion, many of us die off (just from old age
alone...
imagine the drop China's going to see in the next 30 yrs), birth control is
entrenched and we actually see a global down turn with a population of only 3
billion when the dust settles (governments would be actively encouraging large
families to support their established economies). Not the highest on the list
of possibilities but actually more likely than the 50 billion scenario the
last time I checked.
So all up the UN reckon there will most likely be between 6 and 35 billion
people on Earth in 2100. Derek and I based ours on about 17 to 20 billion
(it'd be tight but doable with some of the technologies cropping up, there'd
still be a lot of social unrest though I reckon).
> 3) Increasing life spans and
More than anything the education of women does. How to women feature in the
future history? That would be the best indicator of what's happening on the
natural reproductive front (doesn't account for clones, artificial wombs
etc though).
> Even in the colonies, it won't necessarily
That depends on how widely spread machinery is and whether they're in a dome
city or can walk freely beneath the sky. If free then they may well
have large families to keep up the cheap labor supply as the older ones move
next door to start their own farm. It don't matter to Joe if fancy farming
robots exist if he can't afford one, but his kids work for peanuts (or
potatoes or whatever other crop they grow).
> The cost of protecting those shipments
If you protected them and if they were in operation when hostilities abound.
> And only the ESU and a few others
I don't know I reckon the odd penal colony could still take off here and
there... out of sight out of mind worked before, could work again, but that
make be a biased Aussie view;)
> My suggestion is Earth's population is 6-9 Billion
Not too bad, though I'd still push a little higher just to let everyone have
their minor nation with ships and fighters;)
> I'd suggest off-Earth population all together
I haven't had a go at modelling the entire GZGverse as yet <I was leaving that
for you Tom;)> but I'd say that'd be on the high end of things, 20% or less
would be closer to what I would've said.
> Beth, you must have something to say
You're encouraging me to ramble Tom? You do realise how dangerous that is?
Besides some excuse it'd make for my supervisor "Well the reason the next
chapter isn't ready and waiting on your desk was that I was endeavouring to
calculate the percentage of the human population off earth in 2190..."
;)
Have fun
Beth
Sorry for the resend, I sent it this morning and it still hadn't shown up.
> [quoted text omitted]
G'day guys,
Laserlight asked:
> Let's say the colony Hypothetica starts off with 1 million
Assuming no war, famine, accidents, disasters, reproductive break throughs or
immigration, then most likely between 7.5 and 9 million depending on social
welfare policies.
Karl commented:
> Moving one million people is no mean feat.
Very true. Though the biggest hurdle is getting them into space in the first
place I'd say. The space elevator Kim Stanley Robinson uses has probably been
the best mechanic used to get around the problem I've come
across in my limited scifi reading (I know he didn't think it up he's just the
only one who's used it in a book I've read).
> Sustaining such extreme population
Exceedingly difficult to keep up for more than a few generations if our own
history is any indicator. However, this is assuming that no state run system
comes into play.
> Will agriculture, schools, health care, general
Not everywhere, but in some spots I could see the governors letting some
slide to concentrate on others, funnel people into labour intensive jobs
and away from higher education for instance.
> AFAIK, all historical human populations had either lower life
4% growth is VERY high for a human population. On the flip side there's still
a lot of argument on longevity, if you can beat
childhood/adolesence
then you quite often stand a chance of being in the 70s and maybe low 80s
regardless of what era you were born in.
Tom's turn:
> I can see the models that some
As a side note, Derek and I opted to lean towards the high side (not through
emigration but mostly social attitudes and medicine) in our parameterisation
of the OU modelling as it gave more scope for a military large enough to
justify having the figs Derek wanted within the timescale Jon had laid out.
> 1) I looked at the economics in FT
Do you mean economics or logistics?
> 2) I base my conclusions on Earth as
For those that are interested there's three routes the UN population modellers
can currently see (I think I may have said this before but I'll ramble forth
again anyway): A. Growth at levels of the mid to late 80s which would see us
hit 50 billion in the 2100s. Current growth suggests that this is not going to
happen and of the three paths its now considered the least likely.
B. Growth levels out at about 15-20 billion or a bit below and then
stabilising a little lower still (now favoured). This is based on current
growth which sees the African nations dropping quickly (both in birth rates
and due to AIDS), Asia not growing as quickly as it used to and the western
nations either at a standstill or turning negative growth wise. C. We hit 9 to
10 billion, many of us die off (just from old age
alone...
imagine the drop China's going to see in the next 30 yrs), birth control is
entrenched and we actually see a global down turn with a population of only 3
billion when the dust settles (governments would be actively encouraging large
families to support their established economies). Not the highest on the list
of possibilities but actually more likely than the 50 billion scenario the
last time I checked.
So all up the UN reckon there will most likely be between 6 and 35 billion
people on Earth in 2100. Derek and I based ours on about 17 to 20 billion
(it'd be tight but doable with some of the technologies cropping up, there'd
still be a lot of social unrest though I reckon).
> 3) Increasing life spans and
More than anything the education of women does. How to women feature in the
future history? That would be the best indicator of what's happening on the
natural reproductive front (doesn't account for clones, artificial wombs
etc though).
> Even in the colonies, it won't necessarily
That depends on how widely spread machinery is and whether they're in a dome
city or can walk freely beneath the sky. If free then they may well
have large families to keep up the cheap labor supply as the older ones move
next door to start their own farm. It don't matter to Joe if fancy farming
robots exist if he can't afford one, but his kids work for peanuts (or
potatoes or whatever other crop they grow).
> The cost of protecting those shipments
If you protected them and if they were in operation when hostilities abound.
> And only the ESU and a few others
I don't know I reckon the odd penal colony could still take off here and
there... out of sight out of mind worked before, could work again, but that
make be a biased Aussie view;)
> My suggestion is Earth's population is 6-9 Billion
Not too bad, though I'd still push a little higher just to let everyone have
their minor nation with ships and fighters;)
> I'd suggest off-Earth population all together
I haven't had a go at modelling the entire GZGverse as yet <I was leaving that
for you Tom;)> but I'd say that'd be on the high end of things, 20% or less
would be closer to what I would've said.
> Beth, you must have something to say
You're encouraging me to ramble Tom? You do realise how dangerous that is?
Besides some excuse it'd make for my supervisor "Well the reason the next
chapter isn't ready and waiting on your desk was that I was endeavouring to
calculate the percentage of the human population off earth in 2190..."
;)
Have fun
Beth