Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Austrasien]

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

No.

Plants need light. Sunlight is a function of surface area (any additional sunlight falling on the sides of a tower come at the expense of whatever is in its shadow, the surface area available for agriculture places the upper limit on the amount of sunlight available for photosynthesis). The energy costs of replacing the sun in agriculture are astronomical and there is no economic case for such a thing.

Stacking people and businesses is in contrast much more practical.

[Gallia-]

just use red lamps and npps and hydrodams

e-z

but put the farm underground so it can survive nuclear blasts

[Purpelia]

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

Yes. But it would require building large tiered farm complexes more akin to something you'd find in SF and lit exclusively or almost so with artificial light. The later of which would cost such an astronomical sum that it simply is not practical.

[Silver Commonwealth]

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

Yes. But it would require building large tiered farm complexes more akin to something you'd find in SF and lit exclusively or almost so with artificial light. The later of which would cost such an astronomical sum that it simply is not practical.

So, in short, it is possible in theory, but very expensive in practice? Gonna take the tips there in consideration. In SC, urban farming is still more of an idea, than a real thing. Some of SC's technocrats look to it as one of the means of ensuring a self-sufficiency of cities from the rural areas.

[Danternoust]

Except they could be mainly looking at a country on the other side of the earth...

Rusty on my Kerbal mechanics, but satellites would have to rotate at the rate of their orbital period to constantly face the Earth.
It isn't hard to enforce honesty.

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

Yes. But it would require building large tiered farm complexes more akin to something you'd find in SF and lit exclusively or almost so with artificial light. The later of which would cost such an astronomical sum that it simply is not practical.

Any nation that isn't a quasi-hydraulic economy can simply calculate the proportion of economic output that it would cost to maintain underground food production versus food stocks x years. It could then stockpile food for nearly the same cost as underground food production, but with a more acceptable cost.

So if underground agriculture costs 10x as much as above-ground, one could just keep above-ground agriculture and try to stockpile 5 years of food, and have a cost savings of 50%.

But what if you want your citizens not to be prepared, but to be easily controlled?

[Manokan Republic]

The easiest way to do urban farming would be to try and grow animals, like fish, chickens or even cows. A large building could be used to absorb output of things like natural gas, and you could bring in feed from a distance away. An advantage of this would be to take ranching land, which is quite large, and grow food on it, instead of having animals roam around, albeit this might be somewhat cruel to the animals unless designed to allow them to roam around. Fish is ideal for this reason, and aquaponics can be used to easily clean the water and grow some extra food. You don't really need sunlight to allow animals to grow, so stacking it is much easier. You can also grow some plants without sunlight, notably potatoes and mushrooms, and things like broccoli, carrots, celery and kale will grow in low-light conditions. So if you stack it in a way that puts the shade plants at the bottom, it will be easier to work with.

You might let the plants germinate in a large tower, and then transfer it to regular soil right before it blooms, to allow for faster crop cycles with the same amount of land. Really you want space optimization, and aquaponics in a greenhouse, with all year-long growing periods and the ability to have higher crop density, is your best bet. It also uses less water. 30 times or higher efficiency in regards to space is possible. Chickens, cows and goats produce milk and eggs, which is something that allows you to produce more food over time.

[Purpelia]

Yes. But it would require building large tiered farm complexes more akin to something you'd find in SF and lit exclusively or almost so with artificial light. The later of which would cost such an astronomical sum that it simply is not practical.

So, in short, it is possible in theory, but very expensive in practice? Gonna take the tips there in consideration. In SC, urban farming is still more of an idea, than a real thing. Some of SC's technocrats look to it as one of the means of ensuring a self-sufficiency of cities from the rural areas.

Extremely expensive. Like, we are talking along the lines of having an atomic reactor per small city expensive. And that's to keep people fed and NOT to give them cheep access to plentiful food like we are used to in the modern era. Really, it's something reserved for FT when you have Fusion Power to give you infinite cheap electricity.

Also stick with plants and avoid keeping animals. Animals process plants into food thus making them by definition less efficient. Although you could probably get away with some by feeding them the parts of plants that people don't eat.

