Re: Population modelling

G'day Tom,

 >When I said it would be economically
 >difficult to ship out millions of
 >people, I meant that.

Difficult yes, but <and this may be coming down to differing GZGverse 
views...Jon's really created a monster here ;)> not insurmountable.

 >a) moving bulk volume of people in
 >FT takes ridiculous amounts of
 >mass

It was ridiculously expensive and space consuming during the age-of-sail

(and even earlier) but people still did it. Given the resource depleted 
state of the Earth it may (seem to) be economically sensible to spend a
few 
quazillion razoos to get to system alpha if it means you suddenly have
(at 
least initially) uncontested access to a lot more than the original few 
quazillion razoos.

 >The justification for c) above is the
 >nature of the GZGverse. Look at the
 >canon history - conflicts running
 >almost all the time. If you could
 >obliterate 100K or even 10K of
 >your opponents, I'm sure you'd find at least
 >one enemy willing to do that. And as soon
 >as somebody blows up 1 big
 >transport or 10, then everyone
 >must gaurd them. And THAT would take a huge
 >investment of people.

You've got a sound point, but considering the small crews on GZG ships
its 
less a people and more a money and resources issue. It makes colony
ships 
more expensive, but still not totally ludicrous. Or at least so it must 
seem to the governments of the day if the NAC is going to have 17 odd 
planets by 2180s ;)

 >What was your prediction for the capability
 >of the Biosphere (carrying capacity) in 2185?

About 30 billion. The model allows for an overshot to about 35 to 40 
billion but it I'd be bad going as the population fell back to close to 
carrying capacity or below (widespread famine, plagues, social unrest
even 
in the most developed of nations and much much worse in the poorer
nations).

 >supporting 15 billion might not be
 >more than mildly taxing (as an average...
 >knowing human distribution of
 >resources/money, some areas
 >will be awesome, others real crappy).

Very true the global capacity won't be smoothly spread out across the 
continents, places such as Australia would need radical terraforming to
see 
their carrying capacity get close to even 100 million let alone what
China 
already supports.

 >The die-back scenario certainly is interesting.

Not least for the kind of societies they think it would produce ;)

 >If we believe the off-Earth pop should
 >be in the 15-25% range, that suggests
 >2.25 to 5 billion people all together off earth.
 >Enough to get some votes, but not to control
 >the political frameworks of the day.

Which would explain why they wouldn't be too worried about writing off
some 
of the outer colonies during the Xeno War, though any survivors aren't 
going to be too happy/friendly when the dust settles ;)

 >As to my comment about economics
 >and birth rates, and your reply about
 >education:
 >	a) generally, but not always,
 >education is more prevalent in
 >prosperous nations
 >	b) women in the work force tends
 >to equal women not having huge
 >families or having no family at all
 >	c) prosperity tends to be its own limiter

Once again sound points which have been the prime mechanics identified
in 
the past, just recently though there has been quite a few papers
published 
showing education of women alone is enough. The hand that rocks the
cradle 
rules the world don't they say? ;)

 >And as for the high birth rates in the
 >colonies... it could be done that
 >way. But we're assuming that an
 >agro-bot costs a lot to make on Taliban IV.
 >It might not.

True, but it might. I think there's enough give in that whole topic to 
accommodate the various backgrounds people want to think up. What's true
of 
planet x in the NAC needn't be true for planet y in the ORC.

 >Penal colonies are also another
 >exception, but people might even
 >sterilize prisoners...

True, but they had that option in the past and haven't taken it. Like I 
said it worked before ;)

 >the last thing I'd
 >want is my dissidents overpopulating
 >and coming back at my empire 100 years
 >down the road....

Ahh but do you think the UK has noticed our subtle invasion via the
influx 
of battalions of the humble backpacker yet? ;P

 >As to the GZGverse "MegaModel" -
 >it's on the stack of tasks to take a swing
 >at over the winter. So "I'll be in touch"

I'm ready willing and able... or is that slack lazy idle and
indolent.... 
mmm must get that sorted out ;)

 >(and no excuses about little
 >things like Theses shall be acceptable...
 >if need be I'll straighten your
 >"advisor" out on what constitutes a "priority"
 >.... *wink*).

Then you can sort out my mother, husband and all other relatives who
think 
that me finishing up and having a paying job would be quite a good thing
;)

Cheers

Beth

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au