challenge: largest population possible.

your challenge is to create the biggest world population in current day as you can, in order to do this your (singular) POD has to avert as many wars/plagues/famines/droughts as possible.

give me a guess at the projected population as well.
 
Averting famines and stuff doesn't really retard population growth. If we make a world that develops enough to prevent all of this stuff, then the birthrates will drop and level off to a 1 to 1 ratio or so. Depending on when this happens, it will probably level off at something lower then the 10 billion mark we are probably gonna hit before leveling off.

So if you really want to create a giant population base, keep 99 percent of the people in poverty, without any means to revolt. But with free medical care I guess. (wierd society, but so is one that tries to get the highest population possible with limited resources). That should keep birthrates high, infant motality low and therefore an ever growing population. Theoretically if this system sustains itself we could be talking in the 20 billion territory globally.

Stopping war and famine takes tech progress and a decent peace agreement among people, needing democratic government, which would never keep 99 percent of the people in poverty. So its somewhat difficult. Either you get sucky world with huge birthrate or great world with tiny birthrate.
 
Its really simple. If abortion and birth control banned and people were forced to breed then the world population would be around 10 to 20 billion.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
No, GMB. It wouldn't.

Infant mortality would likely be higher in the US for one, and would be even worse in much of Africa if abortion and birth control were banned.

But you've veered into onanism so, I'm putting you on ignore.
 
Okay, here's my shot...

In 1515, an ingenious weaver in London invents a device they call the "Flying Shuttle," a device that allows a weaver to use a loom with far superior speed and quality. This device is soon spread throughout England, leading to lower priced clothing and an increased demand for such clothes. This demand does lead to the price of wool skyrocketing, however.

The demand for wool leads many to go into sheparding, but the current Open Field system (Less dominant in England than other parts of Europe, but still dominant) leads to disagreements of ownership and upsets communities with a shepard/farmer split. Land reform and local Enclosure acts speed up throughout England, culminating in the "Inclosure Act" of 1592 (OTL 1801, 70 years after the invention of the Flying Shuttle)

Under this system farming is streamlined, revealing the up until then "Hidden Unemployment" which is then forced to move into the cities. The enclosed farms allow farmers to experiment with ideas such as crop rotation without having to put their entire livelihood on the line. With farm animals in pens and gives farmers more opportunities to attempt selective breeding. The Average size of food animals and sheep grows astoundingly.

The increased population in the cities leads to increased unemployment but higher economic productivity since communal farms led to hidden unemployment by employing everybody in the communal production, despite increasingly diminishing returns. As goods and services become cheaper, the slowly emerging middle class starts reinvesting in the country. Production and technological development starts aproaching that of the Industrial Revolution about a century and a half earlier (Less than, but ITTL they will say the Industrial Revolution started in about 1600). These technological results will spread to Europe, especially the Netherlands.

As the agrarian and industrial revolution spreads through Europe, populations explode. As colonies are founded in the New World, Europeans flood into the land more than OTL, which compounds the population expansion. In 1750 an ingenious American plantation owner in Virginia writes up a book on a study of inheritance and genetics. Unlike Gregor Mendel's studies, the paper is immediately adopted by American thinkers and farmers who are continuously struggling for an edge on the frontier world.

Many new strains of plants are developed over time, many strengthening resistance to pests. But the most useful development was the invention of a strain of wheat known as Dwarf Wheat which grew shorter than traditional wheat while still growing the same amount of seeds. Wheat production grows by 60% and it's just the first of several High Yield varieties of crops. With cheap food widely available, the world population continues to explode, especially in less developed areas like Africa and Asia. By 1900 the population had reached 3 billion (1.4 Billion more than OTL) and is continuing to skyrocket.

New technologies continue to be developed ahead of OTL, leading to cheap medicines, new genetics breakthroughs, and improved sanitary conditions. Increased productivity means that underdeveloped regions get increased investment, improving the infrastructure and life expectancy/quality. Population booms continue throughout the 20th century. By the year 2000 there are an estimated 10.5 billion people in the world and there are serious efforts to create permanent habitations in space.
 

ninebucks

Banned
One word: entomophagy.

Farming large animals for meat is hugely inefficient, (in terms of land, energy, labour, etc.), and if, from earliest history, people instead chose to farm and feed upon insects there would be much more nutritionally rich food to go around.

Indeed, insect farming is so efficient, most families could probably be self-sufficient just on their own land, even if they lived in a city. One of OTL's limits on urban growth was the ability to transport food from its source of production to its source of consumption, prior to the invention of modern transportation methods, this put a distinct limit on city size - in a world where people are receiving proteins from the insects they raise in their own courtyards, that frees up the roads for grain imports.

As a result, agricultural interests are less important, (so no, or at least, much different feudalism), and urban interests are much more predominant. With bigger and more important cities, its more likely that the commercial and scientific revolutions will start earlier.

Then, when the industrial revolution occurs, the environment will be in a much better state to handle the increase in greenhouse gases, (seeing as there haven't been a hundred generations of cattle pumping methane into the air). Science, being more advanced, will be able to advise industry how to advance without destroying the environment.

By the modern day, civilisation will be centuries more advanced and the human population of Earth could number a few more billion.
 
