Idea: Pops consume Food like consumer goods

[hsuzy1987]

Hi guys, just wanted to run something by you lot.

I was thinking about how food is going to go from a local to global resource very shortly, and I felt that a mechanic where pops consume additional food with higher standards of living might work well. On a headcanon + brief examination of reality level, it makes sense: improved standards of living are associated with an increase in the quantity and variety of food consumed. It also didn't make sense to me that slave pops would consume the same amount of food as full citizen pops. Either the full citizen pops were eating the bare minimum, subsistence amount that the slaves were eating, or the slaves were eating as well as their masters. Neither makes sense.

Mechanics-wise, I'd see this as a solution to the min-maxy situation now where food production is almost irrelevant once you hit max population. There would be a reason to dedicate fertile (read: many food tiles) worlds to agriculture.

Edit: grammar

 

[Shermanator]

I think this is a great idea.

 

[The Founder]

Consumer goods mechanic was invented to counter Mineral Income Snowballing lategame. Wich also ties into the fact that slaves porduce more minerals, for a slight net increase of minerals in slaver soceities lategame.

Also, of c ourse Slaves get the same nutritional value of food as thier masters. If they would not, that would be the "deathcamp" version of purging, not slavery. No amount of coercion can get people to work without proper food longterm.
Note that by similar nutritional value, Soylent (not Green) and eating Flesh (wich is ineffective to produce*) is the same. But one of them tends to taste a lot better.


*If we would skip out the whole "grow green stuff. Feed green stuff to animals. Eat the animals" we could feed a lot more people.

 

[Ramiel]

Friendly reminder that Global Food is not confirmed for Banks. Wiz has been very careful not to say anything about when it'll happen. It sounds to me like he really wants it, but they haven't worked it out yet and he doesn't want to make promises until it's absolutely certain.
That said, I totally agree with your idea. Not necessarily exactly like consumer goods, but the general idea of POPs with higher living standards consuming more food sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

[The Founder]

*If we would skip out the whole "grow green stuff. Feed green stuff to animals. Eat the animals" we could feed a lot more people.

Now that I think about it, this could be worked into that mechanic:
With our current farmable land, earth could feed 10 Billion Vegetarians.
But only 2.5 Billion Omnivores eating like the average american.

The differnce is simply how much plant material is used to feed lifestock. Wich in turn feeds humans. The Omnivorous diet needs about 4 times as much farmable land as the purely vegetarian.

 

[hsuzy1987]

Friendly reminder that Global Food is not confirmed for Banks.

d'oh. I was thinking it'd be in Banks. Oh well, no hurry, at least it's an intended addition and not something the devs are still mulling over whether to add.

 

[Kayden_II]

Pretty funny ...
I'm not a Fan of "More Food = More Happiness/Productivity"-Suggestions since It doesn't make Sense, because "fat" POPs are maybe happier, but not more productive ...

But, the reversed Idea, like in this Thread, makes Sense ...
Less Food = Less Happiness/Productivity ...

I'm thinking of Something like That ...
1. You have to provide "normal" POPs with 1 Food per POP ...
2. You have the Permission to set (for Example) 0.5 Food per POP for "special" POPs, like Slaves and POPs, Which You are purging ...
3. I've currently only 1 Case, in Which It makes Sense to implement the "More Food = More Happiness/Productivity"-Suggestion: POPs, Which have the "Decadent"-Trait ...

But, I fear, that Nobody will use This since the Food-Production is more than enough (currently).

 

[SadeRat]

I don't know if it should be linked to happiness or productivity, but I do agree that it should be global. I miss Moo2 where I could just build more freighters to carry more food between more planets as needed.

 

[Moonshadow101]

Now that I think about it, this could be worked into that mechanic:
With our current farmable land, earth could feed 10 Billion Vegetarians.
But only 2.5 Billion Omnivores eating like the average american.

