The first Civ game without governments?

[Lord Shadow]

For the entire length and breadth of History, what do masses of people do when there isn't enough to go around to assure everyone's survival? The Have Nots tear down the existing system and try -- but inevitably fail -- to redistribute what resources are available. Also inevitably, countless people die in the turmoil. (Which, ironically, reduces the strain on available resources.)

You also have to take into account human mindset concerning population growth. Unless there was a universal concerted effort to control population growth, the population WILL continue grow -- and that would hasten that worldwide turmoil as the resources per person ratio just keeps getting worse. [Excellent book to read on this specific topic: The Population Bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb] Something has to reverse the population growth trend, or in the next 400 years, Earth WILL implode.

Keep in mind that from launch to Landfall is _400 years_. During that entire time, NOBODY with an inclination towards Science will even dabble on improving the tech that they already have? The same tech that the colonists left Earth with?

About the ONLY way you can avoid these two things entirely is if, after the space ship launches, Humanity stops being Humanity and become an entirely different species. Where people are not inclined to procreate and NO ONE has any kind of Scientific curiosity.

You've missed the point. I wasn't talking about resources Humanity needs to sustain itself. Those are easy to come by. I meant resources required to maintain modern technology. Perhaps oil isn't so critical in the 23rd century (though it might be largely spent), but what about fissionable materials? What about rarer resources critical to advanced components and machines? Are you going to build a spaceship out of wood and a superluminal drive powered by soy sauce? Or coal?

No amount of population growth and scientific curiosity is going to get you out of a resource-depleted hole. You might be able to get by, but that's about it. Never in History has science had to face critical, permanent resource shortages on a global scale. Exhausting Earth is a real threat, and no amount of science is going to keep progress going anywhere near the same rate unless new sources of materials are found.

 

[Sonereal]

You've missed the point. I wasn't talking about resources Humanity needs to sustain itself. Those are easy to come by. I meant resources required to maintain modern technology. Perhaps oil isn't so critical in the 23rd century (though it might be largely spent), but what about fissionable materials? What about rarer resources critical to advanced components and machines? Are you going to build a spaceship out of wood and a superluminal drive powered by soy sauce? Or coal?

The use of coal, today, is more efficient than its use just twenty years ago.

As costs of coal and oil gone up, the drive for higher efficiency standards also has gained momentum. Case and point is the number of smartphone companies working in recycling their old products for future ones because the cost of doing so is clearly lower than the long term cost of simply mining more forever. The car you might own, compared to a car built in the 1950s/1960s, is expected to last ten to fifteen years longer on the road and still have better gas mileage.

No amount of population growth and scientific curiosity is going to get you out of a resource-depleted hole.

Except that it has. Without efficiency gains and diversification brought about by science, this discussion wouldn't even be happening right now.

Never in History has science had to face critical, permanent resource shortages on a global scale. Exhausting Earth is a real threat, and no amount of science is going to keep progress going anywhere near the same rate unless new sources of materials are found.

*assuming efficiency rates and production efficiency remains constant

 

[proftc]

Hmm... it's an interesting issue. We managed to send this expedition, and then suddenly seem to stop anything looking outward. I suppose the earth could have spent all their major resources to send the seedings, and then had to shift to focus inward.

As others have said, likely they'd greatly improve efficiency and find new ways to use things, but maybe researching all that comes at the cost of giving up on things like space.

Whereas on the new planet, they have the more or less unlimited resources to do the fun stuff.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The use of coal, today, is more efficient than its use just twenty years ago.

As costs of coal and oil gone up, the drive for higher efficiency standards also has gained momentum. Case and point is the number of smartphone companies working in recycling their old products for future ones because the cost of doing so is clearly lower than the long term cost of simply mining more forever. The car you might own, compared to a car built in the 1950s/1960s, is expected to last ten to fifteen years longer on the road and still have better gas mileage.



Except that it has. Without efficiency gains and diversification brought about by science, this discussion wouldn't even be happening right now.



*assuming efficiency rates and production efficiency remains constant

Efficiency can increase, but it may come from inferior substitution (which is more resource efficient..but less effective)

Now, if I was betting, I would Not bet that this would happen.

However, it is enough for plausible deniability... if resources for high tech equipment gets rarer/more expensive, high tech equipment gets more expensive, research using high tech equipment gets more expensive...and the majority of research focuses on trying to maintain the existing technology level with poorer and poorer resources.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Link to video.

