Re: Madison Nightmare (Geopolitics in Jon's Universe)

Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> 
> > Obscure? An Indonesia which has conquered most of the Tigers, or the
> > combination of Argentina and Brazil... OK, the Islamics and the
> > Pan-Africans would probably be hard pressed; but they still have a
_lot_
> > more natural resources as well as a population base more than twenty
> > times ours.
> 
> I think the level of industrialization is far more important than
> population count, or even natural resources.
> 
> > Somehow I find it more likely that the ESU and NAC sponsor
> > third world countries than us, too :-/
> 
> Yeah, that's the only way I can buy the Israelis being a space power.
> 
> --
> maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio)	    | A pig who doesn't
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> Maininkitie 8A8 02320 ESPOO FINLAND | Hate me?    |	       - Porco
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The reason the Israelis are a space power is that they invented FTL,
along with the help of the Japanese. As far as the other countries go,
it doesn't take a large population to get into space, just money and
technology. If the Scandinavian countries could pool their resources
they have more than enough to build ships and go exploring. If you look
at colonial history, people will reproduce to fill their space, so if
they started a colony you might find that its pop. growth vastly
exceeded the home countries.