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My Response to Stuart Dagger's review of 6 Billion™ in
email sent 4th December, 1999)
Counter issue 7 (Hi Stuart,
I just got home from work and there was Counter issue 7 waiting for me. I love getting Counter.
I skipped straight to your review of 6 Billion. I was puzzled by the introduction and your assessment of the scientific basis of the game, where you incorrectly stated two of the three premises for the game. Please re-read the Design Note in Rule 6.3.1. The "Earth" population represents both the sustainable and (admittedly) subjective assessment of the likely population in the same orbit as the Earth around the Sun, including the Moon and any space stations. The other planets, it is noted in my Design Note, only have a surface population "where appropriate", so your second premise is also incorrectly stated.
My having pointed this out, you still might feel you don't agree with the scientific basis for the game. The "Further Reading" recommended on the back of the Discovery Track may change your mind, as might some of the books I recommend in my article on the Design & Production of 6 Billion™ .
Having said all that, I do point out that the game is deliberately optimistic (and even provide an earlier, and pessimistic, poem inspired by the likes of Malthus). My stated premise for the game is that population is the solution, not the problem. I wanted to bring attention to the power (and perils) of exponential growth, and make people think about our doubling rate and the mechanics behind it.
None of which may convince a single person of the scientific validity of my "fantasy". But at least I tried!
As to the rest of the review, I am delighted with your assessment of 6 Billion. I especially liked the fact that, given you don't accept the premise of the game, nor does the theme appeal to you, you were able to objectively appraise the game for what it is - a game!
Malthus, by the way, is buried in Bath (a noun, but also a verb!) - where I lived in England.
As for Ben Baldanza, come into my parlour and I'll give you a game of 6 Billion...
Thanks Stuart, and it was a pleasure to meet you at Essen!
David
After a protracted argument, I received this retraction from Stuart Dagger (email sent 9th January, 2001):
I fully accept that in my review I did not say that when you postulate a population of 1024 billion for the Earth you do not envisage them all living on the planet and that you instead have upwards of 95% of them crammed into artificial satellites.
Whether this is technologically possible is conjectural. Whether it is feasible is unknown. (I draw a distinction between the two as one of the things we have learned from some of the advances of the 20th century is that there tend to be unforeseen and potentially catastrophic problems that result from what seemed like a wonderful idea at the time. Cars and planes: greenhouse gases and global warming; atomic power: how to deal with the toxic waste; refrigerant gases: holes in the ozone layer.)
Whether it is desirable is debatable. You and I take very different views on all three questions. I described your vision as science fantasy; well at present it certainly isn't science fact. It may become so at some point in the future or it may not. We neither of us know and, as I have observed before, expert predictions of what will happen in the future have a very bad track record. (It can't have escaped your attention, for instance, that we have now reached 2001, the year of Clarke's story.) For the moment at least, you are day dreaming, speculating, call it what you will.
Here is my response to that:
Stuart Dagger's reply <<in red>>, quotes from his review are in red italics, David Coutts' responses (also 9th January, 2001) are in black italics. (Stuart Dagger's comments published with permission)
Game Premises - The Retraction
<<I fully accept that in my review I did not say that when you postulate a population of 1024 billion for the Earth you do not envisage them all living on the planet and that you instead have upwards of 95% of them crammed into artificial satellites.>>
Let me repeat Stuart's two original inaccurate statements regarding the premises of 6 Billion™:
- The Earth can support a population over 100 times its present size. This growth can be achieved without any worries about land degradation, conflict over resources, and so on.
- All the other planets in the solar system are suitable for human habitation and every bit as bountiful and elastic-sided as this imaginary Earth.
So allowing for "artificial satellites", and given the scientific fact of natural satellites (moons) throughout the solar system, both these imaginary premises for 6 Billion™ are proven to be the products of Stuart's imagination, and nothing more.
It is not strictly true to state that 6 Billion™ postulates a population of 1024 billion for the Earth (or, more correctly, the Earth population track). The free doubling limit for Earth is 128 billion, and very few games of 6 Billion™ end when the population is pushed past this to 1024. Still, 6 Billion™ does allow for the population on the Earth population track to reach 1024.