This said, it all depends on just how grim you are willing to go with this. It all becomes increasingly less nonviable (still nonviable though) as you go further toward keeping your people in a state of semi starvation through expensive meals of vat grown algae.

[Danternoust]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 013.856495
I somehow doubt it will ever be popular on NS to RP a 70s disaster movie, of which, Jurassic Park was a revival of.

[Manokan Republic]

So, in short, it is possible in theory, but very expensive in practice? Gonna take the tips there in consideration. In SC, urban farming is still more of an idea, than a real thing. Some of SC's technocrats look to it as one of the means of ensuring a self-sufficiency of cities from the rural areas.

Extremely expensive. Like, we are talking along the lines of having an atomic reactor per small city expensive. And that's to keep people fed and NOT to give them cheep access to plentiful food like we are used to in the modern era. Really, it's something reserved for FT when you have Fusion Power to give you infinite cheap electricity.

Also stick with plants and avoid keeping animals. Animals process plants into food thus making them by definition less efficient. Although you could probably get away with some by feeding them the parts of plants that people don't eat.

This said, it all depends on just how grim you are willing to go with this. It all becomes increasingly less nonviable (still nonviable though) as you go further toward keeping your people in a state of semi starvation through expensive meals of vat grown algae.

Animals can be more efficient for two reasons, 1. You can grow their food elsewhere and then import the food to the city, which is kind of cheating, although the main idea being that ranchland could be used to grow crops for animals instead and 2. Humans can't realistically eat things like grass, algae and the like, so we get the animals to convert it in to something for us instead. It's cheaper than lab grown meat grown from grass, which is really the advantage.

[Special Aromas]

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

No.

Plants need light. Sunlight is a function of surface area (any additional sunlight falling on the sides of a tower come at the expense of whatever is in its shadow, the surface area available for agriculture places the upper limit on the amount of sunlight available for photosynthesis). The energy costs of replacing the sun in agriculture are astronomical and there is no economic case for such a thing.

Stacking people and businesses is in contrast much more practical.

There is when you can sell it to college students for for $20/g

[Purpelia]

Animals can be more efficient for two reasons, 1. You can grow their food elsewhere and then import the food to the city, which is kind of cheating, although the main idea being that ranchland could be used to grow crops for animals instead and 2. Humans can't realistically eat things like grass, algae and the like, so we get the animals to convert it in to something for us instead. It's cheaper than lab grown meat grown from grass, which is really the advantage.

But as you said #1 is discarded for cheating and #2 is just a non issue because if you are doing artificially lit hydroponics you chose what you grow. You can literally have a whole giant skyscraper growing nothing but truffles.

[Manokan Republic]

Animals can be more efficient for two reasons, 1. You can grow their food elsewhere and then import the food to the city, which is kind of cheating, although the main idea being that ranchland could be used to grow crops for animals instead and 2. Humans can't realistically eat things like grass, algae and the like, so we get the animals to convert it in to something for us instead. It's cheaper than lab grown meat grown from grass, which is really the advantage.

But as you said #1 is discarded for cheating and #2 is just a non issue because if you are doing artificially lit hydroponics you chose what you grow. You can literally have a whole giant skyscraper growing nothing but truffles.

Animals require a lot of land for ranching, and it's possible to move animals in to a building as they don't need a much sunlight as plants. The same ranch land can be used instead to grow food crops to feed the animals, which would be more efficient. Second, it would be about putting fresh food in to your city, rather than necessarily having to ship it in from a long distance. Things like Algae and grass grow faster and easier than food crops, so you grow huge amounts of it and use it to feed animals. Algae farms in the ocean are pretty easy to make, so you grow algae, and then said algae is used in livestock feed, and you can condense how much land is needed to grow the same volume of calories and protein a human might need. It's more about land efficiency than growing everything in an urban environment. You can grow certain things in urban environments to save on space, or in tall buildings etc.

[Purpelia]

Animals require a lot of land for ranching, and it's possible to move animals in to a building as they don't need a much sunlight as plants. The same ranch land can be used instead to grow food crops to feed the animals, which would be more efficient. Second, it would be about putting fresh food in to your city, rather than necessarily having to ship it in from a long distance.

