Article postulates that we’re under-reporting, in case anyone doesn’t want to read the article.
Its interesting how they got the data from dam companies too.
those damn dam companies
“May” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The last third of the article is all about how this is very unlikely to be true. As the saying goes - “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and this seems like pretty weak evidence.
Also fuck that headline. iirc usually the article author doesn’t get to write the headline, the editor does that. And often all the editor cares about is grabbing eyeballs
More or Less covered this a few weeks ago and the short version is that there probably aren’t significantly more people on earth, more that the estimates of where people are (rural vs urban) are incorrect, and as always, more study is needed.
“When dams are built, large areas are flooded and people need to be relocated,” Láng-Ritter said in a press statement. “The relocated population is usually counted precisely because dam companies pay compensation to those affected.”
So the locals are incentivized to inflate their numbers?
But the dam companies are incentived to verify the accuracy.
You could end up with Waking Ned Devine, where everyone in town vouches for everyone else because they all stand to benefit.
You can’t just say, “I have 20 people living in my home, just make the check out to me.” The dam company is going to be verifying who they’re paying.
The dam company is going to be verifying who they’re paying.
Are they, though?
Or are they just going to sign off and pass the bill on to the government?
Precisely. I’m not buying this one at all. In a third world country, they’re paying peanuts, these companies don’t give a fuck if it’s $50 or $100.
And seriously underpay.
