Some Interesting Demographics

[Selandia]

What corporations?


Hans

a) Those that hire the workers and that
1) provide them with housing near the business or the mine (Related to the Company Town Syndrom). Sometime employees will make this a condition of employment (when housing are near impossible to find otherwise within a reasonnable distance and price). Sometime, the employer will make it a condition of hiring (like exemple work crews have to be on 15 minutes call). Something this will be presented as(and might really be) a fringe benefit. The Corporations want to stuff them in the cheapest housing possible, with the exeption of some hard to find or retain specialist; those will have better wage and housing
2) try to pay as low wages as possible and thus reduce the "available for housing income"

b) If an "open" housing market exist (the company does not control the housing of his employees), those greedy corporations are those that own the housing complexes and rent living space. Will they create a cartel to insure that the "available for housing" part of the workers' income will be creamed off for as little housing as possible?

The only way 30 billions got crammed on Rethe is because the various forms of Habitats were built up over time, it is possible to have 30 billions housed in orbit, you are right. But the economic of having the poorest pop of the sector housed in the most expensive form of housing given the cheap (free tunnel) alternative does not cut my cake. Wochier with an insidious athmosphere is probably an orbital community. My current rough cut is 10%orbital 3 Billions, 40% surface 12 Billions, 50 % tunnel 15 Billions. Better economic of housing still to be done before final.

See other post for my guess on the topic before costing options

have fun

Selandia

 

[rancke]

a) Those that hire the workers and that
1) provide them with housing near the business or the mine (Related to the Company Town Syndrom). Sometime employees will make this a condition of employment (when housing are near impossible to find otherwise within a reasonnable distance and price). Sometime, the employer will make it a condition of hiring (like exemple work crews have to be on 15 minutes call). Something this will be presented as (and might really be) a fringe benefit. The Corporations want to stuff them in the cheapest housing possible, with the exeption of some hard to find or retain specialist; those will have better wage and housing
2) try to pay as low wages as possible and thus reduce the "available for housing income"

You have the entire population of Rethe working for one (or more) mining company/nies?

That does not seem to me to show a reasonable sense of proportion. Mining companies need customers for their ore. Ore refineries need customers for their metals. Manufacturers need customers for their products. Who is buying all the stuff that has been manufactured from all the ore that has been dug out to make room for 20 billion people?

Historically company towns like you describe battened on the econony of the rest of the country. You really can't get rich selling rocks to yourself. A company world only makes sense if there are worlds with much larger populations nearby to buy what they produce.

If there are any such companies on Rethe (quite likely), they sell to the 95+ % of the population that is working in other economic sectors. And a lot of them make enough money to live like upper lower class and middle class people.

And don't forget that Rethe is run by a charismatic dictator, not a company.

The only way 30 billions got crammed on Rethe is because the various forms of Habitats were built up over time, it is possible to have 30 billions housed in orbit, you are right. But the economic of having the poorest pop of the sector housed in the most expensive form of housing given the cheap (free tunnel) alternative does not cut my cake.

I question the existence of enough empty mining tunnels to cram 20 billion people into. And if there is an abundant supply of metal, space stations could be a welcome project to sell those metals to.


Hans

 

[Selandia]

Ok here is my understanding of housing patterns on Rethe

HIGH ENDS 5 % (actual luxury is like 1-2%)

Orbital habitat and Terra Prime Domed City.

Luxury Orbital: Oligarch, Senior corporate executive, senior bureaucrats, senior staffs or management of Orbital (including some manufacturing) facilities or working in main corporate offices. Some commute to land office.

Terra Prime Domed city: corporate executive, senior bureaucrats, senior staffs or management that commute to a mine or ground based facilities. Some office or service establishment are located inside the dome.

Luxury condominium in Pressurised Mass Habitat. Generally used by the upper class whose factory or business is located in the building. For security reason, that is uncommon amongst top executive. They prefer neighbouring Dome or Clustered Habitat

Clustered Habitats are linked individual pressurised shelters. Those are reminiscent of manors at this end of the housing market. They are linked by a passage that leads to facilities usually located in a Pressurised Mass Habitat. Otherwise, they are found around surface facilities or the entry to tunnel where the residents work. Like the Dome this habitat allows children to play in the yard (albeit with a mask) and some gardening.


MIDDLE RANGE 20 %

Standard type family Orbital habitat: it get larger, newer and more comfortable as the salary scale allow increased living expenses: Junior Bureaucrats, Corporate white collar working in corporate office (seldom do some commute to a land office) as well as the more desirable specialised workers working in orbital office and facilities

Terra Prime Domed city: Occupied by the same type of personnel as the standard type Orbital habitat, but working at ground based facilities. Very few commute to orbital, usually pending housing arrangements. A Dome usually has a Pressurised Mass Habitat annexed to provide cheaper housing affordable by service personnel. Tunnel Habitat may be used too when one is near enough.

