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Old 04-10-2019, 03:52 PM
Gelrir Gelrir is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mmartin798 View Post
I only have one question about your analysis. If Daidalos is more or less a late 20th/early 21st century city-state, then why are you using 1940 census data? It is likely they have additional occupations that didn't exist in 1940. The 2000 census includes information workers and would include effects that has on the other occupations. For example:
Occupation / 2000 data / 1940 data
Professional persons / 20.2% / 5.1%
Farming / 0.7% / 13.7
Both of these examples were greatly affected by technological advances in the latter half of the 20th century. Though you will have to take some care, as the 2000 census data only includes civilians, so you will have to pull the military out of the population total before doing the break down.
Good point! But I don't consider Daidalos to just be 6,000 divided by 327 million of the 21st Century United States.

The use of 1940 data seemed a better fit to a community of only 6,000 persons that can't import technical goods (I thought about using 1930, but that would be skewed by the Great Depression). I doubt they can build (or import from China) lots of combine harvesters or other mechanized farm equipment (horses are mentioned as the usual form of transport); and I don't see them as benefiting from online tech support and other 'information technology" very much.

21st Century America (the nation covered by the 2010 census) depends heavily on foreign nations (outside of the census) for manufacturing: steel, electronics, merchant ships (and shipping), heavy machinery, etc. An independent nation is going to have to shift to self-sufficiency (at least for technical goods); they mention (pg 76) that the Daidalosi "own very little that an average person of the late 20th Century would have"; and even within Daidalos barter is still commonly used. So I chose 1940 U.S. as an example of a nation not-very-dependent on foreign manufactures or mass production of every convenience.

One of my issues with the book is the lack of information on how this tiny nation constructs things, feeds itself, educates an amazing number of college students, etc. ... quadrupling the number of professionals (college instructors, medical specialists, web application designers, seismologists, etc.) to a 21st Century America level would come at the expense of farmers, laborers, and factory workers.

Another military note: the Daidalos Defense Force has claymore mines, also.

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Michael B.
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