Gentlesophonts:
First off, I accept that the most likely explanation of the constant
population levels in the CT/MT Spinward Marches UWP sources is that this
information all comes from a single census. I still feel though that
this population issue isn't really relevant to and somewhat needlessly
confuses the tech level growth issue.
My good friend Hans Rancke [email removed] writes:
> Regina's change from TL 10 to TL 12, and it was
> suggested that that was merely a correction of a typo.
It wasn't a typo. The TL 10 listing for Regina also appears in *Book 6:
Scouts* and *Book 7: Merchant Prince*.
> 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.
Maybe, but I think `frontier' might mean something quite `advanced' in terms
of `development' in a millenium-old interstellar empire.
> 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.
No. Most migrations are from rural areas to urban areas and result in
an increase in population in developed areas and a decrease in developing
areas. Even in developed areas migration is only from the urban center
to the suburban fringe. There is no sigificant migration from New York
City to rural Iowa, much less to rural Somalia. There has been a great deal
of migration from rural Haiti and rural Central America to urban Florida,
California and Texas. Similarly, migration in the Regency can be expected
to be from low-pop worlds to high-pop worlds. This may not show up as
changes in population figures because *a lot* of folks from *a lot* of
low pop worlds would have to immigrate to Porozlo, say, before the population
number there changes much.
> 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?
To some extent, yes. I'm not sure what you mean by `unified'. Do you mean
`isolated' instead?
> 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.
I'm not sure I get your point. If you mean could an economy of 1 billion
easily affect a neighboring economy of 100 million (assuming somewhat
equivalent tech levles), I'd have to agree. If you mean could an economy
of 1 billion cause severe *fluctuation* (enough to affect tech level) in
a neighboring economy of 100 million, I'd have to say again that it's not
very likely. The larger economy would have to fluctuate quite a lot to
do that. This might be more pronounced in a 10 million economy or smaller
though.
> There are scores of low-population worlds with a high-tech
> classification that they couldn't _possibly_ maintain on their own
> population base.
Yes, yes. I thought we'd already agreed that these anomalies don't fit our
understanding of tech level as measuring technological capability?
Happy Travelling,
David Johnson
Houston, TExas, USA