Mass Pressurised Habitat: large building that contain apartments, stores and all that is needed by about 5000 inhabitants, as well as the offices and workshops of the company that sponsor (or own) the habitat. Often elongated or crescent shaped to create a micro climate downwind those building are nicknamed “Wall”. The best condominium are a near match to those of the Domes and the last step before them.

In an attempt at reproducing Bungalow or Row house, family pressurised shelter are grouped and linked by a passage to common facilities. Known as Clustered Habitat, one is usually found downwind of a Wall. Otherwise, they are found around surface business or the entry of tunnel where the residents work. Most expensive basic housing short of the Domes or Orbitals but allows children to have a swing a sand box and a four tomatoes garden.



LOW END 75 %

Orbital habitats offer pocket apartments or dormitories as living spaces for lower pay rate needed in orbital business. Police expel unemployed from Orbitals to prevent “festering poverty pocket”, insuring that even the lower class have a lawfully sustainable lifestyle. Often, married persons working in Orbitals have left their families in a less expensive dirt side housing.

Domed Cities, save for live-in house servants, rely on annexed Mass Pressurised Habitat or Tunnel Habitat to offer the needed pocket apartment or dormitories to its worker.

Mass Pressurised Habitat always include low rent apartment for the low wage workforce needed in the business and workshops it serves.

Independent Pressurised Shelter are usually found out ”in the wild” or in special community called for obscure reasons “trailer Park”. They are near the surface facilities or the entry of the tunnels where the residents work. The lack of connecting passages make those naturally cheaper than a Clustered Habitat, but not much. That a shelter is not clustered into an habitat is indicative of the “as low cost as possible” approach of the owner. This is reflected in the small size and poor quality of the shelters in most Trailer Park. .

Recovered mining tunnels are at the low end of the housing market and cover about 50% of it because they are basically free before fittings as a by product of mining activity. Those tunnels are high vaulted blasted in granite. Usually a central corridor is the ”street” with space on each side walled to form apartment. While the lack of window make that troglodite life somewhat claustrophobic, depressing and not so healthy it is an housing form that is always available in a world overcrowded by 30 billions, that lives largely by mining and dig faster than its population grow.

New or renovated apartments in tunnels can be made as comfortable as middle class housing in Mass Pressurized Habitat and are used to attract the better worker and junior staff to some underground factory, business or mine. At the other end of the spectrum, some space for the destitutes are nearly free for they are hardly more than curtained spaces in dormitories with common lavatories. The "hostel" owners make their money by selling the token needed to pay for every use of anything that use water or energy.

Ultimately, some tunnel space is so remote, decrepit and disorganised that rent cannot be collected and they could be squatted by NFR (No Fixed Residence, the homeless in the bureaucratic language on Rethe) with nothing to fear save murder and slaver gangs.

have fun

Selandia

 

[Selandia]

You have the entire population of Rethe working for one (or more) mining company/nies?

no, of course, sorry If I gave the ideas, might be missing somes S when doing theoritical micro economics. To use of plural at time would have given the impression that the decision process of an individual corporation "the" corporation in some explaination (an individual entity) was the process of a collective decision by many corporationS, (a collective entity) which it was not. Unless expressing myself in term of cartel, the macro-economic result steam from the more or less coherent sum of individual choices by corporation that tend to answer in similar terms to similar stimuli, henceforth the use of singular to illustrate phenomenons that are ultimately collective.

Manufactures, the sweat shop talked about previously, are also an important actors, buying galleries rather than walls by the way.

That does not seem to me to show a reasonable sense of proportion. Mining companies need customers for their ore. Ore refineries need customers for their metals. Manufacturers need customers for their products. Who is buying all the stuff that has been manufactured from all the ore that has been dug out to make room for 20 billion people?

Very good question, having been working on Interstellar Trade pattern for just that reason, next thing to come. As to volume, hundreds of years of work.

It is not the minerals for 30 billions consumers that we are talking about, it is hundreds if not thousand of billions, for generations after generations for centuries (subject to more or less canonical demographic discussions) people needed to dig and swet for food. Peoples die, while the mining gallery remain. over the next generation 31 billions will be born? I need to increase the dig by about 3% of the actual, no need to dig for 31 billions. How long will a space habitat survive? Long with good and costly maintenance...for -first post of the tread - a very poor population GWP Cr5120. Building with two century backgroung are usually said historical monuments, granite cave last for millenium and remain soo good that it is forbiden to scrape the painting off the walls.

