• Noit@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    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.

  • Beacon@fedia.io
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    15 hours ago

    “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

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    And here I was just commenting on how huge population centers freak me out, and now there’s even more of you sons of bitches?! Half of you people weren’t here when I was born! Go home or something, get off my lawn.

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      Every once in awhile I see things about how people are fleeing the city or the state and im like. How are prices still going up when new and denser buildings keep on going up? Somehow everyone is leaving but we keep on filling the increasing supply of housing and its not like homelessness has gone down.

  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    “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?

      • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        You could end up with Waking Ned Devine, where everyone in town vouches for everyone else because they all stand to benefit.

    • corvi@lemm.ee
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      15 hours ago

      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.

      • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        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?

        • ikidd@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          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.