Except the discussion here is explicitly about how you make cities NOT require food imports AT ALL. If you can just import fodder for animals your options obviously grow massively in both affordability and diversity. But that's shifting the goalposts somewhat.

Things like Algae and grass grow faster and easier than food crops, so you grow huge amounts of it and use it to feed animals. Algae farms in the ocean are pretty easy to make, so you grow algae, and then said algae is used in livestock feed, and you can condense how much land is needed to grow the same volume of calories and protein a human might need. It's more about land efficiency than growing everything in an urban environment. You can grow certain things in urban environments to save on space, or in tall buildings etc.

And how is any of that relevant to the discussion of making cities independent of food efforts? We aren't talking general artificial farming here but the sort of stuff that can fit in a city.

[Manokan Republic]

Animals require a lot of land for ranching, and it's possible to move animals in to a building as they don't need a much sunlight as plants. The same ranch land can be used instead to grow food crops to feed the animals, which would be more efficient. Second, it would be about putting fresh food in to your city, rather than necessarily having to ship it in from a long distance.

Except the discussion here is explicitly about how you make cities NOT require food imports AT ALL. If you can just import fodder for animals your options obviously grow massively in both affordability and diversity. But that's shifting the goalposts somewhat.

No it's not, he just said could urban farming be implemented, he never said that all food would have to be grown in cities, these are arbitrary parameters that you're now adding. And even if he did say that, my point is to think outside the box and come up with ways to make urban farming more practical by spreading it out as wide as possible rather than be constrained by growing it inside the city itself. You would grow as much outside the city as possible and grow what grows realistically inside of a city.

But even so, you can grow things like mushrooms without any sun at all, feed it to cows in feedstock, and then eat it, all without any sunlight at all. You can grow things like duckweed in aquaponics which, while technically edible for humans, is better for animals to eat, and then eat the animals whom you fed the duckweed, which grows like a weed. You don't have to necessarily grow food crops, you can grow really shitty but easy to grow foods in the city, give it to an animal, and then eat the animal. This is more efficient then trying to make artificial meat for example, and converting your algea or grass in to a burger. While a clump of grass may technically have more energy in it before a cow turns it in to milk or meat, humans can't process grass, or algae or the like in their digestive systems very well, and it lack things like vitamin B12 and protein. But an animal can process it for them, and then they can eat products from the animals. The digestive system of a cow is more efficient than a human, and it's more efficient to grow feed for cows and then eat the cow than grow feed for humans and eat the feed. It also produces things like vitamins and minerals.

It's not necessarily more efficient when growing crops to let humans eat them instead of animals. Yes you waste energy feeding food to a cow and then eating a cow, but it's still more efficient in the long run when you consider humans can't eat what cows eat anyways.

[Purpelia]

No it's not, he just said could urban farming be implemented, he never said that all food would have to be grown in cities, these are arbitrary parameters that you're now adding.

And even if he did say that, my point is to think outside the box and come up with ways to make urban farming more practical by spreading it out as wide as possible rather than be constrained by growing it inside the city itself. You would grow as much outside the city as possible and grow what grows realistically inside of a city. [/quote]
You are going to make me pull out a quote. That's a battle you can't win.

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

Case in point.

But even so, you can grow things like mushrooms without any sun at all, feed it to cows in feedstock, and then eat it, all without any sunlight at all. You can grow things like duckweed in aquaponics which, while technically edible for humans, is better for animals to eat, and then eat the animals whom you fed the duckweed, which grows like a weed. You don't have to necessarily grow food crops, you can grow really shitty but easy to grow foods in the city, give it to an animal, and then eat the animal. This is more efficient then trying to make artificial meat for example, and converting your algea or grass in to a burger. While a clump of grass may technically have more energy in it before a cow turns it in to milk or meat, humans can't process grass, or algae or the like in their digestive systems very well, and it lack things like vitamin B12 and protein. But an animal can process it for them, and then they can eat products from the animals. The digestive system of a cow is more efficient than a human, and it's more efficient to grow feed for cows and then eat the cow than grow feed for humans and eat the feed. It also produces things like vitamins and minerals.