When you start using props where 1= one billion, it's pretty easy to miss that a couple hundred million lumped in here should actually be lumped in over there. And segmenting out Industrialized nations from the world population obscures the fact that the overall world population has been steadily and inexorably growing bigger and bigger. Sustenance resources to sustain those larger numbers has to come from somewhere, and if they are applied here, they won't be available there. For the Haves, the cost of their consumables WILL go up, making them use fewer resources. It's a process that has been in place for at least a half-century. But do you see the Standard of Living and Quality of Life plummeting? Not really -- because through Science & Technology we have been consistently getting better "mileage" out of our resources.

All the more reason to keep Science & Technology hard at work.

 

[m15a]

Hmm... it's an interesting issue. We managed to send this expedition, and then suddenly seem to stop anything looking outward. I suppose the earth could have spent all their major resources to send the seedings, and then had to shift to focus inward.

As others have said, likely they'd greatly improve efficiency and find new ways to use things, but maybe researching all that comes at the cost of giving up on things like space.

Whereas on the new planet, they have the more or less unlimited resources to do the fun stuff.

Couldn't those on Earth have not given up on space travel, too? Maybe they send out other spaceships later on and either those colonies failed or they are behind on their advancement or they have other goals irrelevant to the victory conditions of the game (e.g., maybe a successful colony just decided it's not worth contacting Earth).

It's theoretically possible that those on Earth could far exceed the advancements of those on the colony, too. But that's irrelevant because the game is only concerns certain potential outcomes growing from the initial state. The game doesn't deal with scenarios where very highly advanced colonist come on turn 200 and kill everyone on the planet or scenarios where the colonists land on a planet with intelligent life and civilization or scenarios where the colonists lose control of their ship in space and have to live out their days on the ship until they starve or run out of oxygen.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Efficiency gains can only go so far.

And as KrikkitTwo says, in the presence of truly dwindling resources, most of the scientific efforts will be focused on maintaining the current technological level. The stagnation will be anything but 'free', and actual progress will suffer considerably compared to societies not enduring similar, catastrophic shortages.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Efficiency gains can only go so far.

And as KrikkitTwo says, in the presence of truly dwindling resources, most of the scientific efforts will be focused on maintaining the current technological level. The stagnation will be anything but 'free', and actual progress will suffer considerably compared to societies not enduring similar, catastrophic shortages.

Even if things slowed down to a crawl -- which wouldn't be something that happened immediately after ship launch -- Earth would still have four hundred years, using the percentage of scientists that one is likely to find in a world population of 7-15 billion, to keep Science & Technology advancing. Unless all of Humanity started to include Stoopid (TM) pills as part of their daily diet, there would be quite a few breakthroughs over those 400 years. And every one of them would be more advanced than anything the colonists have when they arrive at their destination.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Even if things slowed down to a crawl -- which wouldn't be something that happened immediately after ship launch -- Earth would still have four hundred years, using the percentage of scientists that one is likely to find in a world population of 7-15 billion, to keep Science & Technology advancing. Unless all of Humanity started to include Stoopid (TM) pills as part of their daily diet, there would be quite a few breakthroughs over those 400 years. And every one of them would be more advanced than anything the colonists have when they arrive at their destination.

Science does not consist of just smart people, it consists of smart people and Testing their ideas... That takes equipment. Technology is even stricter...you need a society where the ideas are Useful.

 

[Sonereal]

Efficiency can increase, but it may come from inferior substitution (which is more resource efficient..but less effective)

Define less efficient. Energy wise, for example, fission can practically last long enough until new energy sources are discovered and renewables are able to take over a larger share of a country's energy output.

http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf

And of course, thorium.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...nd-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

It is only less efficient in the short-term where energy prices have reached a level high enough to make exploitation of new energy harvesting techniques viable, which end up slowing or (in the case of 19th century coal's victory over wood), lowering costs.

When you start using props where 1= one billion, it's pretty easy to miss that a couple hundred million lumped in here should actually be lumped in over there. And segmenting out Industrialized nations from the world population obscures the fact that the overall world population has been steadily and inexorably growing bigger and bigger. Sustenance resources to sustain those larger numbers has to come from somewhere, and if they are applied here, they won't be available there. For the Haves, the cost of their consumables WILL go up, making them use fewer resources. It's a process that has been in place for at least a half-century. But do you see the Standard of Living and Quality of Life plummeting? Not really -- because through Science & Technology we have been consistently getting better "mileage" out of our resources.

