Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

15 billion is around the population capacity of earth. This is derivid from all the Farmland taken together, if we do not use it for inefficient stuff like raising Animals (only 25% the efficiency of growing crops).

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ORIGINAL: newageofpower

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

15 billion is around the population capacity of earth. This is derivid from all the Farmland taken together, if we do not use it for inefficient stuff like raising Animals (only 25% the efficiency of growing crops).

100 years ago, it was estimated at 50 billion with grain agriculture.

Today, with the possibility of orbital hydroponics, trillions might be possible, the real issue then becomes disposal of waste heat.

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And if you need to import food from orbit, you are beyond your carry capacity.

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ORIGINAL: Malagant

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And if you need to import food from orbit, you are beyond your carry capacity.

How many truck points do we need for that?!

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

And if you need to import food from orbit, you are beyond your carry capacity.

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ORIGINAL: Zanotirn

I would take "the more developed a society the lower the growth rate" with a grain of salt. Throughout 20th century growth rate plummeted with the creation of birth control and its gradual introduction into more advanced societies. However presumably in the future its introduction will be complete. The other factor limiting population growth is current cultural expectations in richer countries of what a child has to be provided (adult oversight, toys, quality of food, education, etc.) making children very expensive, combined with the collapse of tradition of grandparents and occasionally neighbours looking after kids (which would otherwise significantly reduce effort needed to raise them). This effect can easily be reversed in a growth-focused colony.

On the food subject, as long as you have hydroponics and abundance of energy (which is both true for GR), the space needed for agriculture can be drastically reduced as you can grow things in many tiers.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd

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ORIGINAL: Zanotirn

I would take "the more developed a society the lower the growth rate" with a grain of salt. Throughout 20th century growth rate plummeted with the creation of birth control and its gradual introduction into more advanced societies. However presumably in the future its introduction will be complete. The other factor limiting population growth is current cultural expectations in richer countries of what a child has to be provided (adult oversight, toys, quality of food, education, etc.) making children very expensive, combined with the collapse of tradition of grandparents and occasionally neighbours looking after kids (which would otherwise significantly reduce effort needed to raise them). This effect can easily be reversed in a growth-focused colony.

On the food subject, as long as you have hydroponics and abundance of energy (which is both true for GR), the space needed for agriculture can be drastically reduced as you can grow things in many tiers.

Reducing birthrates is not a cultural thing. It is a natural development of a society getting more developed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348

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- if a country "regressed" in development you'd expect the birth rate to increase then. But this generally did not happen. Russia in the immediate aftermath of 1991 experienced a birth rate fall, but on the other hand it's one of a handful of countries that experienced a recent period of significant birth rise - but that was during the early 2000s period when its economy was growing and it was catching up in infrastructure and integrating culturally and economically.
- Cuba birth rate plummeted after revolution and never recovered - while per "development level" theory you'd expect it to be largely cut off from the global trends and stay in the mid-20th century level. Ditto for Iran after its revolution.
- Generally more successful and still improving European states tend to be the ones that had some degree of population growth increase (if mild one) post 2000 - e.g. Germany and Czech Republic.
- On the other hand Afghanistan experienced a sharp birth rate decline after US invasion - its development growth was very modest, but its consistent with the spread of birth control post Sharia
- Israel keeps a high birth rate despite being one of the most developed countries
- The birth rate drop after development of contraceptive pills in some developed countries was very sharp, not really corresponding to a more gradual increase in development level. E.g. Canada went from average 3.8 children in 1960 to 1.7 in 1980. Germany had a growing birth rate in mid-20 century but then it went from 2.5 in 1965 to 1.45 in 1975. USA went from 3.6 in 1960 to 1.7 in 1975

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ORIGINAL: Way2co0l

Ok but we're also ignoring the effect of frontierism has on birth rates and how larger families with less stringent child labor laws allows for more productivity, safety, and prosperity. There are a lot of reasons for declines in Earth birth rates and the simplest of them is simply the fact that there are no real desirable untamed frontiers to expand into. When there's room to grow and families are incentized to have more kids for their own survival, they tend to do exactly that. And of course we're ignoring the effect of migration from already densely populated core worlds. Their birth rates would be lower and yet still account for a much larger number of people and leads to millions of new immigrants. When you combine both factors it's not at all unreasonable to see population growth that is beyond the scope of what you'd find on Earth within the current situations we find ourselves subjected to.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd
That argument is exactly the one I wanted to make and why the 50 Billion figure is unlikely in SE:
There is literally a thousand other worlds to move too, rather then staying on that hive world.

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ORIGINAL: scottrossi

it's been a long time since i've rolled a megacity world because i don't like how hard it makes the economy in the early game, but IIRC, they used to get up into the tens of billions. i seem to recall 17 billion as the highest i've ever seen. i spent a few days over the summer just rolling worlds to see what was possible. i just spent about 30 mins rerolling essentially a garden siwa world, and i didn't roll higher then 7 billion, so i'm wondering if the cap was lowered. still tons of ruins, although not quite the map covering ecumenopolis' from the past patches.

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ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Sub replacement fertility and the democraphic transition are a fact, on par with the theory of gravity.
Though Net Reproduction Rate better accounts for mortality (and hopefully emigration).

You are totally ignoring the factor of how much room is there for people:
If your economy is crashing, there would be nothing for your children to work at to feed themself. The room is limited, birthrates will decline faster.
Isreal has many kids, because they are severely underpopulated for their size. And most of the people that are born, are emigrating into other countries.

Germany was explained in the video. This is a lag from a baby boomer generation still having kids. As a german not having kids, I can confirm you it is indeed a thing.
The baby pills were merely a means of birthcontrol. The alternative included condoms and abstinency.
Note that this lag might be unwanted. For example China:
The land was going through about 500 years of socio-technological development in 50 years.
The expected lag from from the old generation still thinking "need a big family, most will die" would have caused a problematic population spike.
The one child policy was meerely there to accelerate the transition from pre to post development birthrates.

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Note that I don't dispute the basic fact of demographic transition.