I suspect the bear might object to you trying to drink it.
But yes sometimes ones genetic heritage is obvious.
Over-representation of Americans
- Thread starter Mattadd
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I suspect the bear might object to you trying to drink it.
But yes sometimes ones genetic heritage is obvious.
It's hard to be sure, as you say the 9 billion is drawn from an alternative timeline, but it's also hard to picture a scenario where the population had significantly dropped. We are told WWIII was devastating, but even if we take an extreme estimate and have it reduce the population to just 1 billion that still gives best part of three centuries of almost unheard of living conditions to recover. By comparison it took from 1800 to 2012 to go from 1 billion to seven.
We have no way of knowing what direction the net drift of migration flows, into earth or out, but in order for the population to actually reduce it the flow needs not only to be away, but at a rate greater than net birth rate, or rate of natural increase, else the population will grow anyway as a result of birth rates outperforming emigration and death rates.
If, based on the historical model we have of population growth, by the 23rd century we may reasonably assume a population at least the size of the current 7 billion (it's hard to imagine primitive and limited 22nd century space traffic making a significant dent in that trend) which based on current (2016) figures would give us a projected birthrate of approx 4 births per second, or 250 per minute.
We have no reason to believe star fleet is actively attempting to reduce the population, in fact we have seen nothing to suggest they could move people on that scale even if they wanted to, so that level of net migration would have to consistently happen within the regular ebb and flow of civilian traffic over the course of several centuries in order to significantly reduce the Earth's population. As that traffic has had nothing like those centuries to make such a difference, coupled with the fact we have no reason whatsoever to believe the human race is emigrating en masse that consistently, the likelihood of a drastically (or even somewhat) reduced population becomes vanishingly small and depends on mass migration events and starship capabilities we have neither seen nor heard suggested.
Thus the 9 billion figure starts to seem fairly reasonable, if not outright conservative, as an estimate for the 24th century and even that relies on an absolute extreme estimate of the damage inflicted by WWIII.
War almost always causes populations to dramatically increase. The more widespread and devastating the war, the greater the boom. Prolonged periods of peace and plenty usually result in a population decrease. Combine that with humans going off to colonize other worlds.
If human birthrates in the 21st and 22nd century in fictional trek are anything like human birthrates in western countries today, the population would be very low by the 23rd/24th c.
If human birthrates in the 21st and 22nd century in fictional trek are anything like human birthrates in western countries today, the population would be very low by the 23rd/24th c.
That's a big IF, real world population growth over the past two centuries literally took us from one billion to seven, whilst for migration to make a serious dent it would have to happen on a scale we have seen no evidence of the 22nd century starfleet even remotely being capable of to make that feasible.
Of course you are right in saying that birth rates do vary tremendously according to economic circumstances, but we can indeed speculate they were high throughout the 21st/22nd century, else where did all the humans come from in the 23rd and 24th?
Of course you are right in saying that birth rates do vary tremendously according to economic circumstances, but we can indeed speculate they were high throughout the 21st/22nd century, else where did all the humans come from in the 23rd and 24th?
It's hard to be sure about the colonies. As you say we are shown mostly pretty sparse colonies and that makes sense in context. After all the ships we see setting them up and supporting them are capable of carrying groups at best in the order of a few hundred at a time.
On the other hand they might well do many such trips and the colonies we see on screen are almost by definition in the early stages, hence requiring the assistance of our heroes. Even in that case though the numbers involved would be a trickle rather than a flood when compared to the billions we are talking about, plus after a certain point that migration to new colonies may very well come from earlier settlements rather than Earth itself necessarily.
Our model then would have colony building happening slowly by necessity, with even medium term population growth dependent more on native reproduction than regular massive influxes, with Earth's population by and large being allowed to grow according to much the same factors as we see today. Presumably there would be guidelines in place about the minimum number of colonists required to provide a stable gene pool as a safeguard against finding themselves isolated for any reason.
Interesting point about wars. I had always pictured the use of nuclear weapons in this instance leading to civilian casualties on an astronomical scale, hence my hypothesising the population having to rebuild to modern levels. In your scenario, however, the 23rd century Earth would likely be starting to suffer problems with over population....
On the other hand they might well do many such trips and the colonies we see on screen are almost by definition in the early stages, hence requiring the assistance of our heroes. Even in that case though the numbers involved would be a trickle rather than a flood when compared to the billions we are talking about, plus after a certain point that migration to new colonies may very well come from earlier settlements rather than Earth itself necessarily.
Our model then would have colony building happening slowly by necessity, with even medium term population growth dependent more on native reproduction than regular massive influxes, with Earth's population by and large being allowed to grow according to much the same factors as we see today. Presumably there would be guidelines in place about the minimum number of colonists required to provide a stable gene pool as a safeguard against finding themselves isolated for any reason.
