All: Spinward Marches census (singular?)

David Johnson writes:
>First off, I thought we had given up on the technology issue?  :-)

More or less. But the discussion keeps shifting to new interesting aspects.
Now you're trying to suspend our disbelief in the notion that three different
UWP listings for the Spinward Marches made over a period of at least 12 years
could possibly have _all_ the population data identical.

>I merely stated that since there were changes to the UWP data over this
>fifteen year period

It is 17 years if your're talking about data from the earliest Traveller
background material (which didn't have population multipliers) and 12
years if you're talking about the three full listings I've mentioned
before. The only change I know of (although there may be others; I've
only spot checked) is Regina's change from TL 10 to TL 12, and it was
suggested that that was merely a correction of a typo.

>*and* the population and other figures were not changed that it must be
>*assumed* to have been done intentionally.

Only if there is no simpler explanation. I suggest that they are all three
based on the same census and that only the allegiance codes were updated
for the _Imperial Encyclopedia_ and the _Megatraveller Journal_ publications.
If there should be a few differences (and with a spot check of 10% of the
systems I didn't find a single one) I suggest that they are typos or
corections of typos.

>I did a little arithmetic though and found some interesting numbers. A
>population increase of 10% over a period of 15 years works out to an annual
>rate of increase of 0.64%.  Here are some `real' annual rates from a handy
>1990 almanac (these are net figures, accounting for births, deaths and
>migrations):
>
>US         0.7%
>Denmark    0.0%
>Japan      0.5%
>Spain      0.5%
>UK         0.2%
>France     0.4%
>USSR       1.0%
>Greece     0.1%
>Italy      0.0%
>Germany   -0.1% (a decrease!)
>India      2.2%
>
>It's clear for `developed' countries that something less than a 10% increase
>over a period of fifteen years is not unreasonable.

Agreed. As a matter of fact I'm of the opinion that the history of the
settlement of Charted Space does not make sense unless one postulates
that most well-developed worlds (not excluding the Aslan ones) practise
population control. But to go from there to the assumption that _all_
worlds in the Spinward Marches (a not yet developed area, after all)
practise it is IMO to go to far.

>Keep in mind as well that due to rounding conventions, a 10% increase (or
>decrease) will not show up even in the PBG population multipler (the
>mantissa) for values under 5 and that *only* a 10% *increase* will affect
>the actual UWP population code *if* the population multipler is 9.

I'm well aware of that. I used 10% as an average. Remember that roughly 10%
of the worlds should have a mantissa of X.4 (whatever X may be) and that in
that case considerably less than 10% increase is necessary to kick it over
into the next higher number. A world with a mantissa of 8.4, for example,
needs only a 1.2% increase to reach 8.5. Fulacin, a TL 5 world with a
population of 543 million in 1105 needs only a 1.3% increase. In 17 years!

>It's my impression that most worlds in the Spinward Marches are going to be
>more equivalent in terms of population growth to contemporary `developed'
>nations than to `developing' nations (just my opinion).

They certainly _ought_ to be, since they've had up to ten centuries of
developement. Yet Spinward Marches is again and again referred to as a
'frontier'  -  not only in the 'frontier with other nations' sense, but
also the 'developing area' sense. Certainly scores of systems seems to
be woefully undeveloped.

>Furthermore, while one might expect high birth rates and low death rates
>(due to available high tech medical care) on `developing' worlds one would
>also expect high rates of *emigration* (to high population worlds) to keep
>the net growth rate low.

Now, are you SURE you're not allowing the discussion to affect your good
sense here? I would expect a lot of emigration FROM high-population planets
to developing low-population planets. That's usually the way it goes here
on Earth: From the crowded (or opressive) to the less crowded.

>In fact, it is internal migration that ought to have the greatest effect
>on population for worlds within the Domain/Regency.

Oh, sure. But that should register too, shouldn't it?

>Now, I accept that it is quite incredulous not to see any change in *any*
>world population over a span of fifteen years (and I suspect if we looked
>hard enough we might even find a couple of changes due to errors in
>transcription) but I submit the above information in an effort to suggest
>that such an occurrence is not *impossible*.  (Maybe only as unlikely as
>the occurrence of `techno-economic cycles'.  :-)

Far more unlikely. I refer you to the examples of Forboldn, Fulacin, and
Vanejen. Each of them ought to have had changes in population, most likely
also TL and starport type in the case of the first two. In each case the
lack of change could be explained away. But it would have to be explained
AWAY. And my point is that if you need a new and distinct explanation for
each world you examine, then a simpler solution that explains them all is
to be preferred. I stand by my claim that the three different UWP listings
we have are one and the same (and one that was already somewhat out of date
in 1110).

