On Wed, Aug 31, 2016 at 1:38 PM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

I would say that it depends, on a case-to-case basis, upon a large number of variables.
However, I do believe that once pop has increased to a certain level, it will always be more economical to be self-sufficient.
POP6 should be high enough but there'll always be those variables.
Somewhere between low POP5 & high POP5 is where I would place the tipping point, all things being equal, but then there's always all those variables.

Have you ever read George R. R. Martins "Tuf Voyaging?" It's a compilation of short stories feature a very ODD gent named Tuf who stumbles into possession of what is essentially an ecological warfare dreadnought. Three of the stories focus on Tuf's efforts to help a severely-overpopulated world achieve resource stability. While those stories form the heart of the work, the initial story - concerning how Tuf acquires the ship - strikes me as possibly being an account of a near-TPK roleplaying session . . . since everyone except Tuf himself behaves pretty much exactly like your typical dungeon-crawling PC.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.