Afterall, where the mineral for the space habitats you postulate (and my recent thinking push it to 3 billions) would have comme from? Of course, they are only a shell, but only a fraction of the extracted soil will be the relevant ore. So if you could lodge 30 billions in space (your theory), you could dig 15 billions.

Furthermore, I have to find a way to buy food, so I either declare the whole dam thing impossible or they find ways to sell a lot to their neighboor (working on it)

Historically company towns like you describe battened on the econony of the rest of the country. You really can't get rich selling rocks to yourself. A company world only makes sense if there are worlds with much larger populations nearby to buy what they produce.

If there are any such companies on Rethe (quite likely), they sell to the 95+ % of the population that is working in other economic sectors. And a lot of them make enough money to live like upper lower class and middle class people.

And don't forget that Rethe is run by a charismatic dictator, not a company.

Much answers above, even on current Earth in economy largely dependent on consurmer products, you find exports are way beyond your 5 % (about 9 % us gdp my last check some yers ago, nearly 30 % Can gdp, wonder China gdp%) and of course no single company (although am I some comunist leader with the state as The company? mmmm....no, but I might get the Fidel Castro or the Mao temptation:devil: if you force me)

I question the existence of enough empty mining tunnels to cram 20 billion people into. And if there is an abundant supply of metal, space stations could be a welcome project to sell those metals to.


Hans

answer above, I am down to 15 billions in tunnels and 3 billions in space. Neighboor Wochier with insidious athm is a MUCH better proposition for orbital habitats. Working the building industry tonight (if not working the trade)

Have fun

Selandia

 

[rancke]

no, of course, sorry If I gave the ideas, might be missing somes S when doing theoritical micro economics. To use of plural at time would have given the impression that the decision process of an individual corporation "the" corporation in some explaination (an individual entity) was the process of a collective decision by many corporationS, (a collective entity) which it was not. Unless expressing myself in term of cartel, the macro-economic result steam from the more or less coherent sum of individual choices by corporation that tend to answer in similar terms to similar stimuli, henceforth the use of singular to illustrate phenomenons that are ultimately collective.

But if Rethe is not a company world (and I'm glad to find that you don't think it is), company towns cease to be good models for Rethe's society. Even in the days when company mining towns were more common than they've become nowadays, they were never more than a small fraction of the countries they were part of. As for similar situations causing similar solutions, I'd like to point out that with the possible exception of some gold and silver boomtowns, even coal mine companies didn't house their employees in disused tunnels.

But be that as it may, I'll repeat my main point, which is that most of Rethe's population will be something other than miners, and they will want to live in the style to which their income entitles them.

Finally, I don't think you will save a lot of money by taking over disused mining tunnels and making them fit to live in. Rethe's atmosphere is type 3, very thin, close enough to vacuum to require the same installations that a surface or orbital habitat require. And if you build your habitats big enough, the shell is a very small part of the total cost per inhabitant.

It is not the minerals for 30 billions consumers that we are talking about, it is hundreds if not thousand of billions, for generations after generations for centuries (subject to more or less canonical demographic discussions) people needed to dig and sweat for food.

Populations grow over time. A century ago Rethe probably didn't have half the population it has now, and at some point recycling of old metal becomes economically viable.

How long will a space habitat survive? Long with good and costly maintenance...for -first post of the tread - a very poor population GWP Cr5120.

Why would the maintenance of the habitat shells cost a lot? And everything else cost just as much to maintain down a refurbished mining tunnel.

After all, where the mineral for the space habitats you postulate (and my recent thinking push it to 3 billions) would have comme from? Of course, they are only a shell, but only a fraction of the extracted soil will be the relevant ore. So if you could lodge 30 billions in space (your theory), you could dig 15 billions.

I think the minerals would come from the two planetoid belts that share the system with Rethe. I see them as the source of minerals that originally attracted settlers. Originally those belts would have contained most of the population. Rethe served as a transshipment point and manufacturing center and eventually became the mainworld, but I think a plurality of the system's population still live in the belts. If, for example, 40% lived on and in orbit around Rethe and 30% lived in each of the two belts, Rethe would qualify as the mainworld. (Of course, for reasons of verisimilitude I wouldn't use those exact percentages, but you get my drift, right?)

Furthermore, I have to find a way to buy food, so I either declare the whole dam thing impossible or they find ways to sell a lot to their neighboor (working on it)

Why do you have to buy food? As long as you have power plants you can have all the hydroponics garden and carniculture vats you need to make Rethe self-sufficient. (Though the upper class probably imports quite a bit of natural food from Heya -- not a lot though, since Heya doesn't import enough TL8 stuff to become TL8).

