Human size in the galaxy

[Prpavi]

So while playing Mass Effect 2 (for the 5th time probably  ) reading the Citadel info before docking i read the population of the Citadel is something over 13 million.

Our current Earth numbers surpass all the planet and city population in that game more or less (Krogan had great numbers before genophage)

If there were a galactic civilisation with many races or atleast one that lives somewhere out there what would the size and numbers be? Maybe more planets colonized by one race. Would the Earth trends apply, the more civilised and developed the race smaller the numbers (like weastern world on Earth) or would they be much larger.

I know many different parameters can be taken into consideration and there would probably be bigger and smaller civilisations, but considering size of the earth and our development I always tought we wouldn't fare well number wise. I always imagined a more advanced civilisation to be from a much bigger planet with much greater numbers, probably in the hunderds of billions.

What do u think? 

[Cyber]

dunno

[Wolfsblood]

dunno

very insightful 

[Ninja_Khorin]

I know many different parameters can be taken into consideration and there would probably be bigger and smaller civilisations, but considering size of the earth and our development I always tought we wouldn't fare well number wise. I always imagined a more advanced civilisation to be from a much bigger planet with much greater numbers, probably in the hunderds of milions.

Population of earth is 7 billion already.

But yes, if it's a humanlike alien species then they would undoubtedly have more people if they have colonized different planets.

[Prpavi]

Population of earth is 7 billion already.

But yes, if it's a humanlike alien species then they would undoubtedly have more people if they have colonized different planets.

was a typo i meant to write hundreds of billions.

[Lennu]

Well, some say that life could be based on Silicon(Si) instead of Carbonium. But I dont know about that stuff much.

Anyway, assume that life would be like what we have here. So a habitable planet would been to be close enough to it's sun to get enough energy, it would need water and a metal core. Planet would also have to be solid, so no gas/liquid planets like Jupiter because of the insane heat and pressure sterilizes everything quite effectively. Atmosphere optional.
In our own solar system we have a couple of "close calls". Take Jupiters moons Europa and Ganymedes.
Europa is completely covered with 15km thick ice, and underneath that is water. Perfect, just a bit cold. Ice probably just prevents us from actually finding the life forms in there. Planet is totally habitable, sources of energy are just hard to find.
Ganymedes actually has an atmosphere mostly of Oxygen, which was probably from water that suns radiation turned into hydrogen and oxygen.

Saturn's moon Titan also has water, carbon etc but it's way too far away from the sun. Still, in our own solar system alone we at least 1 BINGO called Earth and many close calls, so IMO it's more than likely that there are solar systems out there with 1 or more BINGO's as well. And if one specie was developed enough to spread to other planets it could have population of hundreds of billions. And if one individual wasn't much bigger than a rabbit, the population could be millions of billions of tzabumbabillions.

[Malaclypse]

If they're scum like us they'll be like rats, and breed far beyond what they can realistically maintain

We are still, at 7 billion, nowhere near that point. It's not a matter of not being able to feed, house, and clothe every single person on Earth- we can do that multiple times over. We can maintain an even higher population, and it's not unrealistic to expect people not to be self-serving at every turn.  If you have a species that's willing to be collectively responsible and understands that the suffering of one is the suffering of all, great things can be achieved. We as humans are certainly capable of that, it's just a matter of unlearning the things we've been socialized to believe as truth.

[Bjord]

One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.

We're killing this planet slowly.

However, Earth is capable of sustaining (correct me if I got this wrong) over 120 billion humans or something like that. Not *entirely* sure about that, read that once maybe, so could be wrong. Wouldn't not make sense though, Earth is huge. Sadly the ecosystem would collapse lon before we reached even 20 billions, considering the rate at which we consume natural resources.

[Kafein]

One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.

Such estimations are only based on carbon dyoxide emissions and the amount of square kilometers of forests you would need to plant to stock the CO2 you are producing, the surface is then expressed in earth surfaces. Noooot really an accurate or complete representation of "sustainability".

Not anything to care about if we go out of our cradle in time though.

About Earth's population, I personally think 7 billion is more than enough. We can probably feed hundreds of billions, but at what price ? Our ideals of freedom cannot work with too many people, and additional population isn't going to help us do anything.

[Casimir]

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[Tennenoth]

So while playing Mass Effect 2 (for the 5th time probably  ) reading the Citadel info before docking i read the population of the Citadel is something over 13 million.