There is absolutely no reason these people would be "crammed" in artificial satellites. Every scientific book on the subject postulates plenty of living space for all concerned. If you can provide me with the title of a scientific book that states otherwise then I'll look into it. With regard to the population figures in 6 Billion™, I have already clearly stated (in my initial response to Stuart) that my figures are arbitrary (how could they be anything else, given that I am speculating about the future?). See these brief Design Notes for more. Arbitrary figures do not invalidate the premises of the game.
Technological Possibilities
<<Whether this is technologically possible is conjectural.>>
Every scientific book I have read on the subject says it is technologically possible, even with today's technology (again, if you know of the title of any scientific book which states otherwise then please provide the title). Certainly the scientific consensus would acknowledge that there are scientific problems, but would also argue that these problems can be solved. It appears then that the 6 Billion™ scenario has a good scientific basis, and has never been proven to be impossible.
The main non-scientific problems with realising this vision are cost (economics of scale), time, political willpower and political vision. Costs continue to drop as technology improves and reaches a mass audience (witness what has happened with PC's). 6 Billion™ deals neatly with time by allowing a turn to represent the amount of time it takes a population to double. If this is a long time then we have more time for scientific and technological advancement. This is explored further in my article Per Ardua Ad Astra.
The future is full of possibilities. I believe 6 Billion™ goes a small way to helping us explore what we want for the future of humanity, helping to fan the spark to light the fire. I believe Stuart's view to be the opposite, dousing the spark to put out the fire. Obviously we want the future to be different things.
Technological Feasibilities & Consequences
<<Whether it is feasible is unknown. (I draw a distinction between the two as one of the things we have learned from some of the advances of the 20th century is that there tend to be unforeseen and potentially catastrophic problems that result from what seemed like a wonderful idea at the time. Cars and planes: greenhouse gases and global warming; atomic power: how to deal with the toxic waste; refrigerant gases: holes in the ozone layer.) >>
So who is Stuart blaming? If he is blaming science and technology then he blames scientists and technicians. This is so wrong - we all share the blame. Yes, there can be harmful consequences of science and technology. For example, saving lives, improving human fertility (IVF etc), animal husbandry (leading to degradation of the environment including greenhouse gases from cattle, and top soil erosion from hoofed animals), agriculture in general (loss of biodiversity through land clearances) etc etc. What are the natural consequences of all this? More people, at the expense of the environment. So, it is nature (the blind drive of all life-forms, not just humans, to exploit their environment to the full and to reproduce) which is the true culprit. Then, as thinking beings, we are guilty of our own success.
Cars and planes serve a useful purpose, otherwise we wouldn't have them. The main reason they are so popular is because they are so useful (marketing is also to blame for making the car the number one prized possession in many people's lives). On balance then, science and technology did what people wanted. I imagine the lonely voice of a few scientists, warning of the consequences, were drowned out by the greed of commercial interests, the vote-grabbing of power-hungry politicians and the "must have" attitude of people like Stuart, and people like me. Even buying boardgames has its effect. Or is Stuart going to tell me he has never used a car or an aeroplane, and owns no boardgames?
Similar arguments can be made for atomic power (we get electricity) and refrigerators (virtually every modern home has one). The scientists do not control the entire process from inception through to implementation (nor would they want to). They are not responsible for the initial demand, we are. Yet it is scientists (including technicians) who will then have to deal with (by providing solutions) the consequences of non-scientists actions. I can list dozens of books, by scientists, where they explore the consequences of their work. Just try me. I, for one, am grateful that the ethical debate is moving out of the province of the major religions and into the secular arena.
Stuart's condemnations are therefore politically correct, but offer no real solutions and don't even help us understand the truth. The consequences of not colonising space will almost certainly be catastrophic for mankind, and for all life on this planet.
I gather that Stuart recommends that it is a good thing to explore the consequences of any advance before implementing it? If so, why does he oppose the theme of 6 Billion™ so much? It's there to help give people a chance to think about a future which science says is possible. You can't have it both ways, Stuart.
Listen to the scientists, and think about the consequences for yourself. Then act to help enable the future that you want. That's what I am doing.
By the way, the Internet is an unforseen consequence of scientific and technological advances in computing. Rather a good one, I'd say. It's not all bad, Stuart. Perhaps colonising space could even be good for those that stay on Earth...