Using power to grow non food crops and than have those be converted into calories by animals is inherently less efficient than growing things and eating them. It's simply a fundamental fact dictated by a little tiny insignificant law called conservation of energy.

It's not necessarily more efficient when growing crops to let humans eat them instead of animals. Yes you waste energy feeding food to a cow and then eating a cow, but it's still more efficient in the long run when you consider humans can't eat what cows eat anyways.

So you don't grow what cows eat.

Honestly the closest thing to a reasonable side to your argument would be to point out some few livestock could be fed by the waste of the plant production. Like say wheat stocks or leaves off tomatoes and such. And that's the only argument you haven't actually made either because you didn't think of it or because you know it would produce limited yields of high cost luxury meat and little more.

[Manokan Republic]

And even if he did say that, my point is to think outside the box and come up with ways to make urban farming more practical by spreading it out as wide as possible rather than be constrained by growing it inside the city itself. You would grow as much outside the city as possible and grow what grows realistically inside of a city.

You are going to make me pull out a quote. That's a battle you can't win.

Could urban farming be realistically implemented on such a scale, that it could sustain cities with food? (Of course, with all the setbacks, and obstacles during the program.)

Case in point.

"That it could sustain cities with food", not that could all of the food be grown in the city including the feed for the animals and everything else. This is an important difference; the caviet was just farms that could sustain cities with food, not that everything was grown inside the city.

But even so, you can grow things like mushrooms without any sun at all, feed it to cows in feedstock, and then eat it, all without any sunlight at all. You can grow things like duckweed in aquaponics which, while technically edible for humans, is better for animals to eat, and then eat the animals whom you fed the duckweed, which grows like a weed. You don't have to necessarily grow food crops, you can grow really shitty but easy to grow foods in the city, give it to an animal, and then eat the animal. This is more efficient then trying to make artificial meat for example, and converting your algea or grass in to a burger. While a clump of grass may technically have more energy in it before a cow turns it in to milk or meat, humans can't process grass, or algae or the like in their digestive systems very well, and it lack things like vitamin B12 and protein. But an animal can process it for them, and then they can eat products from the animals. The digestive system of a cow is more efficient than a human, and it's more efficient to grow feed for cows and then eat the cow than grow feed for humans and eat the feed. It also produces things like vitamins and minerals.

Using power to grow non food crops and than have those be converted into calories by animals is inherently less efficient than growing things and eating them. It's simply a fundamental fact dictated by a little tiny insignificant law called conservation of energy.

It's not necessarily more efficient when growing crops to let humans eat them instead of animals. Yes you waste energy feeding food to a cow and then eating a cow, but it's still more efficient in the long run when you consider humans can't eat what cows eat anyways.

So you don't grow what cows eat.

Honestly the closest thing to a reasonable side to your argument would be to point out some few livestock could be fed by the waste of the plant production. Like say wheat stocks or leaves off tomatoes and such. And that's the only argument you haven't actually made either because you didn't think of it or because you know it would produce limited yields of high cost luxury meat and little more.

It's implicit to what I'm saying, that there are things we grow that humans can't realistically eat, but livestock feed is plentiful, grows quickly and doesn't require a lot of nutrients or good soil, thus making it easier to grow in a confined space like a city. You can grow larger volumes of livestock feed in terms of area than you can grow tomatoes, or corn kernels, or other forms of food humans like to eat, and thus this can be fed to cows and converted to something we can actually eat. You can grow things without sunlight at all, like mushrooms, which while not sustainable for human consumption as it doesn't have all the nutrients we need, be fed to cows instead. It would be more expensive, but it would be theoretically feasible if your goal was just mass amounts of food production. With something like fusion energy or cheap electricity, these things become more practical. Because mushrooms for example can be grown underground, underneath a building or in a cold dark building, you could grow enormous amounts, and then turn it in to livestock feed essentially. A large pipe underground could be used to grow tons of mushrooms and various other light-free livestock feed, and then this could be fed to animals, who convert it in to protein and calories humans can easily digest. You then can also grow a small amount of regular aquaponics on top of this where there is sunlight and produce more food.

