Realism of Interstellar Empire

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Developed countries have less kids I believe because there's more intellectual development in the civilization. Access to healthcare (contraceptives) and education increases (along with abolition of the family work unit). Families become less about surviving together and more about establishing themselves as a last name. As such you still get people expanding to claim more territory merely because it adds to their heritage.

So the rich people migrate to open areas while the less fortunate go to areas of opportunity. Areas of opportunity just depends on whatever age you're in. If we were in the metal ages then that's where people would migrate to for *industry*. Not really sure if the information age migrated a lot of people to west coast california, but the subsequent service industry that's developing right now will probably have its own effect.

[Fianna]

I don't think declining birth rates have to do with population density or room to expand, but due to two factors. First, most obviously, is access to contraception. But second is simple economics.

For most historical human societies, children were an investment. When they're little, you have to spend a lot of time and resources raising them. But when they get older, they'll be able to work the farm or help in your business or whatever it is you do to make ends meet. And when you become old and decrepit and have a hard time supporting yourself, they'll be there to take of you.

There are some places where that model is still common, and it does still play some role even in industrialized nations. But overall, we've seen a shift from children being a solid economic investment to an economic drain. Education demands and child labor laws mean children are spending far less time helping with the family's business or household. Fewer people owning their own farms or small businesses means less call for children, once grown, to join the business. And increasing emphasis on social safety nets and retirement savings means having children to take care of you in your old age is not as essential. Meanwhile, the cost of raising children remains high, requiring a great deal of the parents' income, taking up a great deal of their time, and demanding a great deal of emotional (and, in the mother's case, physical) labor.

People are having fewer children nowadays because there are simply fewer practical benefits to doing so.

[TGLS]

I suppose another factor would just be timescales involved. In a Galactic Empire like Asimov's works or Star Wars where FTL exists for thousands of years, it still makes some sense because even a small percentage growth rate will eventually reach a ridiculously large number. In Star Trek, which is only a couple centuries, not so much. Then again, it does help explain why Romulus getting wrecked would be such a big deal. It'd be like the British Empire in 1700 losing Great Britain.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

For most historical human societies, children were an investment. When they're little, you have to spend a lot of time and resources raising them. But when they get older, they'll be able to work the farm or help in your business or whatever it is you do to make ends meet. And when you become old and decrepit and have a hard time supporting yourself, they'll be there to take of you.

There are some places where that model is still common, and it does still play some role even in industrialized nations. But overall, we've seen a shift from children being a solid economic investment to an economic drain. Education demands and child labor laws mean children are spending far less time helping with the family's business or household. Fewer people owning their own farms or small businesses means less call for children, once grown, to join the business. And increasing emphasis on social safety nets and retirement savings means having children to take care of you in your old age is not as essential. Meanwhile, the cost of raising children remains high, requiring a great deal of the parents' income, taking up a great deal of their time, and demanding a great deal of emotional (and, in the mother's case, physical) labor.

People are having fewer children nowadays because there are simply fewer practical benefits to doing so.

We still see higher birthrates in lower income families that live in developed nations, where children are anything but a practical investment.

[Fianna]

And that's where education and affordable access to contraception are factors. Society is in a place where having children is a financial liability, but a lot of social attitudes developed under an older model of society are still in place and affecting people's decisions. For example, women looking to get their tubes tied often face a ridiculous number of roadblocks, often from doctors who simply will not believe that they won't eventually change their minds and want to have children.

[hammerofglass]

Part of the problem with this kind of discussion is that a society with the technology to do it would be so different from ours thanks to all the other technologies discovered in the meantime that the base assumptions are meaningless.

Probably the biggest one is reproduction. We have (very) early versions of artificial wombs already and we've had cloning for decades. The standard methods children are produced by and the social structures around them will have moved into something we can't even conceive of now LONG before practical interstellar travel is possible.

[Beastro]

Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour?

Because (surprise) there is more to life than comfort and happiness.

This is a thing many ponder at today, but people of other times had no issue with. Some would travel simply for the hell of it, if feasible.

Consider many who lived on the US Frontier. They'd settle the recent frontier, then in a few years, pick up leaving everything they'd built and do it again, because that frontier had suddenly become too populated and "soft" for them. They wanted to be on their own with large distances between them and their neighbours and did not like everyone else creeping up behind them.

That might sound odd to many packed into cities, but to someone like myself who can't stand being in one larger than 100,000 at most for more than a few days, I can see why large amounts of people on Earth would want to get the fuck out if FTL and terraforming could become feasible.

