quote:Say you have a species that has already stressed the planet's resources to the point that relatively few of them have a decent standard of living. At some point, reason dictates that people stop reproducing so much. Let's say you have a generation of two billion people — one billion breeding pairs — and they realize, holy crow, we have to get the population stabilized... henceforth, there will be two children per couple, no more. And let's say that as much as 99% of the population goes along with this. The remaining 1% (perhaps after one too many readings of Ender's Game) say hell with that and have on average four children per couple. Within six generations, the descendants of the 1% outnumber the descendants of the 99%: selfishness wins.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
That I think would only work if resources were still availiable enough for the 1% to sill outproduce the remaining 99%, this I think also doesn't include the possibility of "persecution" and living space. Also I am skeptical of the math, I don't extactly is how say 1% of 2 billion people will be able to outnumber the remaining 2 billion given any amount of time. Even within 6 generations, next as with the Wiggins they "supposedly" forsaken their parents and tried to live within Hegemony law and have only 1-2 children only getting Ender with permission.
What happens if 99% of those born from that 1% also accept the child limitation? Then your still technically stuck with 1% of the population not accepting the law yet 99% of the total still accept the law.
Thats my reasoning.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
well its simple geometric expansion
2billion people with 1billion breading pairs and only 2 children each, produce another 2 billion people, or less, and 1billion breading pairs
BUT
20 million people, doubling that output each generation will produce an average of 2 billion 360 million by the SEVENTH generation, barring any other limitations on expansion -simple math but it would take SEVEN generations
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Simple math yes but in reality probly only 1% of that breeding will at anyone time keep breeding 4+ children.