The first Civ game without governments?

[3of5]

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

actually no... since a population growth model is not a question of opinion, but of facts. The countries not having been able to curtail population growth (for "political or religious" reasons) are few and even in deeply christian countries birth control is practiced. Where there is a lack of access to contraception, there are many unsafe illegal abortions, often resulting in death or permanent injury to the mother.

To understand population growth you'll need two basic concepts: fertility rate in conjunction with death rate and secondly the population pyramid (age distribution). Most of the countries with the highest growth rates today have sizable populations in childbearing age (up to 2/3 of pop). But they have quite low to medium fertility rates (around 2 per woman). This means that they grow towards a population equilibrium and the only reason they grow as fast is that there are fewer old people to die from old age than there are babies born (because atm there are fewer old people than fertile people and old people live increasingly longer). In 20-30 years they will reach a state of population equilibrium or even begin to shrink (when the two child/family model becomes the traditional model, while at the same time some people don't procreate). This is known as "the great fillup" (please google it if I failed to explain it sufficiently).

Serious simulations predict a probable global target population of 10 billion after which it will begin to slowly decline. Current global agricultural output can sustain 12 billion people (healthy, low-meat, low-dairy diet, no biofuels). Nevertheless agricultural specialists (I can recommend Jonathan Foley on that topic) predict a demand increase of 50% by 2050 which they think they CAN actually handle (theoretically allowing to feed 18 billion people a healthy diet). This would be possbile through closing yield gaps. Especcially in Africa the abolishment of adverse trade policies (like export subsidies in EU and US), sustainable irrigation infrastructure (not the saudi way), agricultural education and the application of no waste agriculture could produce enormous yields (making even a far more populous Afrika a net food exporter easily).

Growth is not an issue any more and surely not the big threat it seemed to be just 20 years ago (the world actively handled that problem quite well). Today hunger is merely a symptom of bad management of income distribution (there are people threatened by hunger even in the US). But it is still a convenient way to scare the uneducated masses into voting right wing fearmongers. Thats where ideas like killing illegal immigrants at the border instead of reducing global inequality come from. Despicable and unworthy of anyone claiming to be a human being.

Wholly another question is what will happen if the existing 3-4 billion living in emergent countries decide they want to live like the west. But that has nothing to do at all with population growth, since they all already live today and won't grow that much (as i have explained).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

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".]

If you are having families with only one child, the population will die off.

In the EU, the average woman has 1.59 kids...which means that the population of Europe is currently set to go Down (neglecting immigration)

For some other areas the number of kids per family is high, but less than it was...and most predictions are that the average number of kids for a woman will be ~2 or even less. (and that is by Choice)
Currently the 'populations set to slowly die off' list includes the US, Canada, Brazil, Europe (-France), Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Iran, and a number of other countries (all of them in blue on this map.. and some of the ones in green..because of higher death rates)
Only China has forced population reduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#mediaviewer/File:Countriesbyfertilityrate.svg
Also notice the "Have Not" countries like Iran, Vietnam that are there

And that is Currently in 2014...Fertility rates have fallen in the Have Nots and are predicted to continue to fall. (as the have nots move from poor farms into urban slums... and they Are capable of reducing births)
Birth control is not That complicated/expensive and the biggest reasons for high # of births are
1. poor status of women (once mom is good for something besides having/taking care of babies in society, she does that)
2. high benefit of having children (an extra mouth is also an extra pair of hands on the farm)

So over time as people move into cities, and women gain some status (not necessarily equal but slightly valuable in non-mom ways) then the Fertility rate goes down, and the birthrate goes down, and until we develop immortality... that means that world population dies off faster than it is being born.

 

[CaptainPatch]

If you are having families with only one child, the population will die off.

In the EU, the average woman has 1.59 kids...which means that the population of Europe is currently set to go Down (neglecting immigration)

If we are going to be debating WORLD population growth or decline, you can't just focus on those areas that make your case. Here's a comparison of fertility rates by nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

Yup, nearly half the world is on the decline. The other half, otoh, are still on the rise. Theoretically, it's that half of the world that can least afford to have additional children. Have population starts to shrink while Have Not population keeps growing. With those comparative growth/decline rates, whatever space the Haves make with its negative growth rate will be more than offset by the Have Nots growth rate. There is already a migration of Have Nots moving to Have nations. Just look at the demographics of practically any industrialized nation and you will readily see a rapidly growing percentage of immigrant populations. Whatever "savings" the Haves make by having a negative growth rate is essentially canceled out by the influx of Have Not immigrants. Meanwhile, back in the Have Not nations, people are still popping out babies at an excessive rate.

The overall population that keeps a high fertility rate keeps increasing in size and spreading over the globe into the "enlightened" areas. The net effect is that the population percentage that understands the need for population control are being displaced by those people that don't give a gosh darn. Having babies to them is the "natural order of things". A primary function of adults is to have offspring; it validates their adulthood. NOT having children is practically anathema. Did not God say, "Be fruitful and multiply"? To avoid having children is contrary to God's WILL!

