Population

[Tom Mazanec]

How many Rac Conan Daimh are there? Given the size of their nation, the fact that it is "magical medieval" level tech, and the fact that it has one city and six towns and sprinkled tiny communities, I would guess maybe a million, half of them in Sanctuary. Am I pretty close, RHjr?

[RHJunior]

Hard to say, really. They do reproduce bountifully... however their population recently (as in within the past 10- 20 years) took a bad hit from a fever that killed many of the very young and the very old. Population growth, contrary to the science-poor "population bomb", is never a linear progression.

[BlasTech]

just out of interestest, what would the population of the gragum be like? theres a fair bit of land for them to live in throughout the swamp but i cant envisage them numbering in the millions. (although id think if they were fulfilling the role of border deterrents then there'd have to be at least quite a few)

Its just that im writing abit of background stuff for Kahlin's family in the mysteries rp, and i was wondering if 1000 was too small a number for the rac-cona to be aware of? (or, (hopefully not), too large)

[Astral]

Hard to say, really. They do reproduce bountifully... however their population recently (as in within the past 10- 20 years) took a bad hit from a fever that killed many of the very young and the very old. Population growth, contrary to the science-poor "population bomb", is never a linear progression.

So that would explain why there are a fair few one child families at the mo, even though they reproduce margionaly rapidly? or atleast from what we've seen so far.

[RHJunior]

right on the money.

[Tom Mazanec]

RHjr:
The population bomb did not say that population WOULD grow this way. It said that IF the world's population continued growing as fast as it was, than in some centuries there would be something like one person per square foot of land surface of the Earth. This was not wrong science, it was simple mathematics. Then it pointed out that something would have to stop this. It guessed famine would do it. I think it is wrong about this, I believe (do not know, so let's not get into a debate) that nanotechnology will allow a demographic transition which will stabilize population at perhaps half again 2005's. If we do not get nanotech or some equivalent to allow our energy structure to become sustainable (probably solar), then growth will stop disasterously. We will either run out of oil (and oil is finite in quantity, and unlike the Rac Conan's metal cannot be reused), or we will substitute coal, gas, oil shale, tar sands, methane clathates, etc. than we will eventually poison our atmosphere (and if we use THAT much carbon fuel we will do so). Uranium is also finite and non-recyclable. Even Limits to Growth (a more responsible book then Paul Ehrlich's screed) did not forcast the collapse before now. It forecast the "Point of No Return" for 2000, and collapse about a generation later, so if we waited for things to start getting bad it would be way too late to reverse course. I think this is too pessimistic, but they were also right that exponential growth cannot continue forever on a finite planet, and wanted a controlled leveling. These are not prophecies, btw, they are predictions. Weathermen do a pretty good job, but we don't stone Dick Goddard when Cleveland gets 6 inches of "partly cloudy". Their timing may be off, but they will be right (one way or another) sooner or later.

[Quantum Fox]

The theory behind the population bomb was bad science because it based predictions not on the way resources get consumed or populations grow in real life, but rather extrapolated an unrealistic usage and efficiency curve into a make believe disaster. The first books on cataclysmic resource collapse were writting back in the 1800's and have been steady sellers ever since.

The writers picked out some extreme data sets, then combined them into a sensationalistic nonsense. When population centers get too crowded, people stop having kids. Practically every dense urban zone on the planet is a population sink, not a population source. When resources get tight, people look for new resources, they don't usually just use them up.

The 'energy' debate is one of the worst examples of bad numbers. People don't want raw heat, they want transportation, communication, preservation, etc. The better you are at making use of energy, the more energy is economical to harvest and the more benefits are possible. Restricting people to some absolute fraction doesn't make them more efficient, it makes them poorer. Every time efficiency goes up, energy use and public benefit goes up. This has been true since the first steam engine and will remain true when we have solar platforms in orbit.

A couple myths to bust:
1. Oil is finite and we will use it up. Economically and scientifically that is false. Science lets us create oil from scratch, expensive but becoming cheaper all the time. (Look at articles on converting aggrarian waste into diesel fuel) Economics tells us that when oil prices go up, people switch to alternatives. Given that some oil deposits will always be too expensive to get at, we will never fully exploit all fossil deposits.
2. Uranium is finite and non-recyclable. This is both factually true and technically immaterial. We are capable of generating massive amounts of nuclear fuel, but have chosen not to do so because of worry over nuclear proliferation, not limited supplies.

[Astral]

T

1. Oil is finite and we will use it up. Economically and scientifically that is false. Science lets us create oil from scratch, expensive but becoming cheaper all the time. (Look at articles on converting aggrarian waste into diesel fuel) Economics tells us that when oil prices go up, people switch to alternatives. Given that some oil deposits will always be too expensive to get at, we will never fully exploit all fossil deposits.

The prosess of so call 'alkain-asembily' is not just expecive, it is increadably complex. Even if this eventualy did replace our curent suply, we symply wouldn't be able to produce enough to satisfy global demand, and remember, we've got conteries in the third world that might be starting to put even more stress on that demand once they begin to emerge.

[Quantum Fox]

Expensive? Sure it is. But folks have been doing it since the turn of the century. Sometimes it's cheaper/more accessible than shipping it in.
Complex? Only if you want to do it more cheaply, which we do.

Were it considered a real prioriity, oil manufacture _can_ be done to supply everyone on the globe with x gallons a year, but it's not worth the cost. (One proposal suggested flooding a desert with seawater and growing a high-oil algea to get the quantities needed) Oil is popular because it is cheap and utilitarian, but nobody wants it for itself. People want plastics, fuels, rubber, and lubricants, not crude oil. Every one of those items can be produced by alternative means, just at a somewhat higher cost. Were oil cost to increase enough, all of those items would still be provided. You _can_ get natural rubber from a desert plant instead of a tropical rubber tree (currently used for medical items for folks alergic to latex). You _can_ get plastic from corn instead of oil (Though its only real advantage is for advertising how 'green' you are). You can get fuel by electrolysis of ordinary water. However, people go for the lowest cost route, which means using underground oil until it gets too expensive. That's economics, that won't change, and I can't see worrying about a resource whose only unique attribute is being _slightly_ cheaper than the alternatives. Especiallly not given the advances in the alternatives piling up.

I worry far more about third world countries who don't halt corrupt practices than I do about ones wanting to buy oil and raising the price.[/quote]

[Anthony Lion]

just out of interestest, what would the population of the gragum be like? theres a fair bit of land for them to live in throughout the swamp but i cant envisage them numbering in the millions. (although id think if they were fulfilling the role of border deterrents then there'd have to be at least quite a few)

I think this was answered in THIS strip of the FreeFall comic...
(That should give a rought estimate on the minimum population, at least.)

[Steltek]

What about thermal depolymerization? It's pretty inexpensive, and very energy efficient.