The differnce is simply how much plant material is used to feed lifestock. Wich in turn feeds humans. The Omnivorous diet needs about 4 times as much farmable land as the purely vegetarian.

Anyone with even the most trivial grasp of actual economic history knows that this misses the point entirely. Starving people aren't starving because the fatties are eating all of their food, they're starving because the social and economic systems around them are not designed to allocate food to them. Reduced consumption in the U.S. would not feed Africa, it would merely lead to reduced production... because reducing production is more cost-effective than shipping food across the ocean to feed people who can't pay for it.

This is what happens when people read too much technical sci-fi and not enough actual history... or even thoughtful sci-fi. You get too caught up in theories and numbers and ignore the actual systems that govern reality. The earth's theoretical maximum carrying capacity is not an issue right now, man-made economic systems are.

 

[Cannes]

Now that I think about it, this could be worked into that mechanic:
With our current farmable land, earth could feed 10 Billion Vegetarians.
But only 2.5 Billion Omnivores eating like the average american.

The differnce is simply how much plant material is used to feed lifestock. Wich in turn feeds humans. The Omnivorous diet needs about 4 times as much farmable land as the purely vegetarian.

You are "conveniently" leaving out hydroponic food production.

 

[The Founder]

Anyone with even the most trivial grasp of actual economic history knows that this misses the point entirely. Starving people aren't starving because the fatties are eating all of their food, they're starving because the social and economic systems around them are not designed to allocate food to them. Reduced consumption in the U.S. would not feed Africa, it would merely lead to reduced production... because reducing production is more cost-effective than shipping food across the ocean to feed people who can't pay for it.

This is what happens when people read too much technical sci-fi and not enough actual history... or even thoughtful sci-fi. You get too caught up in theories and numbers and ignore the actual systems that govern reality. The earth's theoretical maximum carrying capacity is not an issue right now, man-made economic systems are.

You are forgetting that we are talking about hypothethical a interstellar age civilistion that has mastered food transports over galactic scales (global food is a requirement for this whole idea). On the same planet would no longer be an issue.
Even a mere Planetary government has propably figured that out on thier homeworld already. Give me 20 years and the abiltiy to control migration and infrastrcuture on a global scale and I could propably solve it.
Indeed any Nationstate has to figure out the food transport in thier own territory (even if via imports), or risk unrest. The problem are our segregated nationstates. Nothing else.

You are "conveniently" leaving out hydroponic food production.

Since the tile can still offer 1-3 Food bonus (that can be harvested without a Hydroponics farm), I asume that some soil requirements are still important.

 

[SolarGuy]

But only 2.5 Billion Omnivores eating like the average american.

If every single person of those 2.5 billion (I'm curious: Where did you get that number from?) in the year 2200 was eating like the average American of 2017...
As you just said so nicely: "You are forgetting that we are talking about hypothethical a interstellar age civilistion", so the average American of 2017 really doesn't have anything to do with that, hmmm?

Since the tile can still offer 1-3 Food bonus (that can be harvested without a Hydroponics farm), I asume that some soil requirements are still important.

They aren't. Hydroponic farms can also work without any natural food resources.
The natural food that isn't harvested using such hydroponic farms is really just that: Natural food, which we can assume to be (at most, usually it's less than 3 food) equal in nutritional value to what a really low level farm can produce. Later in the tech level it doesn't matter if there is some soil quality or not, one such hydroponic farm will be enough to sustain half the planet either way.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

I agree that more food doesn't necessarily equal more happiness or more productivity, but I do think this is a good idea.

It should be a very minor happiness/growth boost for pops getting more than a standard 1 food per pop allocation, and a slightly higher malus if they are being rationed unless they have ethics/traits that would make them be more ok with it (basic needs not being met causes more problems than basic needs being exceeded causes boosts). Decadent pops should be more demanding of supra-standard levels, too.

 

[AmpsterMan]

In MY perfect world, the game would behave like Victoria in this context. Food tiles would just represent an input good required to make Food, High Quality Food, Luxury Food. Each step takes exponentially more arable resources but provides a linear happiness bonus.