...even on current Earth in economy largely dependent on consurmer products, you find exports are way beyond your 5 % (about 9 % us gdp my last check some yers ago, nearly 30 % Can gdp, wonder China gdp%)...

Earth's interstellar exports are 0% at the moment. Anything we think of as exports isn't exports in Traveller terms; they're an artifact of Earth's balkanized status. For a unified world like Rethe there is no need for exports to survive (Exports to obtain comforts and luxuries is another matter).


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

...The only way 30 billions got crammed on Rethe is because the various forms of Habitats were built up over time ...

The only way 30 billion people got crammed on Rethe is because the little devils won't stop making babies.

You ought to consider the religion angle here. Not that the government is religiously driven, but that the population is predominantly of some religion that eschews birth control and the lot of them are pushing the edge of disaster on that planet, no doubt led by a dictator who's telling them what they want to hear - that they can keep on making babies and the government will find some way to keep things together.

Doesn't need to be a corporatocracy for the corporations to have them over a barrel. Doesn't even need to be primarily mining-driven. I'd say the bulk of the economy is devoted to just keeping people fed, watered and alive: operating and maintaining the "food" factories, operating and maintaining the water recycling systems, reclaiming solid sewage (which is very likely headed for the food factories), medical services, collecting the dead (which even at a low-end 800 per 100,000 amounts to a thousand dead every day - and that is likely to find its way by indirect means into the food and water system as well), creating and maintaining the equipment needs of 30 billion - clothing, furnishing, shelter, and so forth, and so forth. At TL8, they may have miners in space, using poorly-maintained boats to harvest water ice and recover hydrogen and oxygen-bearing chemical ices from the other bodies in the system for conversion to water.

Nonetheless, the mining angle becomes a key because the water and food brought in are small but critical components in maintaining the world's population. The food and water paid to the miners and the government (and most likely dribbled out by the government in welfare programs designed to keep the poor loyal to and dependent on the government) are just enough to keep the overall economy from running a negative balance. Let that flow stop, and the population's needs cannot be met. The most likely result is a gradually worsening recession marked by increasing number of poor dying of dehydration and hunger, pushing increasing civil discontent and unrest, basically a gradual build-up to a Malthusian catastrophe - at which point the charismatic dictator becomes a non-charismatic leader and uses his troops to brutally suppress the lower class (in the process reducing demand for water) and protect the world's food production and water recycling resources.

In fact, that's likely to be an on-going cycle on Rethe.

 

[rancke]

Human metabolism is a net producer of water. If you're living in a sealed environment, your problem is going to be getting the extra water out of the recycling system. As for food, given power there's no reason why you should have less food production than you have food consumption. Just build another hydroponics garden already.

(Of course, if you have an unanticipated population growth spurt, you could well get a temporary food shortfall).


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

It's not the human metabolism you need to worry about. It's the TL8 human-engineered systems. Rethe's a desert world: 0 to less than 10% hydrographics. Those systems are going to be doing everything they can to recover as much of the product of the 30 billion human metabolisms as they possibly can, because that's most of what everyone's going to be drinking tomorrow. Unless they are extremely efficient at recovering the water that people are sweating and excreting and breathing away, there's going to be some loss to the planetary environment - those 30 billion human metabolisms will be doing their little part to try to raise Rethe's hydrographics rating. And, there will be loss in the course of people leaving the enclosed environments to run errands in the planetary environment, in the course of minor failures of machinery, in the course of just maximum levels of achievable efficiency with TL8 machinery.

Even a small fraction of a percent loss can mean millions of liters daily - thousands of tons - over the scale of 30 billion people. That's the water they're trying to replace from whatever local planetary or system sources exist, or whatever they can get imported. They can lose that battle for a day, a week, a month, even a year without it becoming noticeable over that huge a population base, but if there's a persisting disruption, they're going to start having major problems after 3 or 4 years of it.

And that assumes it's a pretty tightly enclosed system - all the cities and towns and such sealed environments. Other players may have other ideas about that, in which case the daily loss to the environment from water lost in perspiration and respiration gets rather scary - in a dry environment they could easily excrete more that way than through urine.