Ulp. Sorry about that. I think I started to channel a fundamentalist there for a bit. Dangerous subject, this. Let's all sorts of bad spirits loose.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If we are going to be debating WORLD population growth or decline, you can't just focus on those areas that make your case. Here's a comparison of fertility rates by nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

Yup, nearly half the world is on the decline. The other half, otoh, are still on the rise. Theoretically, it's that half of the world that can least afford to have additional children. Have population starts to shrink while Have Not population keeps growing. With those comparative growth/decline rates, whatever space the Haves make with its negative growth rate will be more than offset by the Have Nots growth rate. There is already a migration of Have Nots moving to Have nations. Just look at the demographics of practically any industrialized nation and you will readily see a rapidly growing percentage of immigrant populations. Whatever "savings" the Haves make by having a negative growth rate is essentially canceled out by the influx of Have Not immigrants. Meanwhile, back in the Have Not nations, people are still popping out babies at an excessive rate.

The overall population that keeps a high fertility rate keeps increasing in size and spreading over the globe into the "enlightened" areas. The net effect is that the population percentage that understands the need for population control are being displaced by those people that don't give a gosh darn. Having babies to them is the "natural order of things". A primary function of adults is to have offspring; it validates their adulthood. NOT having children is practically anathema. Did not God say, "Be fruitful and multiply"? To avoid having children is contrary to God's WILL!

Ulp. Sorry about that. I think I started to channel a fundamentalist there for a bit. Dangerous subject, this. Let's all sorts of bad spirits loose.

100% of the world* is in Fertility Rate decline (all of those "have nots" have a lower fertility now than 50 years ago)
Once Fertility Rate gets to ~2 the population begins to decline

People don't reduce their # of kids for 'enlightened population control'
People reduce their # of kids because it is overall better for them to do so. (this takes time to works its way through culture..when X number of kids becomes expected because X number of kids seems to be the best family)


*there may be a few small nations that aren't but not any general category (like 'the have nots' or 'Africa' or 'India'

 

[DarkestOnion]

I have examined contradictory statistics for both Overpopulation and Underpopulation. The only cohesive picture that i was able to draw was that it will balance itself out in the long run. There is no need to panic in either direction in my estimation. Furthermore, if we decide to colonize space there will always be room for more people somewhere out there in the stars imho.

 

[3of5]

I have examined contradictory statistics for both Overpopulation and Underpopulation. The only cohesive picture that i was able to draw was that it will balance itself out in the long run. There is no need to panic in either direction in my estimation. Furthermore, if we decide to colonize space there will always be room for more people somewhere out there in the stars imho.

I agree that is seems to balance quite well and panic is not really warranted.

I disgree on the prospects of huge tracts of fertile land among the stars though. Just moving millions of surplus population offworld will never be feasible. Even with space elevators (which we have no clue how to construct (in terms of material sciences) have still high energy demand/kg sent into orbit and actually getting somewhere useful is another question entirely. By chance just today i stumbled upon an (maybe slightly too pessimistic) estimation by esteemed scifi author Charles Stross (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the-high-frontier-redux.html) which made some calculations. Its pretty obvious that colonisation will probably always be more a kind of seeding type mission rather than 18th century mass migration and trade with another continent (sporting time lags of only weeks or months). Space will be different in that regard.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I agree that is seems to balance quite well and panic is not really warranted.

I disgree on the prospects of huge tracts of fertile land among the stars though. Just moving millions of surplus population offworld will never be feasible. Even with space elevators (which we have no clue how to construct (in terms of material sciences) have still high energy demand/kg sent into orbit and actually getting somewhere useful is another question entirely. By chance just today i stumbled upon an (maybe slightly too pessimistic) estimation by esteemed scifi author Charles Stross (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the-high-frontier-redux.html) which made some calculations. Its pretty obvious that colonisation will probably always be more a kind of seeding type mission rather than 18th century mass migration and trade with another continent (sporting time lags of only weeks or months). Space will be different in that regard.

Although of course that assumes physics currently as is.
With something like a Purity/Supremacy Warpgate, you dramatically change it.

 

[CaptainPatch]

I have examined contradictory statistics for both Furthermore, if we decide to colonize space there will always be room for more people somewhere out there in the stars imho.

Just sending less than a half-dozen people off-world is TREMENDOUSLY resource-intensive. And literally, unless they can figure out how to be sending at least hundreds of thousands in one year -- without bankrupting the planet -- migration off-planet barely scratches the population.

Although of course that assumes physics currently as is.
With something like a Purity/Supremacy Warpgate, you dramatically change it.

Warpgate is supposedly a Colonial endgame tech. Theoretically, Earth-tech is going to be literally light-years behind in tech develop. (Or so people keep telling me.)

 

[DarkestOnion]

In reality, I think Human Extrasolar Colonization will consist of suspended animation human embryos monitored by an on-board AI which looks for habitable planets for a very long time. After arrival at a habitable world, the AI will construct a Colony before birthing the First Colonists. Then those people will be raised and educated by the AI...until they are ready to assume administrative control of the Colony themselves.

