Interstellar trade, empire and tech level

[rancke]

DGP and others break down TL nicely in World Builders Guide. TL is the shorthand for the capacity of that world to sustain that level of goods/services.

That's one of the canonical definitions, true enough. However, canonical examples of worlds where that cannot be true abound (Such as worlds with populations too small to maintain its TL, not to mention the whole Hard Times thing).

It's also a fairly useless definition for the purpose of refereeing, since it doesn't tell you anything about how much technology the world imports/is given (outposts set up by an offworld group will have a TL far in excess of its capacity to sustain technology).

A far better definition would be that TL is the level of technology used by a substantial majority of its population. This tells the referee (and players) what sort of technology they're likely to meet there, while at the same time leaving the door open for a limited amount of more sophisticated technology in the hands of the elite (and their bodyguards).


Hans

 

[Renaissance Man]

Virtually none of the tech effort from 3 up was contributed by South America, Africa, Asia, or the peripheral nations of Europe... Asia was the main mover from TL 1-3, but this was again with a far smaller population than currently exists in India, China, & the middle east.

I beg to differ. The push from TL2 to TL3 and beyond was sustained by resources and labour imported from all over the world. It would have been impossible without that contribution. Particularly, the rise of Europe was made possible thanks to the "contribution" of massive numbers of slaves and immigrants, and huge amounts of gold and silver from the new world, the periphery of Europe and Africa. However, these places did not get an equal share in the benefits of this TL development. This is the meaning of empire.

Which makes me wonder: are Empire, Trade, and Technological development a linked triad? And if one of those links breaks... if trade begins to stagnate, or Empire falls into disarray, or technology fails to keep up with the demands of growth... do we see the other two suffer a concomitant decline? Is this not what happened with the Roman Empire, or the in Trav, the Long Night?

 

[E.D.Quibell]

And all this leaves the Long Night unexplained. If military motives were primary in establishing interstellar trade rather than technological necessity, than the Long Night would not have represented such a dramatic regression, nor have lasted as long. Another empire would quickly have risen to replace the last.

The Long Night has an obvious historical analogue -- the Dark Ages. How did the Roman Empire, after having such a robust system of trade and political control, simply collapse to the point where even its permanent infrastructure (roads, currency) was left to rot? We can see very clearly how villages and towns became armed encampments, built to withstand marauders rather than for the convenience of the inhabitants... how travel and trade became increasingly dangerous and rare... how kingdoms shrank in stature, regressing technologically and in terms of the sophistication of their organization.

Economies of scale. If you don't have them you can't put the infrastructure in place. The whole is more than the sum of it's parts. Split them up and you loss more than you expect.

The same as happened to rome would happen in the long night. You can't field an Imperial Navy from just one planet.

Regards,

Ewan

 

[E.D.Quibell]

We don't, but we could. We specialise and trade because it's cheaper and easier, and in the process we have lost (or chosen not to develop) some skills/expertise. We have adopted our current system because it's the best in the current situation, but if that situation changed, all the other nations vanished and we had free access to the planet's resources, I reckon we have enough population to maintain TL8. We might even have enough to create it.

Ok, I take your point that we could, because, well, we could. But there is so much to do in a TL8 sociaty that would 60 million people produce enough wealth to be able to maintian it?

Now these are rough figures, so you'll need to take them with a pinch, but I'm sure you will get my point. If we go with uk figures, in the 2001 censous there were 58.8 million people in the uk, of which 36.1 million are in the working population. So for a start you would have to produce enough excess wealth to support 22.7 million people (or 62% of your working population). Now if we pick an industry we know we are not sufficent it, agriculture, about 1.2% of the working population is in agriculture or 433,200 people and we produce about 60% of our needed food stuffs. So to produce enough food we would need to move an additional 173,280 people into agriculture or an additonal 0.48% of the working population.

We could then take all the other industries we arn't sufficent in; oil, gass, coal, iron, sulfer, diamonds, steel, wood, (and these are just comodities) etc, etc, etc, we can start to exstrapotale the % of the working population needed for their production.