Yeah - it really comes down to agriculture. Highest population possible means most widespread, intensive agriculture possible, with the entire population living at the subsistence level. I'd guess - assuming no weird FH agricultuaral revoultions - that 10bn is about the limit of what the Earth could support, and even then it'd be a fairly ragged edge.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Its really simple. If abortion and birth control banned and people were forced to breed then the world population would be around 10 to 20 billion.
It would make people more miserable, but it wouldn't make them significantly more numerous. There used to be a form of "birth control" that was quietly practiced in traditional societies with no room for more mouths to feed, it's called infanticide.

Short of people eating insects, one way to get to a higher population would be a greater prevalence of Asian-style intensive agriculture, with most of the arable land being used to grow crops for human consumption, and what animals are around fed leftovers. It takes about seven vegetable calories to generate one animal calorie, so if humans cut down on meat, there'll be more for them to eat with quantitatively identical agricultural yields.
 

Susano

Banned
Thats a climate problem, though. In the middle ages (and I do mean the middle ages, not the generally meat-poor early modern age) people were often near starvation, too, and yet they ate compared to said early modern age much meat. Part of that was that they used meat to get through the winter, which would be considerably more difficult with vegetables...
 
Prevent the Gallic Empire from being reabsorbed by Rome in 273. If it maintains its independence, you're likely to wind up with a chunk of the Roman Empire that can survive long-term (small enough to be government effectively, better infrastructure and border defence because the West isn't being drained to defend the East). That give you three things:
  1. Roman engineering (especially sanitation) survives in the west, which reduces the extent to which cities are plagues waiting to happen.
  2. Classical learning is preserved in the west rather than being lost for centuries and reintroduced from the Islamic world during the reconquest of Spain. Assuming butterflies don't cause a dark age in the Middle East, this accellerates science significantly.
  3. Long-distance trade is also preserved in Europe. Same effect as 2, with the same caveats.
  4. Gallic Empire would have the same incentives as OTL Spain and Portugal to seek a western sea route to Asia, but would have the desire and the means much earlier. This gives an earlier Columbian Exchange, which puts American food crops in Eurasia much earlier, and puts European agricultural techniques in the Americas much earlier.
If we time TTL European discovery of the Americas right so it coincides with an expansionist/exploratory mood in China, we might be able to get Chinese colonization of the west coast as well when word of the discovery (especially the bit about the huge deposits of gold and silver) gets back to them.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Prevent the Gallic Empire from being reabsorbed by Rome in 273. If it maintains its independence, you're likely to wind up with a chunk of the Roman Empire that can survive long-term (small enough to be government effectively, better infrastructure and border defence because the West isn't being drained to defend the East). That give you three things:
  1. Roman engineering (especially sanitation) survives in the west, which reduces the extent to which cities are plagues waiting to happen.
  2. Classical learning is preserved in the west rather than being lost for centuries and reintroduced from the Islamic world during the reconquest of Spain. Assuming butterflies don't cause a dark age in the Middle East, this accellerates science significantly.
  3. Long-distance trade is also preserved in Europe. Same effect as 2, with the same caveats.
  4. Gallic Empire would have the same incentives as OTL Spain and Portugal to seek a western sea route to Asia, but would have the desire and the means much earlier. This gives an earlier Columbian Exchange, which puts American food crops in Eurasia much earlier, and puts European agricultural techniques in the Americas much earlier.
If we time TTL European discovery of the Americas right so it coincides with an expansionist/exploratory mood in China, we might be able to get Chinese colonization of the west coast as well when word of the discovery (especially the bit about the huge deposits of gold and silver) gets back to them.

1. A stronger Gallic power could perhaps butterfly away the Moorish conquest of Iberia, which would severely retard the agricultural development of that peninsula. The European rulers of Iberia thought it was too dry to farm, and no serious attempt was made by either the Romans or the Visigoths to irrigate the land. For the Moors however, the land was relatively cool and wet, so they put a lot more effort into developing it agriculturally and making it their people's breadbasket. If that doesn't happen, its likely Iberia's potential will go unrealised for centuries. Spain and Portugal will probably never achieve their OTL populations.

2. On a different note, a much delayed discovery of the Americas, and thus a much more Native continent, would probably help. American states had plenty of aspirational diners, and plenty of open space, the result being the Cowboy Culture, and a food culture that favours big meat and luxuries. The native people of the Americas, on the other hand, had much more penned-in agriculture. If contact were delayed for a century or two, its possible more sedentary agriculture will establish itself in North and South America. When the Europeans do arrive, they won't be able to move Natives who are so dug in, and so they'll have to use an agricultural system that emulates what already exists.
 
No, GMB. It wouldn't.

Infant mortality would likely be higher in the US for one, and would be even worse in much of Africa if abortion and birth control were banned.

But you've veered into onanism so, I'm putting you on ignore.

It would make people more miserable, but it wouldn't make them significantly more numerous. There used to be a form of "birth control" that was quietly practiced in traditional societies with no room for more mouths to feed, it's called infanticide.

Short of people eating insects, one way to get to a higher population would be a greater prevalence of Asian-style intensive agriculture, with most of the arable land being used to grow crops for human consumption, and what animals are around fed leftovers. It takes about seven vegetable calories to generate one animal calorie, so if humans cut down on meat, there'll be more for them to eat with quantitatively identical agricultural yields.

Then is there any way birthrates in the First World could have remained about the same as the Baby Boom years?

PS: JohnJacques, I don't exactly get what you said in your last line.
 
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