 

[CaptainPatch]

In reality, I think Human Extrasolar Colonization will consist of suspended animation human embryos monitored by an on-board AI which looks for habitable planets for a very long time. After arrival at a habitable world, the AI will construct a Colony before birthing the First Colonists. Then those people will be raised and educated by the AI...until they are ready to assume administrative control of the Colony themselves.

I agree with the suspended animation wholeheartedly. That makes it possible to have literally thousands in "cold storage". But given the unpredictable nature of space where something incredibly small can ruin everyone's day/life, I doubt that they would entirely trust an AI to have 100% control. Rather, I think that out of those thousands, many/most would be trained to at least run skeleton crew functions. If something comes up that the skeleton crew is at a loss as to what to do, and whatever the emergency is, and it is outside of the AI's programming, the skeleton crew can revive the appropriate specialists. Crew shifts would be for three month stretches, and a given skeleton crew member would only be revived to do a shift every ten years or so. 40 shifts x 3 months = 120 months = aging only 10 years across a 400 year voyage. That is an acceptable aging for a journey of such magnitude.

There is absolutely no way that even the most brilliantly programmed AI would be able to deal with setting up a new colony on its own. It is limited by what the programmers may have anticipated. But by definition, it is a TOTALLY alien planet. NOBODY knows precisely what to expect. Therefore there will need to be an Exploration Team, a Construction Team, a Botany Evaluation Team, and a Biology Evaluation Team, and probably a Security Combat Team just in case, to make the human decisions and evaluations before final decisions are made as to where is the best to locate the colony, to assure that there are no threatening native life forms, etc. These can be small teams, heavily supported by AI-controlled machinery. Give them a year or so to do their research and erect the housing and offices for the rest of the colonists.

Here's an example as to why there have to be at least a few humans overseeing the setup operation: A likely site is picked. Abundant resources are nearby all around. No hostile life forms are evident. However, there's a parasitic protein microorganism that latches vegetation -- like crops -- which no human has ever seen before, and therefore the AI was never programmed to react to. The hazardous nature isn't obvious. What it does is that as the plant grows, so does the parasite, becoming thoroughly entwined. It can't be separated out because like dandelions, if you miss even a speck, it grows right back. The hazard doesn't manifest until an animal (that would be humans in this case) consumes the vegetable matter. The abundance of digestive juices in the human body ignites a rapid growth in the parasite.

Of course something like that might get spotted when grazing animals bloat up and explode.

Anyway, an AI most likely wouldn't spot something like that. And if it was programmed to go looking blindly for a whole litany of might-be-there's, it would never get around to reviving anyone because there might be a hazard out there; it just hasn't found it yet. And after 400 years on ice, the colonists would want to be revived ASAP. Specialist teams revived first are the compromise between the two extremes.

 

[3of5]

It depends if you are using a programmed AI or an AGI (artificial general intelligence), which is able to actually learn and solve problems like a human would. We don't have that tech, and its not guaranteed we will ever have it, but its more probable than working cryo tech for grown humans that does not turn cells into a mush of dead biomass. And why send life support and human accomodations if you could make your ship that much smaller (and therefore cheaper or faster) by sending only an AGI, a few million frozen fertilzed ova, some neumann machines under AGI control and the blueprints for artificial uteri. Thats assuming we don't go the supremacy route as a species obviously in which case the neumann machines ARE the colonists.

Also you would send this conveniently small package on one way trips to different destinations you'd expect being able to harbor life (with the instructions of going inert/self destruct if stumbling upon intelligent life, since one would never know how they react and if they could be a danger to homeworld). The reason you would not have one ship, looking for a suitable planet is that if you don't have a live crew anyway there is no ethical reason not to destruct the ship on mission failure (unless you're catholic in which case there is a religious reason). Just send more of these to different destinations and make sure they report their findings back to earth before destruction. Maybe send more than one to any destination, just in case. Fuel and reaction mass (if we don't find a way around that, like quantum drives) is the major weight+cost factor, so you'd pack only enough to reach the target system and have some leeway to navigate there, but not enough to set course to another system if the first does not prove to be habitable. This is the space spermatozoa fire and forget mass colonisation plan.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If you have an AGI, then morally it is the colonist. (Any humans are pets)

 

[3of5]

If you have an AGI, then morally it is the colonist. (Any humans are pets)

Damn, i forgot KI rights, even if the AGI would not see humans as his pets to WorShip it would have the same rights as any other individuum, so it would have to be ok with being delfdestructed in case of mission failure (it would be the equivalent of carrying a cyancali capsule on your mission). And thats obviously not ethically clear. What about mounting a strong comm laser on the seed ship so that it could beam itself back in case of mission failure?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Damn, i forgot KI rights, even if the AGI would not see humans as his pets to WorShip it would have the same rights as any other individuum, so it would have to be ok with being delfdestructed in case of mission failure (it would be the equivalent of carrying a cyancali capsule on your mission). And thats obviously not ethically clear. What about mounting a strong comm laser on the seed ship so that it could beam itself back in case of mission failure?

Simpler might be looking for AGI volunteers. (After all laser com damage is also likely)

Or fire off stupid ships with vonneanns that will build a large stable laser coms.
Either to send AI or just data so the colonists know a little bit what they are getting into.