Then we keep those which we are sufficent in the same, retail, distribution, education, policing, healthcare, etc, etc,

And then we would look to include all the industries that we don't have, space, computing, etc, etc, etc, and I think it looks like 36.1 million just isn't enough. And that's just the people, with nothing to do with wealth generation.

Of course, government efficiency is a major factor. Many of the more advanced nations on Earth today are struggling under the excesses of a bureaucratic democracy. A feudal technocracy would make a significant difference to our potential. I shudder to think how much duplicated effort, pointless activity, and bureaucratic nonsense hampers our current efforts, not to mention the burden of politics, religion and war.

Now here I agree with you, there would be a considerable amount of "waist" (for want of a better work) that you could utalise in other areas. I'm not sure a feudal technocracy would be the way bit I can't think of a better way at present. And you could utalise the elderly better than we do at present, by using them for all sorts of things as opposed to have them retire, and we could use those people from inductrise where we have an oversupply, say pharmacuticals and media and redeploy them. But even with these 1.1 million in the UK are over 85, and 11.9 million are under 16, so even increaseing your working population by 22% to 45.8 million it's still looking (to me at least) that there just isn't enough people, or enough wealth creation to maintain and produce things like a GPS system, a communcations salalight system, a weather statalight system, a Large Hadron Collider etc etc etc and educate enough people in their use to maintain them, and have enough inductrial capacity to maintain them.

You have to figure whether you're talking about TL or Culture (to borrow a term from Pocket Empires). I'm imagining a much more frugal 60m society than 2009 UK. How many people are employed filling our wardrobes, jewellery boxes, mantel shelves and china cabinets with stuff we don't need? The absence of all that frippery wouldn't diminish the TL.

But all this "stuff" generates wealth, and it's wealth that you need to be generated in order to afford to spend the sums nesseary to produce really expensive stuff like spherical tokamaks, or space shuttles. One reason why the west won the cold war is beacuse we "out wealthed" the USSR. It just couldn't keep up. To put some figures on it. Nasa's average anual budget is about half of the UK's transport budget. So to provide for Nasa in the UK we would have to remove maintenance and building of 50% of the UK road and rail networks. Now ok we can take into consideration waistage and size considerations etc to reduduce Nasa in the UK, but you still have to produce the wealth in order to generate that amount of money needed to _have_ a space industry (which we don't).

What is the question? Are we asking how many people are needed as a minimum to sustain a TL7/8 capability for spacefaring survival, or are we asking how many people are needed to sustain an indolent, self-indulgent, capitalist, democratic bureaucracy whose academics can't get work because they don't possess this year's trendy health and safety certificates?

Ok I take your point, but you need at least some of this "indolent, self-indulgent, capitalist" system in order to produce the wealth nessesary to sustain our TL8 sociaty.

Assuming that only half that 60m population is of working age, somewhere near 10% of the UK workforce is unemployed FFS! And I reckon at least 4 times that number are employed in activities that are not vital to maintaining TL. Of course we're not self-sufficient; we're a nation of toymakers and paper-shufflers.
Today's Western nations are really not a good example to use.

[NB. Emphatic remarks are a result of incredulity with the wastefulness of Western 'Civilization' in general and are directed at no political entity in particular and certainly not at any member of this board]

Ok, we have some unemployed, about 5%, but still with the working population as it is (see above) 60 million just doesn't look enough, to me at least. I think you really need ecomonoes of scale and wealth generation for the high TL stuff. And as for examples, unfortunatly we only have today's western nations. We don't have any other examples of TL8 economies to use, and the rate of change between say a TL7 ecomonoy and a TL8 ecomony is so large you can't exstrapolate from there either ....

Regards,

Ewan

 

[Icosahedron]

Ok, I take your point that we could, because, well, we could. But there is so much to do in a TL8 sociaty that would 60 million people produce enough wealth to be able to maintian it?

Now these are rough figures, so you'll need to take them with a pinch, but I'm sure you will get my point. If we go with uk figures, in the 2001 censous there were 58.8 million people in the uk, of which 36.1 million are in the working population. So for a start you would have to produce enough excess wealth to support 22.7 million people (or 62% of your working population).