With a smaller population, I could cluster them at the poles or around some little reservoir of water - a deeply buried ice meteor, for example. With a population this big, that's not a reasonable approach for Rethe. Every ounce of water on 70%-covered size-8 Earth together would make a sphere 860 miles in diameter. Little Rethe has anything from less than 1/500th the total volume (about 2/3 the volume of the Mediterranean) to zip - potentially quite a lot but scattered widely throughout the planet, much of it likely difficult to access (rather Mars-like in this respect). Population centers are likely to have been built around such sources, but it takes a while to build up to 30 billion, not many generations to deplete those sources - especially if they were less strict about recycling when they were fewer and more richly endowed with water ice - and they've been working at it for 7-800 years. It's going to be a real race keeping up with the growing water demands, and the low-hanging fruit's dispersed across the planet through a very arid atmosphere by now.

The problem they're facing is entropy - concentrated sources becoming very gradually but very steadily dispersed through the planet's atmosphere and therefore throughout the planet over 700 years of use as a result of slight but unavoidable inefficiencies, gradually increasing demand leading to a gradually increasing rate of loss, fewer and fewer concentrated sources, more and more effort required to mine those sources and to get them where needed in the quantities needed. Theyre using water far more rapidly than the natural environment can return it to the poles or other icing points. A crux point - where their efforts to find and mine water to replace what's lost in their recycling effort will be less than the increase in demand - is inevitable. Only question is whether it lies in the past or in the future, and with 30 billion souls and a potential loss in the thousands of tons daily, I'm inclined to believe it lies in their past and they're already dependent on outside sources to keep up with needs.

 

[aramis]

If rethe's habs are sealed for 0.5Atm pressure difference, then they're almost assuredly also sealed water-tight. Spacecraft have to pull water from the atmosphere and dump it overboard because of external food input being mostly water, much of which winds up as exhaled water vapor.

You soak up the water vapor from the air not because you absolutely need the water, but because you have to keep it from condensing on the electronics. The dome shell should be drenched in the mornings... simply because it will radiate at night and thus cool.

Same thing happens in Fairbanks - people wind up with humidity issues in the winter because there's now where for the water to escape to, due to the tightly sealed housing.

Given that it's likely a totally sealed unit, eventually, you need the water, but dome- cooling will put large amounts around the edges. Low tunnels will wind up as sumps, intended or not.

And, if Rethe is a food importer, they're going to be dumping water to get it out of the system.

 

[rancke]

It's not the human metabolism you need to worry about. It's the TL8 human-engineered systems.

TL 8 is advanced enough to produce sealed environments. Orbital habitats are TL 8, so evidently TL 8 is enough to handle excess water production in sealed habitats. Also, Rethe could be advanced in environmental technology.

Rethe's a desert world: 0 to less than 10% hydrographics. Those systems are going to be doing everything they can to recover as much of the product of the 30 billion human metabolisms as they possibly can, because that's most of what everyone's going to be drinking tomorrow. Unless they are extremely efficient at recovering the water that people are sweating and excreting and breathing away, there's going to be some loss to the planetary environment - those 30 billion human metabolisms will be doing their little part to try to raise Rethe's hydrographics rating.

There's going to be some loss, sure. Nothing's perfect. But there's going to be a gain too: Humans produce water. Admittedly I don't know the details, so I can't say how much 20 billion people produce. Wil?

And that assumes it's a pretty tightly enclosed system - all the cities and towns and such sealed environments.

With Rethe's class 3 atmosphere, almost all the habitats -- underground, surface, and space -- will be sealed. And I use 'almost' only to avoid quibbles -- I actually think all habitats, temporary and permanent, will be sealed.

With a smaller population, I could cluster them at the poles or around some little reservoir of water - a deeply buried ice meteor, for example.

As an aside, hydrographic percentage denotes open water/ice. Subsurface water isn't accounted for at all. If Rethe was riddled with buried ice meteorites it could have huge reservoirs of water. Such a setup doesn't sound plausible to me, but I could be wrong about that.


Hans

 

[aramis]

I'd need to look it up. But note that there were very serious concerns about excess water in 4 days on Apollo 13... and concerns that the moisture from their bodies would short out electronics.

 

[atpollard]

Louzy: 10 billion, civil service bureaucracy, high law, (no weapons except daggers, open possession prohibited)
Trin: 10 billion, impersonal bureaucracy, moderate law (no firearms except shotguns, open carry discouraged)
Mora: 10 billion, charismatic oligarchy, moderate law (no firearms)
Fornice: 20 billion, civil service bureaucracy, moderate law (no firearms)
Porozlo: 20 billion, balkanized, moderate law (light assault weapons prohibited, other firearms available)
Rethe: 30 billion, charismatic dictator, high law, (no weapons except daggers, open possession prohibited)
Junidy: 30 billion, Noncharismatic leader, extreme law, (weapons entirely illegal)

Most of those are accustomed to living under restrictive nonrepresentative governments and have no experience of firearms. In the Marches overall, 63% of the population lives at law level 7 or higher.

