LTC: By TL, %age of population that aren't farmers?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Rupert

As I recall, the UK reached parity in the early-mid 19th century, and the US didn't until between WWI and WWII.

The UK was importing quite a lot of its food to do that.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The UK was importing quite a lot of its food to do that.

It would be more relevant to look at the percentage of imperial subjects involved in farming, rather than the subset of them who were British citizens

[AlexanderHowl]

By the 1880s, that would probably be around 75%, as a number of people were involved in subsistence farming because the British Empire deliberately prevented the industrialization of any colony without a majority white population. While subsistence farming is inefficient, it does allow people to survive, which is why 26% of the global population is still working in agriculture in 2018, despite our technology being late-TL8. That is part of the wealth effects for determining the percentage of the population involved in agriculture, poorer nations tend to have a higher percentage of their population working in agriculture because they lack the infrastructure to allow them to gainfully employ their population in any other sector of the economy.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, Mongolians and Chinese both possessed TL3 technology in 1000 AD, but the Mongolians probably had a farming population no larger than 20% while the Chinese probably had a farming population of no less than 80%.

For the purpose of the conversation (people not involved in food production) I would definitely count the Mongol nomadic herders as "farmers" - they are not available to sit around in a college and be a scholar.

But remember that the pool of non-farmers is also the pool you draw from for every other specialist - merchants, lumberjacks, charcoal burners, smiths, tanners, masons, the whole shebang.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Bruno

For the purpose of the conversation (people not involved in food production) I would definitely count the Mongol nomadic herders as "farmers" - they are not available to sit around in a college and be a scholar.

This is mostly true, but I've always go the impression that the herding folk generally enjoyed more leisure than their farming neighbors. They always seem able to mobilize much larger proportions of their populace for battle.

I think that while they have a greater percentage available, they have smaller absolute numbers available, and those people have to stay pretty spread out and on the move.

[The Colonel]

Didn't classical Athens have a prototypic university running?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Didn't classical Athens have a prototypic university running?

More like a school, and half like a religion?

[hal]

I guess it largely depends on how you define things.

Teacher/Apprentice utilizes a one to one or maybe a 1 to 5 ratio for teaching purposes depending on what kind of subject is being taught.

Getting into class rooms worth of students might result in a better efficiency of teaching resources.

Getting into University type environments leads to what? Standardization of accrediting the students of any given teacher/subject?

Then we have the issue of literacy. To what extent does literacy play a part in the creation of a university? If the entire body of knowledge existing on alchemy/chemistry could be written into at most, five books - how long would it take to teach that topic to the students? If the entire knowledge of chemistry today requires specialization because no one can know the entirety of the topic at hand - that's a whole different ball of wax.

Then comes the issue of winnowing out the "believed to be true" data, that isn't true. Then comes the mindset of preserving the information gained so that the next generation of individuals participating in such a skill set education, won't have to rediscover and engage in constant R&D to advance the skills.

In the end, the question becomes one of "What precisely is an Academy?" A protoacademy such as what was envisioned in early Athens might in modern terms be called a one room school house by the 1800's, and a small class room by modern standards. In a way, I can't help but think, that the specialization of assembly for the machine age, may have had its impact on the specialization of knowledge over time, as it is hard to have someone know everything possible about Medicine to the same exhaustive level of comprehension as a specialist would obtain. Question is - how would one portray these "things" in a GURPS environment?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ericthered

This is mostly true, but I've always go the impression that the herding folk generally enjoyed more leisure than their farming neighbors. They always seem able to mobilize much larger proportions of their populace for battle.

Farmers do have periods of leisure too. They work at 110% of capacity during harvest, and they work very hard during plowing and planting. But there are periods when they don't have much to do. My understanding is that the workers who built the Pyramids were largely farmers called in during the slack seasons.

The big difference for pastoralists, especially mounted pastoralists, seems to be that their daily work as such is largely training for war. They have to move about, herd animals, watch for danger, frighten or kill predators, and fight off rustlers and reivers, and they're very likely to go out and steal other pastoralists' stock. All of this develops skills that are useful in war. Much less of what farmers do is similarly useful, and in particular, they are less likely to have horses or be skilled riders.

[Pursuivant]

It's not percentage of the population required, it's population size.

Historically, you had plenty of cultures where 95%+ of the population was directly or involved in food production (e.g., farmers, herders, fishermen, hunters, millers, dairymen, farriers, horse breakers, etc.) but they could still have very sophisticated urban cultures with world-class scholars and craftsmen because the population was so large.

That speaks to population density, with highly fertile regions like China's river basins, the Nile Valley, or Mesopotamia eventually being converted to high-intensity agriculture, and less fertile or more distant hinterlands being used for herding, hunting, or mineral extraction.

Very roughly, I'd say that percentage of the population involved in food production starts as 100% at TL0, drops by about 1-3% per TL until TL4. At TL5 rural populations and percentage of people involved in food production drops quickly, from about 85-90% of the population in early 1700 Europe to about 50% by about 1880 or 1900. At TL6 it drops again, to about 5-10% of the population. Then to about 2-5% of the population at TL7 and perhaps 1-3% of the population at TL8.

Using historical examples, it is possible to have small institutions of higher education at TL2 or 3 as long as total population is about 1 million or so. That gives about 10,000 to 100,000 people who don't have to work in food production, and gives you 10-100 potentially "super genius level" (top 1% of IQ range or similar ability) people who can serve as a nucleus of faculty for a "think tank" type institution.

In a fantasy world, all bets are off. Do what you want. At the very least use of certain plant spells can vastly increase agricultural yields, even without direct magical inputs, which effectively gives you TL6-8 quality plant cultivars at TL1-3. Knowledge of germ theory and any degree of healing or water magic also seriously alters the game in terms of public health.

A single mage who knows the Purify Water and Identify Plant spells could jump start revolutions in public health and agriculture.