Except it doesn't obscure that. That was actually the point. Higher development means slower growth rates, and therefore, population should be expected to plateau, which means planners only need to worry about meeting the energy needs of Earth 2070, at which point the population stops growing and starts shrinking instead barring some major problems in development in the third world.

As for bringing up efficiency, yes? I'm not the one arguing about efficiency. I was pointing out that baby booms have nothing to do with celebrations and that world population is expected to start to decline before 2100.

And as KrikkitTwo says, in the presence of truly dwindling resources, most of the scientific efforts will be focused on maintaining the current technological level. The stagnation will be anything but 'free', and actual progress will suffer considerably compared to societies not enduring similar, catastrophic shortages.

This completely ignores horizontal advancements in the form of actually implementing existing efficiency standards to the developing world, which itself would slow the growth of energy prices and usage of resources. Resources have been truly dwindling for centuries ever since the Romans used up Iberian ore, the Spanish exhausted mines in the New World, and mining towns out in the West of the US went bust after the mines dried up.

It makes for a great story, but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Resource depletion is a problem, but the idea that scientists will slavishly create new technologies to maintain future consumption relies on the idea that economies don't respond to rising prices with increasing efficiency, and that unlike the West, the developing world has fifty to a hundred years of prior development and gains in efficiency to fall back on.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Define less efficient. Energy wise, for example, fission can practically last long enough until new energy sources are discovered and renewables are able to take over a larger share of a country's energy output.

http://www.mcgill.ca/files/gec3/NuclearFissionFuelisInexhaustibleIEEE.pdf

And of course, thorium.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...nd-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

It is only less efficient in the short-term where energy prices have reached a level high enough to make exploitation of new energy harvesting techniques viable, which end up slowing or (in the case of 19th century coal's victory over wood), lowering costs.



Except it doesn't obscure that. That was actually the point. Higher development means slower growth rates, and therefore, population should be expected to plateau, which means planners only need to worry about meeting the energy needs of Earth 2070, at which point the population stops growing and starts shrinking instead barring some major problems in development in the third world.

As for bringing up efficiency, yes? I'm not the one arguing about efficiency. I was pointing out that baby booms have nothing to do with celebrations and that world population is expected to start to decline before 2100.



This completely ignores horizontal advancements in the form of actually implementing existing efficiency standards to the developing world, which itself would slow the growth of energy prices and usage of resources. Resources have been truly dwindling for centuries ever since the Romans used up Iberian ore, the Spanish exhausted mines in the New World, and mining towns out in the West of the US went bust after the mines dried up.

It makes for a great story, but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Resource depletion is a problem, but the idea that scientists will slavishly create new technologies to maintain future consumption relies on the idea that economies don't respond to rising prices with increasing efficiency, and that unlike the West, the developing world has fifty to a hundred years of prior development and gains in efficiency to fall back on.

Increasing efficiency needs Technologies.
Increasing prices don't make technologies appear... They make it worthwhile to research/implement technologies that 'exist' in this universe as possibilities.

If it is not possible to get a better material than X for job Y, then the likit on accessible X means either
1. Do less of job Y
2. Do job Y less efficiently (in all Other measurements) by using material Z compared to X
3. Hope there exists a better way to do job Y that you can find

3 is a hope. 1 is always available, 2 relies on Lower tech.

Now I believe that hope is warranted... But the disbelief in stagnation is definitely suspendable.

After all for certain things there are limits to efficiency.
There is only so much gold in the crust... There is more in the mantle, core and space, but those are harder to get at.

The third world can be more efficient, but it will also be doing more, not just using less
Also this is 2200, and net usage/pop of some resources may increase.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Science does not consist of just smart people, it consists of smart people and Testing their ideas... That takes equipment. Technology is even stricter...you need a society where the ideas are Useful.

In a nation or world of dwindling resources, as the resources diminish, The Powers That Be pretty much inevitably start to invest in finding new resources and how to get more mileage out of the resources that remain.