This is so on-point it nearly made me cry. Yes, to the H. My family's moved around a lot, and I can safely say the crowded city life beats the life out of you. I wish people weren't so attached to the abstract concepts like national memorials, monuments, and places of history, so that we could maybe tear down the cities and disperse the population. I mean, I know economically, that would take generations, but within metropolises, you can't possibly take care of everyone there, deal with crime, address mental illness, and more. I would advocate for greater technological convenience, and simple country life. To the life of me, while I love traveling, I don't get how people can stand living in places where one store is bigger than the population of whole towns.

I'm reminded of a little community just outside of where I live with about 200 people in it. I'd like to visit it one day, the only problem is the dirt road is so bad it destroys normal vehicles, and only service and commercial vehicles use it to keep the place supplied. Everyone else visits by boat.

I pondered about how neat it would be to actually build a proper road there. I mentioned it to my brother whose lived here for a few years, and was told the community actively opposes improving the road precisely because they don't want to encourage tons coming there and prefer to be both small and their visitor numbers small as well.

I could very well see those types, along side those small communities on small isolated islands, like Tristan de Cunha hoofing off elsewhere if civilization crept too close and they were suddenly able to have a planet all their own.

[Madner Kami]

Part of the problem with this kind of discussion is that a society with the technology to do it would be so different from ours thanks to all the other technologies discovered in the meantime that the base assumptions are meaningless.

Probably the biggest one is reproduction. We have (very) early versions of artificial wombs already and we've had cloning for decades. The standard methods children are produced by and the social structures around them will have moved into something we can't even conceive of now LONG before practical interstellar travel is possible.

Unless we are talking about a considerable time, let's say a couple 10s of thousands of years, likely even more, then many variables may change, but one will still be the same and that is the center-piece of every extrapolation about how humans will behave, namely: humans themselves. Our basic motivations and our basic instincts will remain the same until then and while civilization (and education) may gloss over some of the more shallow traits, deep down, we'll still be the same.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Part of the problem with this kind of discussion is that a society with the technology to do it would be so different from ours thanks to all the other technologies discovered in the meantime that the base assumptions are meaningless.

Probably the biggest one is reproduction. We have (very) early versions of artificial wombs already and we've had cloning for decades. The standard methods children are produced by and the social structures around them will have moved into something we can't even conceive of now LONG before practical interstellar travel is possible.

Unless we are talking about a considerable time, let's say a couple 10s of thousands of years, likely even more, then many variables may change, but one will still be the same and that is the center-piece of every extrapolation about how humans will behave, namely: humans themselves. Our basic motivations and our basic instincts will remain the same until then and while civilization (and education) may gloss over some of the more shallow traits, deep down, we'll still be the same.

I'd call myself a true believer in the Federation of Planets sense. Biological instincts might still be there, but it's plausible that a social structure could get by without dissidence leaks. Remember it's more true on this planet that everyone comes from somewhere and you can't get rid of it. But if you can start over time and again, then the sky is the limit imo. Mind you I don't believe Earth will necessarily be like that so I'm not a True Believer there but yeah be like the Baku or something.

[phantom000]

Let's leave aside a bunch of obvious things; FTL travel can be assumed to exist, tons of eminently habitable worlds exist, easy dirtside transportation, etc. I'm just thinking about 2 things.

One, would there really be at all much of a drive for species to go expand across the galaxy? Unless there are harder limits to growth, it would seem we could make the world far denser and still maintain a high standard of living. Why would there be so many people willing to leave a comfortable life for back breaking labour? In an authoritarian society, it makes more sense, but even in a democratic society? I suppose if the society isn't terribly prosperous you may have many economic migrants, but even if it remains prosperous?

One answer would be just general restlessness. In The Time Machine Wells describes a society where intellect and ambition served no purpose, so what would happen to people like Elon Musk or Edmund Hillary? I could see someone like Tony Stark or even Loki just jumping on a ship and heading off into space because they are just bored out of their minds.

Another answer is what if something went wrong? So everyone has a reasonably high standard of living, with no disease, no hunger, no hunger, no unemployment, but then you have some kind of disaster which wrecks a big chunk of the planet. Perhaps half your population has no food, water or shelter and it will take you years, perhaps decades to rebuild, what do you do now?

Space could be an answer, if there is some kind of infrastructure still in place to take them. Many of the big waves of immigrants to the USA came in the wake of some kind of disaster, like the Irish Potato Famine.

Two, industrial societies have a much lower natural increase than pre-industrial societies. The reason is irrelevant but let's assume that this applies globally. Would an industrialized society fill up a large area of the Galaxy in a short period of time? Would the a new wave of colonialism be able to motivate a return to higher growth?

True, but industry needs materials, so where do they get it? Even if you have ST style replicators you still need the energy to power them and where do you get that? A lot of the colonies in North America were created to supply raw materials to the growing industries of Europe. Even long after the American Revolution, a large chunk of the US economy was selling materials to the Europeans. So I could see a society doing something similar, establishing colonies to provide the materials to support its large population.