... and THIS is why I prefer my sandbox (or at least worlds on the fringe for non-CT OTUs) to the OTU.

 

[aramis]

... and THIS is why I prefer my sandbox (or at least worlds on the fringe for non-CT OTUs) to the OTU.

That level of repression ties to Pop fairly closely, unless one is dinking with the dice rolls. It's the nature of World Gen in traveller that high law is associated with impersonal autocratic governments, and those are associated with high population.

 

[atpollard]

That level of repression ties to Pop fairly closely, unless one is dinking with the dice rolls. It's the nature of World Gen in traveller that high law is associated with impersonal autocratic governments, and those are associated with high population.

Probably, but it is far too pessimistic a view of human nature for my taste.

Even the cyberpunk literature, which is pretty bleak overall, has an occasional reference to a massive cooperative organization-society made possible by advanced communication. I don't need the entire universe to be one big happy 'Federation of Planets' (like Star Trek), but is should not be hard-wired into the rules as an impossibility.

Strictly IMHO, but that is a 'bug' rather than a 'feature'.
[Perhaps completely random 2D6 rolls aren't such a bad idea after all.]

 

[Selandia]

But if Rethe is not a company world (and I'm glad to find that you don't think it is), company towns cease to be good models for Rethe's society. Even in the days when company mining towns were more common than they've become nowadays, they were never more than a small fraction of the countries they were part of. As for similar situations causing similar solutions, I'd like to point out that with the possible exception of some gold and silver boomtowns, even coal mine companies didn't house their employees in disused tunnels.

I do not use the 1850-1950 company town as the single model for Rethe. Actually, very few settlement will be like those.

The logic of the company town model that is evocated (the Company Town Syndrom) come to play because I will (likely at this moment) use as Rethe's economic model an economy dominated by vertically integrated yet diversified Mega corporation trying to maximise their profit by limiting concurence through trade cartel (what the US may have become without anti monopoly laws: Owned by Exxon and Microsoft). They will try to make money with the pop from the craddle to the grave, they want to be those that sell them the food, the cloth, the housing..... they will try to get zoning bylaw to their liking, control on utilities... Not it is not a world sized company town. That is a jungle where the biggest predators is the Mega corporation whose tentacules must forever grow for profit has to be reinvested to generate profit that has to be reinvested.:devil:

It does not quite work like that on Earth because Earth is real. Traveller is Sci-Fi, it exist to be unreal.

But be that as it may, I'll repeat my main point, which is that most of Rethe's population will be something other than miners, and they will want to live in the style to which their income entitles them.

Absolutely acurate, they can't afford orbital . About 40% will go surface because the tunnels are still offers potentially the cheapest housing. See post on housing. No tunnel mentionned in High or Med range housing. The sordid surrounding for the underworld adventure amongst destitute and desperate is the tunnel.

Finally, I don't think you will save a lot of money by taking over disused mining tunnels and making them fit to live in. Rethe's atmosphere is type 3, very thin, close enough to vacuum to require the same installations that a surface or orbital habitat require. And if you build your habitats big enough, the shell is a very small part of the total cost per inhabitant.

Unless you are poor.
A) to illustrate a point, using theoretical fig, the real are in B

basic math: Shell + interior fitting = Cost

option a:
orb rich 2 + 10 = 12 ratio shell to cost 16.6%
tun rich .5 + 11 = 12 ratio shell to cost 9 %

option b:
orb mid 2 + 0.5 = 2.5 ratio shell to cost 80 %
tun mid .5 + 2 = 2.5 ratio shell to cost 20 %

Orbital is worth it at a certain point in the revenue ladder.

B) Now, the REAL thing, As the salesman said "A Boys' room, Girls' room and Master bedroom each equiv to a suite Just .2Mcr x 3 + fresher at .5 Mcr, a mere 1 Mega credit for I discount if you buy within 15 days. I Include free I mean FREE 20 tons of lounge, kitchen and corridor, as well as Kitchen appliance, life support, hull, power plant, air lock, attitude thruster, control room, janitors'locker, corridor, watch keeping, all FREE and one month without condo fees. And if You buy NOW it is interest FREE if you qualify as earning the average GDP of Rethe 5120 CR. In exchange for 100 % of your income for 195 years I GIVE IT TO YOU.:rofl: I am sure you will fin money for food, clothing and small things. As to the building taxes and condo fees, we will capitalise them so your descendant could keep up the payments for another 100 years

Of course Family revenues are not GDP per capita. Make the real estate math and tell me at what level of revenues could a 4 person family with two revenues could purchase orbital. willing to take them IMTU if they works

Orbital habitat is possible, no question, you hammer a most hammered nail of Sci Fi. I dont think all on Rethe could avoid the damp smelly tunnel with plywood separation wall. :devil:For adventure purpose I am going to push it.

