Trent Shipley wrote: > >> My estimate includes all five. Of course, as in Drake's equation, >> each factor has an error from 10% to 900% :-) >> >>>> * about 10 planets per race >>>> * about 200,000 races > > Alberto, as I recall Drake's Equation has no factor for > "Planets Fallow by order of the GIM." > ???
What I said is that the factors I get for Uplift have error bars similar to Drake's equation's terms: they can be 1/10 to 10 times the guesstimate. > Are you proposing there 2M habitable planets, some of > which are Fallow or that there are, perhaps, 6M habitable > planets 2M of which are *not* Fallow? > No. I propose that there are 2M planets _with_ galactic civilization settled on them. But they could be 20M or 200k. > Have you made any allowance for an increase in the number > of habitable planets due to terraforming? (Do you need to?) > No, because I suppose that this is a small factor in the last, say, 500 My. Stars come and go, planets come and go. The terraforming of planets should probably just keep the number of planets in a stable number. BTW, I also guess that there are about 10 fallow planets for each settled planet, based on the data that a planet is usually leased for 100ky, and it is let fallow for a minimum of 500ky [usually more]. > >>> If we want 1MY mean life-spans, then 11% clients and 5% patrons might >>> provide for interesting but not grossly inequitble politics consistent >>> with existing sources on the Uplift Universe. >> >> Uh? > > I picked 11% > I got the 11%. I didn't get the "provide for interesting but not grossly inequitble politics consistent with existing sources on the Uplift Universe." > because there will be some mortality among uplift projects. > With current medical technology the replacement birthrate is > something like 2.1 births per couple. 1.1 is a convenient > (if not totally convincing) replacement rate for the > population of O-2 species > Ok, but I am not (yet) worried about this precision :-) > My other point is that if there are X uplift minors and X uplifters then > the system is egalitarian. The Uplift Universe is *VERY* fair. Even if > there are 10 uplift projects for 9 uplifters the system is still pretty > darn fair. We get what economists would call a flat wealth curve. The > implication is that there is little class warfare -- most (almost all) > races are middle class and equal. It implies that even powerful clans, > like the Soro or Thennanin are not too powerful. Democratic and > egalitarian socio-political dynamics keep them in check. > > This is bad for literature. > No - the system may be fair, but some clans might twist it a little bit. So, most of the 200k races would be egalitarian, except a small minority of powerful clans. > If there are 10 clients being uplifted then we need fewer than 10 patrons. > If there are 2 or 3 patrons per 10 clients things are ripe for revolution. > But then things would be quite unstable. Most of the lines would quickly extinguish - at the fast rate of 50% to 66% each "generation"! > 4 to 6 to 10 and things are noticibly unfair, but we can claim there is > equal opportunity. Social Darwinism is good say Dr. Pangloss. 7 or 8 and > we have some sort of dialectic between fair distribution and rewards to > cummulative advantage. > > The wealth curves that involve 4 to 8 patrons per 10 clients probably make > for good story backgrounds. > But it is _very_ unstable. I claim that the rate should be quite close to 1 client : 1 patron, so that _most_ lines would be mantained for long periods of time. This doesn't prevent a few lines to "usurp" clients from extinguished lines, and growing at the expense of others. These expansionist lines should be just a few, otherwise the system would be too unstable. Literature is saved: the famous fanatical races of the Canon are those expansionist clans, eager to expand by taking Terra's 3 unfinished races. > (These ratios assume that patrons are assigned their clients all at once, > instead of finishing a project and starting the next.... Still you see my > point.) > Yes - I think Alberto Monteiro _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
