It would seem to me that as time progresses it becomes harder to spread ideas that aren’t mainstream regardless of validity. Even with the internet, it doesn’t get a lot of attention unless it is mainstream to pay attention to that type of thing, and there is often so much on the internet it can dilute things. And it takes a long time for something to become mainstream, if it is odd enough. As such it seems to me that for example, if there was say at some point in time only 10 people, it would have been a lot easier for a single person to get across a good idea. Now even a really good idea can take years to get to the mainstream.
What I am getting at is that it seems that the Speed of Spread of a New Idea (SSNI) slows as the population grows. Or rather the speed itself stays the same but the population increases thus the SSNI relative to Population Size (PS) reduces over time and it would seem that if we got to a point where we where colonizing a bunch of planets and what not that the population would begin to grow exponentially faster and faster, and as such the SSNI/PS factor would decrease more and more, approaching zero. While we may never reach zero it may get to the point that Any good Idea simply can’t pervade the entire social stratum before it is forgotten by the older part of the social stratum, likewise it might get to the point where if something deadly is realized there won’t be time for enough of the population to see the problem and react. As such it would seem that colonizing outer space could be dangerous and it would be essential that we have limitations on colonization and overall population size, the question then would be what population size is optimal? And how would we prevent factions from not breaking off and spreading more population, that would cause the same problem or lead to war?
I don’t feel this is necessarily correct.
The speed at which an idea spreads is based upon the appeal that idea has to the people that hear/read about it.
If everyone likes the idea it spreads quickly. If not it doesn’t spread so fast.
Mainstream simply means that more people know about it. And a mainstream idea spreads faster because the more people that know about it, the more that can spread it like a virus.
I don’t think population size affects idea spread. Certainly as people spread it they change it slightly so eventually you end up with different ideas from the same source idea but it will still spread based on appeal.
The keys to spreading an idea are to
A) make it simple. The simpler the better. More people can get simple ideas and there is less room for individual interpretation (or more depending on the type of idea)
B) make it big. If it doesn’t apply to everyone, few people will embrace it.
C) keep saying it. The more times the idea is proposed, the more people will adopt it (if it has appeal) and spread it further getting it “mainstream” faster.
The best size of any population on any planet is the amount perfect with the amount of resources available.
Preventing break off factions would be easy; kill them and anyone who proposes to do their own thing. (With tyranny it’s either go big or go home)
Everything will lead to war eventually.
Exactly and the appeal it has depends on how relatable it is to things they already know. In otherwords if I proposed a method to predict stock prices everyone would jump on it, but if I found evidence that using stocks lead to an overall loss of money for everyone involved (unlikely) but nonetheless even if it was mathematically proven it would be doubted, and take a long time till it was accepted. Or you might suggest an idea as odd as the one of this topic…
Some good ideas aren’t simple, and simplicity depends again on what people are used to handleing. If everyone was a physicist, it would be alot easeir to explain general relativity…
Plus it seems that over time the population has a tendency get lazier as it gets used to more luxuries.
For example in greek times people could memorize whole lectures, now that is not the case. A teach once showed how a saying gets lost after it is transfered in secret around the room. But I suspect that in the past people were better at memorizing stories and passing them on more accurately. As such it may be the case that verbal history in the past was more accurate than we think it is now because to judge that now we studyed people from now…
Again, that means you have to convince them that it applies to them before they will accept the idea that it applies to them… so unless it is simplisticlly obvious it won’t be accepted, or won’t easily be.
“if it has appeal” in otherwords if you showed that using oil would cause the end of the world in 100 years no body would believe it because it would require them to go back to a “harder” way of life in order to survive. And keep on saying is part of the problem, you can say it alot but when there are so many people you have to say it alot more, and at the same time have to some how get those people that do hear it to listen.
I don’t think everything leads to war, it depends on the mentality of the culture. But those cultures that don’t tend to be absorbed by those that do war…
And I would adjust the best population size you suggested. You would need to consider that the resources be consumed slower then they are reproduced. And overall every system corrupts even one such as that, the pooint is not simply to consume what you can but also take into consideration what consuming stuff now will cause for future generations.