I refer to my post on housing: "the other end of the spectrum, some space for the destitutes are nearly free for they are hardly more than curtained spaces in dormitories with common lavatories. The "hostel" owners make their money by selling the token needed to pay for every use of anything that use water or energy" If you want luxury tunnels, you may as well go above ground. (the blanket in the above is not .5 it is .000005 cr)

Earth is not a desert. Nobody "vitaly need" to drive imported car in North America, but people import because when they can they choose, so they "need" import (or that is what they says to politico) .

You import food because the non starving did not want to eat the left overs of uncle Harry when he was alive, even less what is left over of uncle Harry now that he is dead, nor the recycled organic waste of their neighboor. We have hydroponic strawberry all year long (Cheesecake oblige), but I will buy Field strawberry during the season because THEY taste strawberry. People with even less than average revenus accept to pay more for organic food, will they starve otherwise? As soon as possible given a salary move, people will move their consumption patterns, including housing and food. Food upgrade could be made in small increment, ground to orbit ? If 1 % of 30 Billions are filty rich and 10 % rich that is like 300 Millions and 3 billions enough to make an import market. Rethe's number always are on another scale.

Trade patterns coming

have fun

Selandia

 

[rancke]

The logic of the company town model that is evocated (the Company Town Syndrom) come to play because I will (likely at this moment) use as Rethe's economic model an economy dominated by vertically integrated yet diversified Mega corporation trying to maximise their profit by limiting concurence through trade cartel (what the US may have become without anti monopoly laws: Owned by Exxon and Microsoft). They will try to make money with the pop from the craddle to the grave, they want to be those that sell them the food, the cloth, the housing..... they will try to get zoning bylaw to their liking, control on utilities... Not it is not a world sized company town. That is a jungle where the biggest predators is the Mega corporation whose tentacules must forever grow for profit has to be reinvested to generate profit that has to be reinvested.:devil:

I assume you mean planetary corporations rather than megacorporations. Any such all-encompassing setup runs up against the problem that you need a prosperous population to sell stuff to. That sort of corporation can profit only by leeching off a much greater economy. For one thing, companies don't waste money on housing anyone that isn't working for them.

Absolutely acurate, they can't afford orbital .

How do you know that? What do you base that assumption on? And if you're right, how do you explain belter societies where everyone, from the poorest pauper up, live in space habitats?

About 40% will go surface because the tunnels are still offers potentially the cheapest housing. See post on housing.

See refutation of claim that tunnels will be significantly cheaper. (And doubt that they'd exist in sufficient numbers.)

basic math: Shell + interior fitting = Cost

option a:
orb rich 2 + 10 = 12 ratio shell to cost 16.6%
tun rich .5 + 11 = 12 ratio shell to cost 9 %

option b:
orb mid 2 + 0.5 = 2.5 ratio shell to cost 80 %
tun mid .5 + 2 = 2.5 ratio shell to cost 20 %

Orbital is worth it at a certain point in the revenue ladder.

I don't understand this argument at all.

B) Now, the REAL thing, As the salesman said "A Boys' room, Girls' room and Master bedroom each equiv to a suite Just .2Mcr x 3 + fresher at .5 Mcr, a mere 1 Mega credit for I discount if you buy within 15 days. I Include free I mean FREE 20 tons of lounge, kitchen and corridor, as well as Kitchen appliance, life support, hull, power plant, air lock, attitude thruster, control room, janitors'locker, corridor, watch keeping, all FREE and one month without condo fees. And if You buy NOW it is interest FREE if you qualify as earning the average GDP of Rethe 5120 CR. In exchange for 100 % of your income for 195 years I GIVE IT TO YOU.:rofl:

I suspect that you're somehow riffing on starship accomodation costs. Surely you don't think that living in a space habitat could possibly be that expensive? I refer you, once more, to the existence of belter communities where everybody lives in space habitats. Shionthy is a red zone, so its population certainly manages to live in space habitats at TL 8 without food imports.

Orbital habitat is possible, no question, you hammer a most hammered nail of Sci Fi. I dont think all on Rethe could avoid the damp smelly tunnel with plywood separation wall.

I never said everyone on Rethe would necessarily live in orbital habitats. I suggested most of them did, although I failed to mention that there would also be people living in the two belts..