Interesting point about wars. I had always pictured the use of nuclear weapons in this instance leading to civilian casualties on an astronomical scale, hence my hypothesising the population having to rebuild to modern levels. In your scenario, however, the 23rd century Earth would likely be starting to suffer problems with over population....
Beer. Ale. Liquid bread. {sigh} You know what I meant.I suspect the bear might object to you trying to drink it.
Who are the 9 billion? When a person becomes borgified, do they stop aging? Like are those 9 billion the actual 21st century generation that was assimilated?
Or do the Borg make babies? I thought they specifically didn't reproduce, although I'm sure they are capable.
Also, since Borgs require no personal space, no land, etc, and they have zero concern for the environment, is 9 billion the most practical, balanced number of drones for a Borgish Earth sized planet ?
Or do the Borg make babies? I thought they specifically didn't reproduce, although I'm sure they are capable.
Also, since Borgs require no personal space, no land, etc, and they have zero concern for the environment, is 9 billion the most practical, balanced number of drones for a Borgish Earth sized planet ?
I'm an American, and I'm beginning to wish there were fewer of us as well as the Brits and Irish. With Captain Lorca, how many white Anglo straight males is that playing father? Archer, Lorca, April, Pike, Kirk, Decker, Harriman, Picard, Riker, etc? And both Garrett and Janeway were white Anglos. Thank God there was some diversity of nationality with Picard being "French" and maybe with April being English.
What I'd like to see, beyond there being more for-rin-ers represented, is more extraterrestrials. Crusher being born on Luna is kinda nice, but I wonder if that would ever make it past the screenshot, given how far young Picard's hair did, among others.
I'd love it if Lorca, or Garrett or someone else without a backstory, were born on Andor or Berengaria or Jupiter, or on a station that's alone in space or that is part of an orbital country. Or if some future character was born on PIcard's friend Louis's New Atlantis continent. Did we ever find out where Pike was born?
What I'd like to see, beyond there being more for-rin-ers represented, is more extraterrestrials. Crusher being born on Luna is kinda nice, but I wonder if that would ever make it past the screenshot, given how far young Picard's hair did, among others.
I'd love it if Lorca, or Garrett or someone else without a backstory, were born on Andor or Berengaria or Jupiter, or on a station that's alone in space or that is part of an orbital country. Or if some future character was born on PIcard's friend Louis's New Atlantis continent. Did we ever find out where Pike was born?
It might sound odd, but I like GR's approach to not showing Earth at all in TOS. It might be more interesting to show people from the various Earth colonies, or being born in space.
Then in universe that should be reflected on Starfleet vessels.
Then we would have to assume that all those TOS colony worlds that only showed a few folks living in a village were really populated by millions, if not billions of humans off-screen. Or the USS Enterprise only visited colonies that had just started up.
Since 22nd to 24th century Earth seems to have a standard of living that is deemed upper middle class compared to today, we can assume the average number of children per family is around 2. The higher the living standards the less kids folks have OR since its no longer expensive to have children, people might have 4 kids per family. Colonies would be expected to have large families to help the population increase and keep the gene pool as diverse as possible (e.g TNG Up the long ladder).
If Star Trek is ever rebooted again from scratch than that '600 million' died in WW3 figure needs to revised upwards to 3 billion instead, it would be more dramatic. Also such a massive loss of population would explain the Eugenic Wars, Colonel Green and why the Enterprise NX01 is not dominated by Indian and Chinese humans. I doubt any Chinese, Russian and Indian government would want the Americans dominating the first space exploration, (unless they were expecting it to fail).
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You mean, just like it is reflected in our modern societies that everyone is equal before the law, and hence everyone has equal opportunities in life, regardless of his/her ethnic background?
Miranda Jones said that she had never been to Earth, so not all Humans come from Earth.
Remember, this isn't about ethnicity. It's strictly about in-universe nationality, regardless of race, accent, eye color, or body odor.
If Lorca ends up being British like the actor portraying him, oh boy. If Americans are over represented by a factor of ten(based on 2017 population estimates)among main characters but not including main cast aliens, then main characters from Great Britain are already over represented by at least a factor of 13!
They better make Lorca from Venus or something!
They do mention the population of a number of colonies. The most populous is likely the moon, at 50mil.
I would hope human colonies are having more than 2 kids per family.
So, I skimmed around and found these:
Tau Cygna V- 15,253 humanós
Delta Rana IV- 11,000 homines
Tarsus IV- 8,000 people
New Providence- 900 souls
Omicron Theta- 411 humans, 1 evil android.
Bringloid V- 223 folks
Omicron Colony- 150 happy Umani
