What happens to the rate of technological advancement when you increase the population by 5x?

[chimeric oncogene]

As part of this thought experiment, consider an alternate history/fantasy scenario in which an alternate America-esque nation occupies the entire continent of North America from Greenland to Panama, has a technophilic-leaning government and culture, and has a population five times of that of the historical US (i.e. a fantasy scenario I am working on).

Many things have been said about factors that affect the rate of technological advancement: culture, education systems, government support, wealth, communications technology, and population size. A wealthy, free nation like the USA, with a large pool of smart inhabitants (and immigrants) to draw talent from will logically have a higher rate of technological growth.

Much has also been said about limiting factors for technological development. For instance, the Polaris missile program and the Manhattan Project simply could not have gone any faster, even had more resources been devoted to them. Likewise, technologies are highly interdependent, with developments in metallurgy underlying developments in assault rifles, rocketry, and aeronautics.

So... when you have a population five times that of the historical US, and similar economic and social conditions starting say 1880:
What does this do to the rate of technological advance?
- will the rate of technological advance be increased by a factor of x? Does a bigger population mean the state will have a 1.5x technological growth rate, and get B-70 supersonic bombers by 1940?

On a related note, how evenly does technology tend to diffuse across an economy (can I handwave by saying "productionizing is difficult")?
- does anyone think you can build Atlas-Centaurs (or Atlas-Vegas) while not being able to build F-4 Phantoms?
- can you have mid-60s rockets and supersonic aircraft but no atomic technology?

 

[apparition13]

Well this isn't what you want, but Bettencourt et al., 2007: Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities
(https://www.pnas.org/content/104/17/7301) find an exponent of 1.1-1.3 for innovation with increasing city size. So 7x (you have both 7 and 5x population in your scenario so I went with the larger) population would give a range of something like a 2x-6x rate of innovation.

However, innovation also seems to have been city centered; more people means more connections and interactions, means more mixing of ideas, means more sources of inspiration, and all of that in combination means more innovation. Unless that 7x population is concentrated in fewer, larger cities, it's hard to say what effect there would be.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

Is Science Slowing Down?

[This post was up a few weeks ago before getting taken down for complicated reasons. They have been sorted out and I’m trying again.] Is scientific progress slowing down? I recently got a cha…

slatestarcodex.com

Slatestarcodex presents another limiter on the rate of technological growth: the law of diminishing returns.

As technology progresses, increasing effort is necessary to refine or improve technology further. The Wright brothers might have been able to build the first plane in a shed, but until some other breakthrough, the first aerospaceplane isn't going to come out of some guy's garage.

 

[dan_inbox]

Five times the population?
That means little. You need to specify if it is the same mixture of rich/educated, poor/uneducated, angry vengeful failures / extremists / religious / nuts, etc.
In many countries, more population is not a blessing but a curse: under-educated masses tend to over-proliferate paupers that no government can educate, feed or employ, and who turn nasty (Muslim brothers, AlQaida, TeaParty or worse, you name it)

Case in point for me: Egypt has been struggling for decades to control birthrate down to a sustainable level, and not succeeding. Even in a decently-privileged country with many assets through history, culture and the rest, what's the result? Victory of the Muslim brother, military coup, endless struggle against AQ in the Sinai, etc.

To make a long story short: more population is usually not so positive. Unless the "quality" is up.

So what part of the population predominates in your 5 five times overpopulated North America? Mexican gangs? USan white trash? USan poor blacks? TeaPartydiots? Californian lefties who can't even run an electric utility? KKKers? Starving central Americans? PhDs?

Now talk about about 5 times more educated scientists, and things might get wildly different.

 

[chimeric oncogene]

Five times the population?
That means little. You need to specify if it is the same mixture of rich/educated, poor/uneducated, angry vengeful failures / extremists / religious / nuts, etc.
In many countries, more population is not a blessing but a curse: under-educated masses tend to over-proliferate paupers that no government can educate, feed or employ, and who turn nasty (Muslim brothers, AlQaida, TeaParty or worse, you name it)

Case in point for me: Egypt has been struggling for decades to control birthrate down to a sustainable level, and not succeeding. Even in a decently-privileged country with many assets through history, culture and the rest, what's the result? Victory of the Muslim brother, military coup, endless struggle against AQ in the Sinai, etc.

To make a long story short: more population is usually not so positive. Unless the "quality" is up.

So what part of the population predominates in your 5 five times overpopulated North America? Mexican gangs? USan white trash? USan poor blacks? TeaPartydiots? Californian lefties who can't even run an electric utility? KKKers? Starving central Americans? PhDs?

Now talk about about 5 times more educated scientists, and things might get wildly different.

OP tried to specify grossly similar economic and social environment as the USA. So yes, five times the educated population and scientist population.

 

[riggerrob]

Also consider that as transportation improves, so do communication and innovation.
Transportation depends upon specialization in different parts of the country. For example, if all the wood cake from casca dia while all the coal came from Appalachia, the two regions are forced to form efficient transportation links.

 

[robunos]

Don't forget, despite their increased rate of progress, your nation won't invent everything . . . there will be things that other nations will come up with, that your people won't have thought of, but you'll have to wait until those other nations, with their slower progress, invent them . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Desertfox]

Its a quite complicated process and more does not equal better. Look at Sweden and the Gripen vs India and the LCA. Having the required background knowledge and infrastructure is probably a lot more relevant than pure numbers. Its not even about the number of engineers, currently Mexico graduates more engineers per year than does the USA. In the long run those numbers can get you that infrastructure (ie China) and get you there but it takes time.