 

[Strager]

Food really should be separated out. I think i'll make a thread on it.

 

[Crissa]

Anyone with even the most trivial grasp of actual economic history knows...

...That your argument is specious and misses the entire point of the description was that at current productivity, we couldn't feed everyone this way and in no way was there an argument that Americans were responsible.

There are ways to make more food, and there are ways to deliver more food, and there are ways to deliver more variety, but they aren't always used. Arguing that starving people exist because of politics completely misses the point that we don't have the technology or resources (literal sources of nitrogen fertilizer and fossil fuels) to feed everyone a high-meat diet.

But for some reason, meat-eaters get whiny when you point that out. I don't know why, I'm not taking the burger out of their hands. A burger is tasty now and again.

 

[The Founder]

To clarify:
After we got Global Food and only if that is in addition to Consumer Goods Mineral cost, it could work out well for them to consume more food.
NOT in the sense that they are literally eating more. But in that they use the resources they have for more varried food.
As this article outlines, one can make much better food quality for fewer people using the same resources. In particular Vegetarian/Meateater diet is interesting:
"Aside from the limited availability of freshwater, there are indeed constraints on the amount of food that Earth can produce, just as Malthus argued more than 200 years ago. Even in the case of maximum efficiency, in which all the grains grown are dedicated to feeding humans (instead of livestock, which is an inefficient way to convert plant energy into food energy), there's still a limit to how far the available quantities can stretch. "If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people," Wilson wrote.

The 3.5 billion acres would produce approximately 2 billion tons of grains annually, he explained. That's enough to feed 10 billion vegetarians, but would only feed 2.5 billion U.S. omnivores, because so much vegetation is dedicated to livestock and poultry in the United States.

So 10 billion people is the uppermost population limit where food is concerned. Because it's extremely unlikely that everyone will agree to stop eating meat, Wilson thinks the maximum carrying capacity of the Earth based on food resources will most likely fall short of 10 billion."

 

[Xoatl]

d'oh. I was thinking it'd be in Banks. Oh well, no hurry, at least it's an intended addition and not something the devs are still mulling over whether to add.

It's a pretty safe bet it'll be in a dev diary for banks. Probably after this one coming up on the psy victory. The mechanics for a global food system should have an entire dev diary for it, just what happens in blockades, priorities for surplas food/starvation, new buildings (silos for max storage and give adjacency bonus at higher levels like the mineral processor or the power capacitors in that one mod).

I agree that more food doesn't necessarily equal more happiness or more productivity, but I do think this is a good idea.

It should be a very minor happiness/growth boost for pops getting more than a standard 1 food per pop allocation, and a slightly higher malus if they are being rationed unless they have ethics/traits that would make them be more ok with it (basic needs not being met causes more problems than basic needs being exceeded causes boosts). Decadent pops should be more demanding of supra-standard levels, too.

Okay how about this. Increased living standards increases consumer goods maintanence, food consumption, and happiness. Okay so all of that is true in the real world. After a certain point (High, very high, and utopia levels) the POPs get scaling negative modifiers to food, mineral (and maybe energy) output. If anything higher living standards helps with research as it gives people more time and resources to go studying all these minors things people get grants for now. How's that sound?

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

Okay how about this. Increased living standards increases consumer goods maintanence, food consumption, and happiness. Okay so all of that is true in the real world. After a certain point (High, very high, and utopia levels) the POPs get scaling negative modifiers to food, mineral (and maybe energy) output. If anything higher living standards helps with research as it gives people more time and resources to go studying all these minors things people get grants for now. How's that sound?

I think that's a a great choice for how to implement it!

 

[Xoatl]

I think that's a a great choice for how to implement it!

Thanks, I was excited when it came to mind. It's a simple, realistic, and balanced approach to rights. It addresses the happiness/laziness theories of living standards being discussed here. Also it adds some extra flavour to living standards.