So basically, my point was grow animal feed. And yes I know there is waste we produce that we feed to livestock, such as corn feed which is the wasted part of corn stalks, wasted mushroom parts and lots of other things. This is what I was saying, which is that you can produce livestock feed for much higher efficiency than human feed, and even when that energy is wasted by feeding it to a cow, you still end up with a net positive. It is so less efficient to grow human food, that growing livestock feed and feeding it to an animal to eat or produce milk and eggs will produce higher yields for human consumption than just growing vegetables for humans to eat. Cows can produce milk daily, and when they die you can eat the meat, chickens can produce eggs. So, by using them to convert the livestock feed which is easy to grow in to something nutritious for humans, you end up with a net positive than if you tried to live solely on vegetables.

[Purpelia]

"That it could sustain cities with food", not that could all of the food be grown in the city including the feed for the animals and everything else. This is an important difference; the caviet was just farms that could sustain cities with food, not that everything was grown inside the city.

The verb to sustain means to produce enough for to the exclusion of the need for other sources. So you are either willfully refusing to accept the meaning of the word or just don't known it. Either way I can't continue this conversation any more on account of that.

[Dotll]

The nation of Dotll is run by a single Keiretsu-style megacorporation. The economy is algorithmically managed, most decisions are ultimately made by algorithms or made to satisfy algorithms. Massive content mills exist to produce SEO content for common search terms, knowledge is constrained to what can be displayed by a search engine, and products are made to conform to a limited set of price-externality trade-offs.

There is a stock market, but all the stocks are majority owned by a holding company, and everyone just leaves stock investments to a mutual fund, which also is run by an algorithm.

[Austrasien]

The nation of Dotll is run by a single Keiretsu-style megacorporation. The economy is algorithmically managed, most decisions are ultimately made by algorithms or made to satisfy algorithms. Massive content mills exist to produce SEO content for common search terms, knowledge is constrained to what can be displayed by a search engine, and products are made to conform to a limited set of price-externality trade-offs.

There is a stock market, but all the stocks are majority owned by a holding company, and everyone just leaves stock investments to a mutual fund, which also is run by an algorithm.

So its the USSR?

[Silver Commonwealth]

SC's economical model is for the most part a totalitarian planned economy, but it allows some very small, family-size type businesses in the countryside. That said, if a business becomes ''too large'' in its opinion, it will be either broken apart, or sunken down, as larger market is reserved exclusively in state's company hands.

There is also the upper class (The Party, Military, Intellectuals, Priests, etc.), and for the most part, state's economy is ran by megacorporations, from which a few, or even only one controls all production of one kind of a good. (For example, Colt's Manufacturing Company produces basically all of SC's weapons in its timeline, but Boeing - all of its aircraft, and they have various regional branches across the country, which are often other absorbed companies.)

That said, those corporations are under direct state's control - their CEOs are often retired generals, politicians, or experts in an one particular field, and it can set the wages for CEOs, and also enforce stricter labor laws, if necessary. Labor unions also exist there, but under strict management of the government, as independent labor unions are not allowed in SC. So, state can both lax the safety regulations, and increase them, if it feels a need for either appeasing the CEOs, or workers. In short, it tries to control everything, and is a friend of neither.

What kind of economical system could that be?

[Ardoki]

SC's economical model is for the most part a totalitarian planned economy, but it allows some very small, family-size type businesses in the countryside. That said, if a business becomes ''too large'' in its opinion, it will be either broken apart, or sunken down, as larger market is reserved exclusively in state's company hands.

There is also the upper class (The Party, Military, Intellectuals, Priests, etc.), and for the most part, state's economy is ran by megacorporations, from which a few, or even only one controls all production of one kind of a good. (For example, Colt's Manufacturing Company produces basically all of SC's weapons in its timeline, but Boeing - all of its aircraft, and they have various regional branches across the country, which are often other absorbed companies.)

