Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-12-2018, 08:38 PM   #51
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Nations with high standards of living do not have positive population growths of natives alone.
Not right now. But a lot of that is rational calculation subject to changing conditions - it isn't unusual for people who actually do want more children to forgo them because they can't "afford" them - and even if it weren't eventually your population consists of the descendants of people who had whatever genes made them have them anyway. Eventually the rate of contraction slows and stops. Sure you may have a much lower global population for a while, but it isn't going to fall to zero.
__________________
--
MA Lloyd
malloyd is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-12-2018, 09:49 PM   #52
jason taylor
 
jason taylor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Nations with high standards of living do not have positive population growths of natives alone.
Someone wanting kids for personal joy is of course common. But it seems that that alone is not enough to simply keep up with normal death rates.

Of course in hypothetical VR-"owned" ultratech societies, robots and automation could easily manage things. Artificial wombs and A.I. tutors mean real human parents don't have to exist at all.
That cannot be interpreted deterministically. Ideologies change as does the proportion of space to population. And any number of factors.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison
jason taylor is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2018, 03:22 AM   #53
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Not right now. But a lot of that is rational calculation subject to changing conditions - it isn't unusual for people who actually do want more children to forgo them because they can't "afford" them - and even if it weren't eventually your population consists of the descendants of people who had whatever genes made them have them anyway. Eventually the rate of contraction slows and stops. Sure you may have a much lower global population for a while, but it isn't going to fall to zero.
People do not have children because they are expensive emotionally and financially. Just as importantly, people who do have children delay having children until they have done everything else that they want to do (and delay having a second child until their first child is old enough to go to school). It is not uncommon in the USA for people to wait till they are 30 to have their first child and 40 to have their second child.

There is no genetic condition that forces people to have children. With proper access to abortion, birth control, and contraceptives, no one in a technologically advanced society will have children if they find them inconvenient. If such a society wants to maintain its population, it needs to subsidize reproduction with financial and social rewards to women to have children. Perhaps a stipend the equivalent of $2,000 a month per child and preferential hiring would be enough to convince women in a technologically advanced society to have children.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2018, 05:46 AM   #54
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
There is no genetic condition that forces people to have children. With proper access to abortion, birth control, and contraceptives, no one in a technologically advanced society will have children if they find them inconvenient.
That's not shown one way or another. There is a state I've heard called "baby hungry" where an individual wants a baby of their own. I've seen it in multiple individuals. The drive to reproduce is not entirely sexual. Though I will admit there are also possible counter measures for that, like virtual babies and pets.

Cultural aspects can be as important as genetic ones. We live in a society that recently discouraged having children, and in many cases still does. There are subcultures in it that value having large families, and those groups have larger families, sometimes spectacularly so.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2018, 07:24 AM   #55
Bengt
 
Bengt's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
If such a society wants to maintain its population, it needs to subsidize reproduction with financial and social rewards to women to have children. Perhaps a stipend the equivalent of $2,000 a month per child and preferential hiring would be enough to convince women in a technologically advanced society to have children.
I doubt that would be enough. Sweden have a fairly long paid maternity leave, ~16 months, and various other benefits. But staying away from work still mean you miss out on career opportunities and so on.

For a Sci Fi setting exo wombs, robot nannies and telecommuting might help a lot though.
Bengt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2018, 08:41 AM   #56
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

I am talking about a stipend for 18 years (which would be in addition to any maternity leave). As for baby hunger, I think that you are confusing a psychological condition (a baby obsession or baby mania) with a genetic condition. I have known two such women, each having produced a dozen children in over two decades (they started at 14), and they make the worst of mothers because they need the attention of a helpless infant (in both cases, their older children were taken from them because they were found guilty of neglecting their older children). Anyway, I doubt that such unfortunates are more than 1% of the female population or else we would not be talking about collapsing birth rates but instead plagues of neglected children in developed nations.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-14-2018, 12:16 AM   #57
Bengt
 
Bengt's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
I am talking about a stipend for 18 years (which would be in addition to any maternity leave).
And I don't think that, on its own, would help much. An important reason for not wanting babies is that it stops the mother from having an otherwise fulfilling life.
Bengt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-14-2018, 09:20 AM   #58
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Unless we tie this back to Greybeard or Children of Men aren't we off topic?
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo

Last edited by Astromancer; 01-19-2018 at 12:29 PM.
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-14-2018, 01:17 PM   #59
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Try this idea. Alien contact in the 1940s, if you like, at Roswell. The Aliens find humans advanced enough to be worthy of rescue. In the year 2025 a wave of radiation from a botched stellar engineering project will rip through the solar system. Nothing that lacks fifty miles of shielding will survive.

The Aliens offer Humanity a lift.

It's now the year 2347. The radiation has subsided and Earth can be resettled. Some terraformation will be needed. Different groups that left Earth feel they should either get first pick of the land, or simply they alone are worthy of owning the Earth.

Basically a reworking of GURPS:Alpha Centauri. Different cultural groups fighting for dominance politically and memetically.

The simple fact of off-world backing and aid both limits and extends what PCs and their cultures can do.

Many things that made no sense in a low population frontier area cut off from the outside world can now be made logical/functional.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo

Last edited by Astromancer; 01-14-2018 at 04:28 PM.
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-14-2018, 03:19 PM   #60
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

Radiation does not work that way. You are talking about intense enough energy to strip off the atmosphere, boil the oceans, and vaporize the first fifty miles of crust. Nothing in the Solar System (or any system within a few light years) would be suitable for colonization after that, as everything in the Solar System would be equally baked, because you are talking about levels of radiation equal to a nearby hypernova (or a relatively close AGN). In fact, given a minimum distance of 85 light-years, you are talking about an event that would make every planet within 1000 light-years of the event unsuitable for colonization.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:42 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.