4th Economics 101

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Clearly, if you don't have the workers, you fall back to more agricultural work. You have a small oil press for your excess crops to make vegetable oil than can be used directly, or you can make some methanol via wood gasification and convert some of that vegetable oil into biodiesel. Yields would be low though.

As a family or settlement, you have more kids. Nothing says more production than more hands, even if they start out little. Once you have three generation going with the help of marrying friendly neighbors or "acquiring" a spouse by some means, you have a workforce that will start to have excess time.

Again we need to balance this out with some reason. If we need a settlement, then we make one with the required number of people or have had a massive die out by aggression, disease or some other method that has now makes for run down infrastructure, but a reason they might have saved the gasification plant and biodiesel production capacity even if they cannot really make a new one or repair the one they have once something major gives out.

My problem was if we assume one or more TL C or TL B communities that are either self sufficient or working together, how can I represent the data in the tool I am building. I think I have that worked out, I just need to implement my idea and see if it fixes my problem.

I think I may have to spend some time crunching numbers...... what is the minimum size for the lower tech levels to get out of pure agriculture.....

I feel that low tech levels and small populations is the general rule for a setting like the Morrow Project... A broken dystopian future needing a spark, mentors from the past that can make the minor repairs and get it all working again.

To many C, B, or A level cultures and it feels like the recovery is happening with the Project and their meddling would even be setting back progress. Their efforts would breakdown or disrupt events and stop progress as they unbalance cultures and alliances.

So I have to know what is the population minimums to have recovery.. to have extraction, manufacturing, energy production, to get civil services going again.

Is that 100 at Tech D? 500 at tech D?
I will have to school myself on Excel formulas again and get that automated then get some rendered.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I think I may have to spend some time crunching numbers...... what is the minimum size for the lower tech levels to get out of pure agriculture.....

I feel that low tech levels and small populations is the general rule for a setting like the Morrow Project... A broken dystopian future needing a spark, mentors from the past that can make the minor repairs and get it all working again.

To many C, B, or A level cultures and it feels like the recovery is happening with the Project and their meddling would even be setting back progress. Their efforts would breakdown or disrupt events and stop progress as they unbalance cultures and alliances.

So I have to know what is the population minimums to have recovery.. to have extraction, manufacturing, energy production, to get civil services going again.

Is that 100 at Tech D? 500 at tech D?
I will have to school myself on Excel formulas again and get that automated then get some rendered.

Is the assumption that they have the technical knowledge to advance and just need the resources in this calculation? It is perfectly possible to have a tech level G community of a thousand or more using simple plows and animal power to feed them all well and just not having the knowledge to advance their metallurgy to advance to steam power.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Is the assumption that they have the technical knowledge to advance and just need the resources in this calculation? It is perfectly possible to have a tech level G community of a thousand or more using simple plows and animal power to feed them all well and just not having the knowledge to advance their metallurgy to advance to steam power.

I think it plays a major part in these formulas...... You can't get some industries going because you don't have enough labor. So there has to be a population factor involved.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I think it plays a major part in these formulas...... You can't get some industries going because you don't have enough labor. So there has to be a population factor involved.

Using the spreadsheet I still have under development, I did some runs on a TL E community of 100 souls. If all the traits are at 50%, they are just subsistance farmers with little labor left over beyond what is needed to get fuel for the fires and move things around.

But if we have TL E community of 100 souls with all traits at 50% except for Discipline and Curiosity, which both are at 75%. This community is more productive in agriculture that, with the same food list as the first one, we go from needing 50% of the workforce busy farming down to 38%. This is in part due to the increase in worker productivity from 2000 hours per year to 2300 hours per year and the increase in workers in workforce from 34 people to 39 people.

This all makes sense and is very germane to the current discussion. If a community is just plodding along with no real desire to explore, complacent in their ways, it won't really innovate. They will stay put tech level wise. But if they are curious and well disciplined, they will be looking for ways to improve and be more productive and be more likely to move up in tech level as they build surplus.