We live in a world that is dominated by Big Oil. But for over 50 years, the hot Energy topic has been "peak oil" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
We have passed the point where the Supply of available oil has stopped growing and we are sliding towards a "No More Oil" somewhere around 2200. Did we sit on our hands waiting for the inevitable? No. Nor did we trust that nuclear power would take up the slack. Over the last 50 years we have developed and improved -- and continue to improve solar energy, wind energy, tidal collectors energy, and geothermal energy. Consumables have been augmented continually by improvements in recycling.

Currently, faster than the decline of oil, is the increasing shortage of fresh water. http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/data/pngs/20140826/20140826_usdm_home.png CA, which is the #1 Agriculture State in the USA is facing the worst drought in the country. The entire State. And the drought is spreading. Will most of the USA dry up and blow away like the Oklahoma Dust Bowl? Or is it more likely that there will be a BIG push to make water desalination cheaper and more efficient?

It doesn't make sense that the world governments will just throw their hands up in despair and just fight a losing battle to maintain some kind of 4 century status quo. Nor will ALL of Humanity just stop making babies at an alarming rate. China maybe, but not the ENTIRE world. The revolts and riots might put a sizable dent in the world population when governments announce they are going to emulate China. But to enforce the policy, they will ALL have to enact draconian enforcement.

[Hmm. Which country do you think will be the first to use criminal sentences for jaywalking to be mandatory sterilization?]

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The 'population bomb' stuff is as ridiculous.
No serious predictions in the last 20 years have the world population growing in 2100 AD.
People stop making babies on their own... They have a few expensive babies over many cheap babies.

As for the stagnation argument
I'm not suggesting that the nations 'give up'. I'm saying no matter how hard they try, the Best they can do is stagnate.

The ones that give up actually collapse because they aren't continually improving resource extraction and efficiency.

Perhaps in 1000-2000 years Earth would be able to 'break out' using solar system resources.
However, they calculated that their best odds were to use interstellar resources.
Those resources could be used to do research which could allow Earth's economy to improve.

 

[3of5]

Efficiency gain and innovation solving all problems is an (neoclassical) economists fairy tale. Physicists don't share that optimism. And they are those who the economists are counting on. I tend to value physicists opinions more, because their science actually bases on facts and leads to realistic expectations.

Let's take the sector where probably the biggest energy efficiency gains have been accomplished, light production: it needed a black swan (LED tech) to accomplish that. We can't guarantee that black swans are possible in all applications. But even worse: light production was woefully inefficient to begin with (lightbulbs converting most of the energy input into heat). Also you can't make it more efficient than LED, because there you are already at close to 100% efficiency.

Similar has happened in most areas:
- low hanging fruits have been picked already
- rebound effect
- efficiency saturation and ceiling

Same goes for ressources: even with better materials techs (thin film, sintering...) you will need a set quantity of neodymium to build a generator i.e. for a wind turbine. You can improve the efficiency of the turbine to almost reach the ceiling (set by the laws of physics). But you can't produce new neodymium out of thin air. The limiting ressource for all processes (recycling, mining ever decreasing concentrations of minerals...) is energy. We are heading towards an era of energy starvation (it takes 20% - 33% already of the mined energy just to mine tar sands, we are confronted with rapidly decreasing efficiency here), hot fusion is a grey swan at best (always just 25 years around the corner and it might never be industrially viable), uranium is depleting fast and even thorium can only last so long (if we get that tech to work, which is not a given).

I don't say we are screwed no matter what, just that it is a huge misinterpretation of risk and associated probability values if we think that we can just continue as we have until now. We have to start thinking about a soft landing that allows us to continue civilization on a high level, but right now we are not even bothering about that. How's that for a "great mistake"?

An energy and ressource starved stagnating society unable to reach for the stars any more and doomed to one single gravity well is just too real a perspective after all i read, for me to need any suspension of disbelief at all to accept BE's premise.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Let's take the sector where probably the biggest energy efficiency gains have been accomplished, light production:

Somewhat related. I used to work at an electrical supply warehouse. I only worked there for 7 years, but in that time I saw a LOT of what was happening in the realm of electricity generation and energy efficiency. In less than 5 years time, the efficiency of solar panels improved by _60%_. At the same time, the cost of materials and the amount of materials to make those improved solar panels went down. In the same time frame, the efficiency of everything from light bulbs to air conditioning units improved anywhere from 25 -135%. In less than 7 years.