>Nevertheless, I believe we were discussing tech levels not population levels
>and the fact that no tech levels changed still does not suggest that *any*
>of them went *down* so the lack of any evidence for the `techno-economic
>cycles' remains.  (Remember, I've already admitted the *possibility* that
>they *could* exist.  I can just explain Gram's domination of the Sword
>Worlds through the less incredulous agency of Zhodani aid.)
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^
                         incredible, surely?

I see no reason why both can't be true. Nevertheless, if you think that the
Zhodani help alone is sufficient (and I don't intend to dispute that) and
you don't believe the other then don't use it. (But I STILL think the
developement of the Spinward Marches has been slow, SLOW, *S*L*O*W*!!!)

>>There's no way all 400 worlds in the Spinward Marches could have had their
>>population level totally stagnant for 15 years. Some of them, sure. Not
>>even most of them, but some.
>
>It's *possible*, just not very damn likely.

I'd say that it's the same kind of "possible" you get when you're talking
about all the air in a room suddenly collecting under one table. Sure, it's
*possible*. ;-)

>>Try imagining economic boom cycles scaled to an interplanetary population,
>>rather than a single planet population. If a depression is severe enough,
>>the factories will close.
>
>Well, first off, it's my sense that as the size of the economy *increases*
>it becomes *more* difficult for economic down turns to affect technological
>capabilities (since there is more of a buffer to absorb down turns in
>particular sectors).

The size of a unified economy, yes. But do you really think that the Mexican
economy is the more stable because of the size of the population of the US?

>I've admitted this is possible though.  So, please give me some sense of
>your sense of the relative likeliness of these `techo-economic cycles'
>occurring as compared to the likelihood of there being no population change
>in the Marches over fifteen years. Twice as likely? Five times? Ten times?
>A hundred times?  It's my sense that these two occurrences are about
>*equally* likely. :^)

Oh, far, far from it. Orders of magnitude different. But then, I know
something of statistics and can't see the population thing happening in
a thousand years and have very little knowledge of economics and see no
difficulty at all in those economic swings. As for putting numbers on it,
that's difficult. But taking a wild stab I'd say that at any given year at
least one in a hundred worlds inside the Imperium is getting shafted enough
by outside manipulation to be on the decline and several times that number
outside the Imperium. Exactly how long it takes for a downturn to affect
the TL is another difficulty. Not less than 10 years, I'd say. And of course
a downturn would not always last long enough (As you can see, I'm weaseling
like crazy. That's because I really know too little about economics to put
numbers on anything. But I'll have a shot at defending these ones).

>>How severe? That's the whole point, isn't it? A planet with billions of
>>inhabitants may be difficult to affect... but maybe not too dificult if
>>you have even more billions of people to do it.
>
>Again, see above.  As the size of the economy grows it becomes *more*
>difficult for economic factors to affect overall technological capabilities.

Yes, but are you saying that 10 billion people have a greater difficulty
affecting 1 billion people than 1 billion people have affecting 100 million?
My guessing bone tells me that the proportions would remain roughly the
same.

>>Seems to me I've heard about factories in third-world countries that have
>>closed down after the parent company has pulled out. Admittedly I can't
>>quote any examples.
>
>Even if you could this is not a matter of technological fluctuation that
>is tied to economic factors.  If the country is unable to continue to
>operate the factory then it never *had* that level of capability.  The
>company that pulled out maintains its own tech level at its other facilities.

Oh yes it is. This is one thing I'm certain of (as defined by Traveller,
that is). There are scores of low-population worlds with a high-tech
classification that they couldn't _possibly_ maintain on their own
population base. In 1105 Fulacin ran a Type A starport and a TL of 13
with a population of 800. You couldn't even run a civilization with
half that TL with that. All these worlds must have their TLs artificially
maintained by outside sources.


      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "The referee should determine the nature of subsequent
         events based on the individual situation."
                                _76 Patrons_, p. 8