I refer to my post on housing: "the other end of the spectrum, some space for the destitutes are nearly free for they are hardly more than curtained spaces in dormitories with common lavatories. The "hostel" owners make their money by selling the token needed to pay for every use of anything that use water or energy" If you want luxury tunnels, you may as well go above ground. (the blanket in the above is not .5 it is .000005 cr)

You could do the same with high-capacity dormitories in space habitats.

Also, you seem to imagine that putting people in a disused tunnel with only a blanket to separate their living space is enough. If you do that, they'll just up and die on you. Rethe's atmosphere is not breathable. Any machinery you need to keep people alive on a space station you'll need equally well to keep them alive in a tunnel.

You import food because the non starving did not want to eat the left overs of uncle Harry when he was alive, even less what is left over of uncle Harry now that he is dead nor the recycled organic waste of their neighboor.

Why not? We here on Earth are eating recycled remains of our dead ancestors and our neighbors' waste. Doesn't seem to upset most people.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

The logic of the company town model that is evocated (the Company Town Syndrom) come to play because I will (likely at this moment) use as Rethe's economic model an economy dominated by vertically integrated yet diversified Mega corporation trying to maximise their profit by limiting concurence through trade cartel (what the US may have become without anti monopoly laws: Owned by Exxon and Microsoft).

Hardly. The only true monopolies in the US have been those supported by legislation from congress.

 

[Carlobrand]

If rethe's habs are sealed for 0.5Atm pressure difference, then they're almost assuredly also sealed water-tight. Spacecraft have to pull water from the atmosphere and dump it overboard because of external food input being mostly water, much of which winds up as exhaled water vapor.

If people are going outside for any reason, if vehicles are exiting the sealed systems, if spacecraft are exiting the sealed systems on their way through the atmosphere toward space, then there will be loss. I based numbers on a guesstimated loss of no more than 1/100 of 1%, very low. The point was that with the number of people involved, tiny percentages quickly added to large real values.

And, if Rethe is a food importer, they're going to be dumping water to get it out of the system.

Now this is an interesting point. Ranke also makes the point that humans make water - in the course of metabolizing carbohydrates, according to the Wiki article on the subject. I learned something new there. Eat a sandwich, make some water. (Seems embarrassingly obvious in retrospect - plants make food from sun and water and some minerals, food eaters convert the food to energy and water and some minerals.) So, if food is coming in, some of the food becomes water after being eaten and metabolized, and on the scale of 30 billion souls, that could be quite a lot, even if much of their diet is locally manufactured gunk. And on that score, with water to spare, they're more likely to be engaging in large-scale hydroponics than in chemical manufacture. They're also more likely to be using water for transport of wastes, and their personal water regimen is going to be rather loose, rather than the draconian controls I originally envisioned.

Interesting: that switches the view to one in which the Rethe urban centers are venting moisture in an effort to bleed excess out of their system. That has some interesting ecological implications for whatever native life exists on Rethe.

 

[rancke]

If people are going outside for any reason, if vehicles are exiting the sealed systems, if spacecraft are exiting the sealed systems on their way through the atmosphere toward space, then there will be loss. I based numbers on a guesstimated loss of no more than 1/100 of 1%, very low. The point was that with the number of people involved, tiny percentages quickly added to large real values.

But the number of people involved in EHA (Extra-Habitatual Activity ) would be a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the total to begin with.

Rancke also makes the point that humans make water - in the course of metabolizing carbohydrates, according to the Wiki article on the subject. I learned something new there. Eat a sandwich, make some water. (Seems embarrassingly obvious in retrospect - plants make food from sun and water and some minerals, food eaters convert the food to energy and water and some minerals.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize that food production would need to recycle the water . Since there is always going to be some loss, Carlo is right that water will be needed to replace the loss.

The next two questions are how much water will be lost and where do you replace it from? As to the first question, I've no idea. As to the second, my first guess would be the asteroid belts.

So, if food is coming in, some of the food becomes water after being eaten and metabolized, and on the scale of 30 billion souls, that could be quite a lot, even if much of their diet is locally manufactured gunk.

The local food production will recycle water. Imported food will add water, but how much food will be imported? Remember that Shionthy proves that it is possible for a space society to survive at TL 8 without any food imports at all. That doesn't prove that Rethe's society hasn't committed the folly of becoming dependent on food imports, but it does mean that it has had the option to refrain (Well... up to my baby boom, that is).

My own notion would be that food imports used to be restricted to luxury consumption rather than necessity consumption and were thus comparatively small.


Hans

 

[Selandia]

Hardly. The only true monopolies in the US have been those supported by legislation from congress.

Indeed, that is my point, the govt have anti monopoly laws, so you need the govt making exeptions to have monopoly.

Have fun

Selandia