quote:
Originally posted by dmm:
How many modern urbanites would survive if Earth suddenly reverted to stone age conditions? And we're not very advanced compared to the spacefaring SEIV races.
That is why I wrote "perhaps at lower population density due to food production". If technology on earth today suddenly dropped to the stone age, there will be a huge die-off. I can't think of a scenario for dropping it to the stone age which wouldn't involve killing lots of people, anyway, but if it did then most remaining people would die because they did not know how to survive, and because as technology goes lower the population density you can feed goes down. In the end, though, people will be left alive. From what I have read, North America had about 2 million inhabitants when Europeans first found the place. The combined population of the US & CAnada today is in the vicinity of 300 million. That is the sort of "die off" you would be talking about.
Now consider folks living in domes on the moon. There is no nature - nothing to hunt or fish, not roots & nuts & fruits & berries to gather. Hydoponic farms, etc... require chemical processing, which is gone. Food is not the real problem, though. The equipment that reprocesses the air cannot be operated or maintained. Everybody dies.
I do agree there should be degrees, much as you have proposed. It is much more difficult to put a dome in where the atmoshere is just the wrong gas than it is when you have to deal with all those other issues.
[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 03 February 2001).]
Re: Too many planets
Threaded Mode