In the realm of recycling, I happen to live in Marin County, CA. The Sanitary district for the county operates a recycling program that is award-winning in that for the entire county over 90% of trash is recycled. It shows what _can_ be done when the effort is made to maximize efficiency. It also demonstrates what can be done with the mountains of garbage placed in landfills for the last couple centuries. A _lot_ of what has been cast aside can be recovered to lessen the load on otherwise diminishing resources. The actual problem with those landfills is that many/most of them have been built over, making it problematic to start "mining" them for useful recyclables.

****************
In regards to population growth, go back to the video. The largest growth isn't in the industrialized nations. It's the un-industrialized segment of the world where the population nearly tripled. If the Have Nots are already pumping out babies that they can't afford, what makes anyone think they will stop doing so in 2100?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

****************
In regards to population growth, go back to the video. The largest growth isn't in the industrialized nations. It's the un-industrialized segment of the world where the population nearly tripled. If the Have Nots are already pumping out babies that they can't afford, what makes anyone think they will stop doing so in 2100?

The reason we think they will stop doing so is because they have Already started stopping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#mediaviewer/File:Trends_in_TFR_1950-2050.png

Total fertility rates are falling rapidly in those Have Nots.
(even if you just look at the non predicted data in that graph..ie up to 2000-2005 even Africa is falling)

 

[3of5]

Somewhat related. I used to work at an electrical supply warehouse. I only worked there for 7 years, but in that time I saw a LOT of what was happening in the realm of electricity generation and energy efficiency. In less than 5 years time, the efficiency of solar panels improved by _60%_. At the same time, the cost of materials and the amount of materials to make those improved solar panels went down. In the same time frame, the efficiency of everything from light bulbs to air conditioning units improved anywhere from 25 -135%. In less than 7 years.

that is my whole point: we did not care about efficieny much 15 years ago, then pumped into research, picked all the low hanging fruit and are still way overbudget in terms of natural ressources. You can't have more than 100% efficiency due to the laws of thermodynamics. Extrapolating the trend of the last years where we got from 30% yield to 80% yield is just not a sensible thing to do, because it is a physical impossibility.

In the realm of recycling, I happen to live in Marin County, CA. The Sanitary district for the county operates a recycling program that is award-winning in that for the entire county over 90% of trash is recycled. It shows what _can_ be done when the effort is made to maximize efficiency.

Trash just represents a huge entropy sink. Sure there are a lot of ressources in there, but most of them are fused together in a way that makes recycling those extremely energy intensive (making recycling "old" trash not viable often). Even recycling "modern" trash, where standards in designing it aknowledge the need to be again seperated later for recycling purposes is very energy intensive. This goes from less intensive than from raw minerals (i.e. Aluminum) to more energy intensive in case of plastics. A recycling rate of 90% has still 10% waste and reusing only half of these 10% will be more difficult to achieve than the whole 90% before. A recycling rate of 90% probably encompasses many forms of downcycling, where e.g. shredded plastics get used as fleece in low quality one use applications like floor cover for wall painting, effectively increasing trash quantity the second time it comes to the recycling facility. Because consumer logic teaches us, that amassing huge quantities of packaging materials is not an issue as long as these come frome recycled waste. Most of the already downcycled material will probably get thrown into the incinerator the second time around (or the third) and because we can use energy and heat to replace fossil fuels that don't have to be burned instead, that would probably count towards the 90% recycling rate too, but we don't really get the oil back, do we? In that notice, remember the 10% that don't get recycled, because it would be far too energy intensive? Thats where all the rare earth materials like cobalt and important minerals like phosphor end up.

Don't get me wrong, recycling is great and it heavily reduces the impact on enviroment and dependability on finite ressources, but we are far from it actually solving the mentioned problems that would leave earth ressource starved in the forseable future. And it is hugely energy dependend. No energy, no recycling. In case it isn't obvious: thats my field of occupational expertise.

In regards to population growth, go back to the video. The largest growth isn't in the industrialized nations. It's the un-industrialized segment of the world where the population nearly tripled. If the Have Nots are already pumping out babies that they can't afford, what makes anyone think they will stop doing so in 2100?