Our current Earth numbers surpass all the planet and city population in that game more or less (Krogan had great numbers before genophage)

If there were a galactic civilisation with many races or atleast one that lives somewhere out there what would the size and numbers be? Maybe more planets colonized by one race. Would the Earth trends apply, the more civilised and developed the race smaller the numbers (like weastern world on Earth) or would they be much larger.

I know many different parameters can be taken into consideration and there would probably be bigger and smaller civilisations, but considering size of the earth and our development I always tought we wouldn't fare well number wise. I always imagined a more advanced civilisation to be from a much bigger planet with much greater numbers, probably in the hunderds of billions.

What do u think?

If I was thinking basic in case of technology I would say that the more people in a civilisation, the greater chance that there will be someone that will create the next technological advancement and therefore to an extent, having a larger population would be beneficial but that might then you'd have to take into account of environmental issues. For example, we've got people who are being spurred to find alternative fuel sources "to save the ozone layer", hypothetically if another planet had a similar composition to ours, and they were placed in a more dire situation to save themselves, then they would be spurred on to create that technology to get into the wider galaxy.

Looking at Mass Effect, they seem to have different races split up into specialisations, for example, the Turians are a military race, Mordin's lot (can't remember their actual name, it might come to me later) are technologically focused, the Krogan, although primitive in nature still seem to have the technology to get "off world" and then there are the humans, a medium between everything.
Another interesting thing I find about games & TV is that most people seem to have us as the "standard" despite usually being one of the last races to have recently reached space. I guess that's quite understandable since everything is an unknown and the assumption that "something must have beat us", there must be something out there right? Even if it is only statistically possible since we have no idea how far things actually go.

I guess at the end of the day, it is the next frontier for our kind, it's unknown and interesting to a lot of us for a reason! I doubt we'll find out in our lifetime although that would wonderful.

[Overdriven]

We are still, at 7 billion, nowhere near that point. It's not a matter of not being able to feed, house, and clothe every single person on Earth- we can do that multiple times over. We can maintain an even higher population, and it's not unrealistic to expect people not to be self-serving at every turn.  If you have a species that's willing to be collectively responsible and understands that the suffering of one is the suffering of all, great things can be achieved. We as humans are certainly capable of that, it's just a matter of unlearning the things we've been socialized to believe as truth.

This is true enough. We have the resources to do all that but naturally it's about distribution. I doubt distribution is ever going to be even though, so in all likelihood the strain on the planet will come quite soon. The west isn't suddenly going to jump up and go 'lets give all our spare food to the poor'.

Regardless, an economic system based on exponential growth, combined with a population that will likely just continue to grow, is utterly unsustainable without moving into new frontiers. You simply can't grow and grow and grow, at some point it's going to bottom out.

[Vibe]

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[Prpavi]

One's ecological foot mark is a popular subject these days. If everyone who is alive today, all 7 billions, lived like we do in the West and industrial countries, we'd need at least another 4 Earth-sized planets to sustain both us and the environment.

We're killing this planet slowly.

However, Earth is capable of sustaining (correct me if I got this wrong) over 120 billion humans or something like that. Not *entirely* sure about that, read that once maybe, so could be wrong. Wouldn't not make sense though, Earth is huge. Sadly the ecosystem would collapse lon before we reached even 20 billions, considering the rate at which we consume natural resources.

Well recent predictions about Earths population say that the number of people will stop growing by the year 2050.

in 1992 the predictions for 2010 were 7.17 and it was 6.8 so the trend seems to be slowing down since the rapid growth from the 70' onward.

still it depends on many factors like wars, famine and overall development of the whole planet.

btw the capacity of our planet is from 4 to 16 billion people, don't know where you got the 120 billion number, sure maye in ideal conditions we could produce that much food ut surely not fit and sustain that much people. not only food, just think of the trash we would make...

[Teeth]

I think if we encounter any aliens it is probably because they have somehow managed to develop faster than light travel, which means we are fucked regardless of how many of us there are compared to them. God knows how far away our technology is from being able to develop anything like that, provided it is even possible. But who knows, maybe the aliens don't even understand the concept of violence.

In any case, there is too many variables to make any insightful statements about it. It is very easy to project aliens always as some slightly different version of humans, keeps it manageable to our brains I guess. Evolution is a funky thing though. Who knows, maybe some other race consists of giant hyper intelligent godzillas who reproduce once every 200 years who manage to keep a population of 20 going.