Only if you kept the same proportions. You could have people working younger and older.
It's only our 'indolent, self-indulgent' Western society that has such a large tail to tooth ratio.

Now if we pick an industry we know we are not sufficent it, agriculture, about 1.2% of the working population is in agriculture or 433,200 people and we produce about 60% of our needed food stuffs. So to produce enough food we would need to move an additional 173,280 people into agriculture or an additonal 0.48% of the working population.

We could then take all the other industries we arn't sufficent in; oil, gass, coal, iron, sulfer, diamonds, steel, wood, (and these are just comodities) etc, etc, etc, we can start to exstrapotale the % of the working population needed for their production.

Looking for labour savings all the time, and figuring which industries might be dropped altogether, yes. eg how much of our agriculture goes to unnecessary luxury foods?

Then we keep those which we are sufficent in the same, retail, distribution, education, policing, healthcare, etc, etc,

Not necessarily. With a different culture, we could drastically reduce the numbers in all of these areas.

And then we would look to include all the industries that we don't have, space, computing, etc, etc, etc, and I think it looks like 36.1 million just isn't enough. And that's just the people, with nothing to do with wealth generation.

Perhaps. By the time you've got your fashion designers and sales advisors working in space and computing, your numbers might not be too far out - especially with an expanded working age, as you've agreed below.

Now here I agree with you, there would be a considerable amount of "waist" (for want of a better work) that you could utalise in other areas. I'm not sure a feudal technocracy would be the way bit I can't think of a better way at present. And you could utalise the elderly better than we do at present, by using them for all sorts of things as opposed to have them retire, and we could use those people from inductrise where we have an oversupply, say pharmacuticals and media and redeploy them. But even with these 1.1 million in the UK are over 85, and 11.9 million are under 16, so even increaseing your working population by 22% to 45.8 million it's still looking (to me at least) that there just isn't enough people, or enough wealth creation to maintain and produce things like a GPS system, a communcations salalight system, a weather statalight system, a Large Hadron Collider etc etc etc and educate enough people in their use to maintain them, and have enough inductrial capacity to maintain them.

Well, I have to admit, I don't know how many people currently work in these areas, and how many of those are strictly necessary for a 'UK scale' industry.

But all this "stuff" generates wealth, and it's wealth that you need to be generated in order to afford to spend the sums nesseary to produce really expensive stuff like spherical tokamaks, or space shuttles. One reason why the west won the cold war is beacuse we "out wealthed" the USSR. It just couldn't keep up. To put some figures on it. Nasa's average anual budget is about half of the UK's transport budget. So to provide for Nasa in the UK we would have to remove maintenance and building of 50% of the UK road and rail networks. Now ok we can take into consideration waistage and size considerations etc to reduduce Nasa in the UK, but you still have to produce the wealth in order to generate that amount of money needed to _have_ a space industry (which we don't).

Ok I take your point, but you need at least some of this "indolent, self-indulgent, capitalist" system in order to produce the wealth nessesary to sustain our TL8 sociaty.

But 'wealth' is a cultural artifact. With a monolithic world government, wealth would perhaps have little meaning. It's only important where cultures have to trade in order to balance surplus and deficit. All that is necessary for a self-sufficient world government is to have the necessary workforce.

Ok, we have some unemployed, about 5%, but still with the working population as it is (see above) 60 million just doesn't look enough, to me at least. I think you really need ecomonoes of scale and wealth generation for the high TL stuff. And as for examples, unfortunatly we only have today's western nations. We don't have any other examples of TL8 economies to use, and the rate of change between say a TL7 ecomonoy and a TL8 ecomony is so large you can't exstrapolate from there either ....

Regards,

Ewan

Maybe 60 million is cutting it a bit fine; without better figures (beyond my time and inclination) it's hard to be sure - perhaps we should go with '100 million within a factor of 2'. I reckon we could agree on that.

Yes, it's difficult to envisage a radically different technological culture with different principles, different values, different goals, but isn't that one of the attractions of science fiction?