The "have nots" are "pumping out babies" because they are "have nots". Every single accepted sociological theory identifies high birth rates as way to cope with high economical insecurity. In laymans terms: when you don't have a state-secured social security system and the education to grant access to higher productivity jobs (like intensive agriculture) you'd be relying on a high number of kids (of whom many may die before reaching adulthood) both as cheap labor in the field and as security for old age. Realizing this some decades (!) ago is how we put a lid on exponential population growth (through the millenium development goals). Malthusian horror scenarios from the 19th century are not very valid sociological models today because almost all of the prerequisites have changed in the meantime. Only fanaticists that want to invoke fear of other cultures still drum that beat. The main problem is not poor congolesians multiplying, but indians and chinese beginning to adopt western lifestyles. Than again why should them be denied what we don't want to give up ourselves?

I retain that the infliction point and great mistake scenarios that CivBE bases on are indeed realistic.

 

[CaptainPatch]

The reason we think they will stop doing so is because they have Already started stopping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#mediaviewer/File:Trends_in_TFR_1950-2050.png

What you are overlooking by focusing on the dropping fertility rate is that it is _still_ a positive growth rate. Even if that growth rate drops to 1%, six billion people are still going to be adding 60 million people to the overall population. Over 100 years, they will have more than doubled the population.

A LOT of people don't bother to plan their families. You've got over 1/6th of the world's population condemning the use of _any_ kind of birth control. "Family planning" to reduce the number of children for many families amounts to abortion. It's going to take a long, long time before that approach is readily acceptable worldwide. In order to successfully make the Have Nots to stop growing the population, it will require force of some kind. If resources are scant, bribing them to not have kids won't be possible. So it would take the enforcement of Law -- arresting violators of the One Child Act and making it impossible for them to violate the law ever again (forced sterilization) is about the only viable method. And going that route WILL bring on some truly epic riots and revolts. You think the world is messed up now? Just wait until that s*** hits the fan!

 

[Lord Shadow]

What you are overlooking by focusing on the dropping fertility rate is that it is _still_ a positive growth rate. Even if that growth rate drops to 1%, six billion people are still going to be adding 60 million people to the overall population. Over 100 years, they will have more than doubled the population.

I'm not an expert on demographics nor anything, but fertility rate doesn't translate to pure growth rate. Growth rate is a function of births versus deaths, which means that if fertility keeps dropping, growth slows down and population numbers might stagnate or even decline. Unless mortality drops proportionately, but I find that unlikely.

 

[CaptainPatch]

I'm not an expert on demographics nor anything, but fertility rate doesn't translate to pure growth rate. Growth rate is a function of births versus deaths, which means that if fertility keeps dropping, growth slows down and population numbers might stagnate or even decline. Unless mortality drops proportionately, but I find that unlikely.

Fertility rate is calculated as the number of births per 1000 women of child-bearing age (15-44). Growth rate is the number of total births, minus the number of total deaths, divided by the initial total population of that year.

Even if the fertility rate has been steadily dropping -- fewer women are having children each year -- that number is STILL enough that even after the deaths are accounted for, there has been significant overall total population growth. http://www.worldpopulationstatistics.com/population-rankings/world-population-by-year/

Men and women are NOT going to stop having sex. And with that many people having sex, you WILL be getting a significant percentage of pregnancies. Those people that have access to birth control (including abortion clinics) -- mostly the industrialized and developing nations, which account for less than half of the world's population -- can put a crimp in births there. But that still leaves four billion people that don't have easy access to birth control. And many of those have a llllooooonnnnnggggg tradition of producing LOTS of kids. (Mainly to compensate for a high infant mortality rate.) But with improved Medicine, the people in the undeveloped nations are living longer AND having the infant mortality rate diminish.

Because of the differential in birth rates, the undeveloped population has a significantly larger growth rate while the population sector that understand better the impact of too many mouths to feed AND access to more birth control are only just approaching stagnation, rather than negative population growth. Even if they go negative, the undeveloped world will continue to outpace that rate.

We can already see the effect of poverty and instability on the undeveloped world. The numbers of people infiltrating more affluent nations has been growing steadily, despite attempts to stem the tide. That puts a continually growing greater strain on the dwindling resources of the developed nations. Unless countries start to make illegal border crossings a near-certain fatal experience, the influx WILL continue. And what is the State of the Nation likely to be when that solution gets applied?

Anyway I look at it, I can't see the likelihood of a stagnant status quo for 400 years. Either Science & Tech WILL develop means to augment and/or make resource utilization super-efficient (= S & T advances continue) or the world WILL tear itself apart as the Haves and Have Nots battle it out.

[I expect this dialog is going to end up as "Agree to disagree".]