It's a hard thing to quantify, but from my technophile perspective I'd say science and technology have done far more good than harm in the 20th century. Richard Dawkins (in his book "The Extended Phenotype") describes humanity's technology as our extended phenotype, which compliments our genotype in allowing our genes to replicate through us. That's how nature has made us. Nature did a good job with humanity - we are the first Earth species to even hope of colonising space and continuing nature's blind program. But, even though nature's program is undirected, humanity's program need not be. We can stop, and think for ourselves. Our goals can be good, or bad. We decide.
In 6 Billion™ the goals are happy, wealthy people (who occasionally benefit from helping each other ) and the spreading of life from the Earth throughout the solar system. These are good goals. Why does Stuart oppose them? Nature is, was, and always will be, the driving force behind exponential growth. Is this why Stuart wrote in his review of "...topics that are better left untouched in a game context"? Does Stuart oppose Nature? Does he think we can stabilise our population FOREVER on Earth?
Technological Desirability
<<Whether it is desirable is debatable. You and I take very different views on all three questions.>>
Is it desirable? Well, if not, then what is? I oppose any view which restricts humanity to Earth for no stated reason. Without any more to go on, I can only assume that Stuart does not want humanity to colonise space...EVER! He also seems to think we will NEVER be able to do so! I regard this as a bigger fantasy than Lord Of The Rings. At least in the Lord Of The Rings, Tolkien recognised that times change and things pass.
The current rate of species extinction on our planet has been compared to the extinction of the dinosaurs following an asteroid impact some 65 million years ago. It's massive. Our population growth rate, whilst slowing, will still see us reach a population between 9 and 10 billion by 2050. So, things will get worse for life on Earth. On the other hand, when we do colonise space, we can take life from Earth and adapt it to live there. In my vision there will be more diversity, and more life. I believe Stuart's vision would reduce Earth to the equivalent of Easter Island, which ultimately became denuded and unliveable. See Tim Flannery's "The Future Eaters" (an ecological history of Australasia) pages 254 - 257.
I believe Stuart is suffering from both of the conditions for failure of prediction: "Failure Of Imagination" and "Failure Of Nerve", as discussed in Arthur C Clarke's "Profiles Of The Future".
Science Fantasy and Science Fact
<<I described your vision as science fantasy; well at present it certainly isn't science fact.>>
Of course it is not, at present, science fact. I am aware that a mere handful of humans occupy the International Space Station (and then only for brief spells at a time).
Scientific Speculation and Prediction
<<It may become so at some point in the future or it may not.>>
If Stuart admits to the possibility at some point in the future then 6 Billion™ becomes, in fact, a model which can be used for valid speculation about our human future in the solar system. So why say, in his review, that the game "...has no connection with realities of the scientific sort?" What motivated Stuart to make such a claim? I could leave the reader to speculate, but I believe it is because Stuart has no valid model of his own for the next millennium. What he doesn't understand, he has to oppose.
<<We neither of us know and, as I have observed before, expert predictions of what will happen in the future have a very bad track record. (It can't have escaped your attention, for instance, that we have now reached 2001, the year of Clarke's story.) For the moment at least, you are day dreaming, speculating, call it what you will.>>
It's ironic that Stuart seems to think that one should judge accuracy of prediction from one of Clarke's science-fiction novels, instead of one of Clarke's books specifically about predictions. However (yet more irony), as discussed in Per Ardua Ad Astra, I prove Stuart right. Clarke has had to revise his predictions about the colonisation of our solar system. Clarke used to be much more pessimistic, but now he has endorsed the vision first presented in the Millennial Project. Clarke's new optimism is based on his understanding of future sciences and technologies. So is mine.
Clarke doesn't pretend to be a prophet, and neither do I. I admit to my mistakes (see my rebuttal of Larry Levy's comments in Counter issue 11), as does Clarke. In both cases, the 6 Billion™ scenario has become more likely and not less likely.
I do not suffer from Failure Of Nerve, and nor do I suffer from Failure Of Imagination. Nor do I suffer from any surfeit of either nerve or imagination. Am I dreaming? Well, I'm not asleep. Yes, I am using my imagination to speculate about the future. I thought this was a good thing?