That said, those corporations are under direct state's control - their CEOs are often retired generals, politicians, or experts in an one particular field, and it can set the wages for CEOs, and also enforce stricter labor laws, if necessary. Labor unions also exist there, but under strict management of the government, as independent labor unions are not allowed in SC. So, state can both lax the safety regulations, and increase them, if it feels a need for either appeasing the CEOs, or workers. In short, it tries to control everything, and is a friend of neither.

What kind of economical system could that be?

Basically the USSR.

[The Akasha Colony]

That said, those corporations are under direct state's control - their CEOs are often retired generals, politicians, or experts in an one particular field, and it can set the wages for CEOs, and also enforce stricter labor laws, if necessary. Labor unions also exist there, but under strict management of the government, as independent labor unions are not allowed in SC. So, state can both lax the safety regulations, and increase them, if it feels a need for either appeasing the CEOs, or workers. In short, it tries to control everything, and is a friend of neither.

It sounds like this government has no broader constituency, which raises the question of who actually supports it? A government with no friends does not last long.

It also seems rather unlikely that the government could exist as a "neutral" entity for long given that one faction is literally stocked by former high-ranking government officials and the other isn't. This is the same revolving door that tends to lead to regulatory capture and general corruption, made all the worse because this does not sound like a real democracy wherein there is at least some measure of oversight in the form of the voting public. Just look at Iran.

[Silver Commonwealth]

That said, those corporations are under direct state's control - their CEOs are often retired generals, politicians, or experts in an one particular field, and it can set the wages for CEOs, and also enforce stricter labor laws, if necessary. Labor unions also exist there, but under strict management of the government, as independent labor unions are not allowed in SC. So, state can both lax the safety regulations, and increase them, if it feels a need for either appeasing the CEOs, or workers. In short, it tries to control everything, and is a friend of neither.

It sounds like this government has no broader constituency, which raises the question of who actually supports it? A government with no friends does not last long.

It also seems rather unlikely that the government could exist as a "neutral" entity for long given that one faction is literally stocked by former high-ranking government officials and the other isn't. This is the same revolving door that tends to lead to regulatory capture and general corruption, made all the worse because this does not sound like a real democracy wherein there is at least some measure of oversight in the form of the voting public. Just look at Iran.

I should have worded it differently, then. I meant, that it sides with one of the sides, depending, on which one is beneficial to its image atm. Its primary support comes from army, state religious organizations, and intellectuals from various state institutes. (Perhaps I should change something there, though, as SC is somewhat 1984-esque country, mixed with Fallout)

And government isn't a neutral entity, as it tries to control basically every sphere of production, and life (Although often failing). And yeah, corruption is a widespread issue in SC, as oversight is critically lacking there, and despite the high punishments for corruption, officials often found a way around the system - in fact, that is the point, as it is essentially a dystopia.

[Austrasien]

Functionally it sounds like a pretty typical planned economy of the type found in the USSR or East Germany. The main novelty is it retains terminology and organizational forms (companies) that would have been seen as to bourgeoise in historic socialist planned economies. But as these companies are state property and insulated from any kind of market discipline they are essentially interchangeable with government ministries.

[Manokan Republic]

"That it could sustain cities with food", not that could all of the food be grown in the city including the feed for the animals and everything else. This is an important difference; the caviet was just farms that could sustain cities with food, not that everything was grown inside the city.

The verb to sustain means to produce enough for to the exclusion of the need for other sources. So you are either willfully refusing to accept the meaning of the word or just don't known it. Either way I can't continue this conversation any more on account of that.

A farm that could sustain a city with food inside of a city doesn't necessarily mean that everything is grown inside the city. You might for example use irrigation to import water rather than rely on natural rainfall, or you might import things like fertilizer which is made in a large industrial factory outside the city, and so on and so forth, just like farms in rural areas right now. Very rarely do ranchers grow their own feed, largely buying it from other organizations, and the same would be true for cities. A farm that could grow food inside of a city and sustain said city might have outside help, from outside the city from various sources. That is my point, and ignoring everything else I have to say because of that, is bizarre.

Another neat idea is to have some sort of filter feeding creature that is grow via running seawater past it, importing the seawater and it's biomass from a large pipe. You could also theoretically fish this way, although it would be harder given the size of the ocean.