With regard to the exactitude of the 6 Billion™ prediction, the game benefits from having no precise timeline. I myself have stated, in Per Ardua Ad Astra, that "It’ll all happen, some time in the next millennium, and it starts now. That’s the extent of my prediction." But 6 Billion™ does not restrict itself to my own personal prediction. Instead, it is tied to the rate of our population doubling which is a variable. Furthermore, we can use mathematics to explore what the doubling time would be for a given rate (see Population Doubling Mechanism). This makes the 6 Billion™ prediction flexible.
It is a reasonable scientific premise that population growth slows when conditions are cramped, or resources scarce. This describes our perception of our situation on Earth at the beginning of the 21st century. Then, it is also a reasonable scientific premise that should we adapt ourselves or our environment to live in space, the lid is off and you will see explosive exponential growth in space (with Earth itself still fairly static). I qualify that statement by saying that exponential growth is very slow to start, but extremely fast once you hit the bottom of the spike. This is nicely demonstrated in 6 Billion™.
Malthus
It is a wonderful irony that Stuart concludes his review of 6 Billion™ by stating that he goes around "wearing a 'Malthus was right' T-shirt." The only two things that Malthus actually got right were
- there is a natural tendency towards exponential growth (and he used population doubling to illustrate this point). This has always been the way, and it always would be the way.
- that this would continue to cause grief and suffering for humanity
The first of these is mathematically provable, and the second (a tragic consequence of the first) has also proved true. 6 Billion™ illustrates Malthus's first point precisely through the mechanism of population doubling. The irony here is that Stuart thinks that Malthus is right, and that I am wrong, but as far as this scientific point is concerned Malthus and I are saying the same thing!
With regard to the second point, Malthus referred to the "positive checks" upon the natural tendency of populations towards exponential growth. These checks are implemented in 6 Billion™ through the mechanism of The Four Riders Of The Apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence & Death). Again, as far as this specific point is concerned, Malthus and I are saying the same thing!
Malthus at least recognised that nothing would change for humanity unless "...some decided change takes place in the physical constitution of our nature". I doubt very much whether Malthus would approve of the options now facing humanity, including some possibilities which are distinctly non-human (human-computer hybrids, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, cloning etc). The option that Malthus failed to consider was the colonisation of space - 6 Billion™. Like Malthus, Stuart cannot conceive of how humanity's situation could possibly continue into our solar system.
There is much about Malthus's views that I disagree with, so I won't be buying a "Malthus was right t-shirt". For more on my views on Malthus please read "Malthus - An Atheist View".
Today's Situation - Hopes and Desires
Everyone expects the rate of growth to slow down this century. I expect, and agree with, a stabilisation of our population mid-century. By the end of the 21st century we will have created small colonies on the Moon, Mars, and in space colonies (including space hotels). The trend will still be for slow population growth, so turn 2 for 6 Billion™ could conclude centuries from then. This is realistic. In fact, it is modestly so. Emerging technologies like Nanotechnology, as discussed at The Foresight Institute, could dramatically speed up that timeframe.
Perhaps the least favourable conclusion we can draw from advances in genetics, cloning, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology etc is that our time as a species is drawing to a close. It's possible, and if it is unavoidable then I embrace it (if you can't fight them, help them). The future would then belong to something more than human, perhaps several different species, and we will have put them there. But if it is possible that humanity can survive and compete in one of the many possible futures then I will do my small part to support humanity in achieving such a future.
We can all affect the future, and fight for the one that we want. First, you have to state which one you want. I have, but Stuart hasn't.
Stuart's Review
I still regard Stuart's review as - overall - positive. He did, despite everything, review it as a game. But, I question more than ever the motivation behind his comments against the theme of the game. I also question his rather funny assessment that "As a topic for a game, the human race's ability to outbreed the hamster was never going to catch my imagination in the way that trains, elections or horse racing can." As a topic for a game there is none more important, or so ripe with possibility. 6 Billion™ provides a good framework to explore those possibilities. What sort of imagination fails to see that?
I did warn Stuart and all critics (see "Going It Alone") that I would make the critics justify their opinions, where I disagreed. Probably, by now, nobody else cares. That won't stop me, because I care.
Finally, it took a long time to drag this response from Stuart. Throughout the struggle, there wasn't the slightest hint that he thought he'd done anything wrong. Nor was there any apology. Shame.
For a list of articles by me, see the Articles page.
