[MichaelZuo]

I’ve actually looked into this for a few developing countries, and dam resettlement figures are very likely to be inflated.

There’s no actual combination of outsiders going around to every household in every village for even a dozen days of the year to plausibly provide a third party confirmation of claimed residence for each individual.

It’s effectively villagers certifying each other that they really live there as a primary residence.

[more-nitor]

> It’s effectively villagers certifying each other that they really live there as a primary residence.

this. some smart asses would be calling all their relatives, distant-relatives, friends, etc AND claim that they all lived there. then, share the loot(?) like 50%, 30%, 20% etc

the more better approach would be compensating by property, though does have its own downsides

[epolanski]

My aunt was relocated from a dam construction and they started the census/analysis way before the project was even approved, because counting how many people you need to relocate and compensate is actually a part of the decision process.

They don't do the opposite: we build here, now let's see how many people we need to relocate.

[lurk2]

One of the more frightening things I ever learned was that if the population of China began walking in front of you at a rate of 1 person per second, it would take approximately 31 years for the entire population to pass you.

The math, roughly:

1 billion people (there are more now, but we’ll call it an even billion) / 60 seconds ≈ 16,666,666 minutes

16,666,666 / 60 minutes in an hour ≈ 277,777 hours

277,777 hours / 24 hours in a day ≈ 11,574 days

11,574 / 365 days in a year ≈ 31 years.

That’s just China. The global population would take around 220 years, with not so much time as to say hello. A bureaucracy can of course delegate census reporting such that the groups become manageable, but it puts a lot of things into perspective when you understand the sheer scale of the human population.

[sidewndr46]

How is this scary? It's like observing that I don't have enough time to write a comprehensive treatise on every German speaking philosopher of the 19th and 20th century. I obviously don't, I probably could barely complete even one at this point. My life is not any better or worse due to this.

[lurk2]

Assuming you had an interest in writing a comprehensive treatise on German philosophy, not being able to complete it in one lifetime would strike many people as frightening. It’s one of those numbers that forces you to consider your own mortality, like those charts showing how many weeks there are left assuming you live to be 80 years old.

[nradov]

Frightening how? I'll probably die in about 2000 weeks plus or minus. So what.

[solardev]

I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty frightened at the thought of having to spend 2000 more weeks being stalked by an infinite horde of Chinese people trying to say hello. It's just not how I'd want to live my life.

[VincentEvans]

Using your own contrived math - if you have just 30 helpers - you can count population of China in 1 year. Or with 219 helpers you can do the same for world population.

In US, for the 2020 decennial census, the U.S. Census Bureau hired approximately 500,000 temporary workers across the country to assist with the count.

[epolanski]

> In US, for the 2020 decennial census, the U.S. Census Bureau hired approximately 500,000 temporary workers across the country to assist with the count.

Thus..it's difficult and expensive.

[triknomeister]

US spent 13.7B on census which is 1.37B/year since a census is done per 10 year. The ROI is definitely huge. It's not expensive at all.

[angelgonzales]

It seems expensive at around $4-5 per person per year! I think a satellite could gather useful population information based on a year of observing people entering and leaving their homes. I also wonder why the government needs to account for everyone in America? Can’t it just account for taxpayers who voluntarily work with the government system at the state and federal level?

[AlotOfReading]

The census collects information on everyone because that's what the Constitution says it has to do. There's a bit over 200 years of case law arguing the specifics (e.g. how to handle the "Indians not taxed" exception), but in modern times it's interpreted to mean literally everyone.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> It seems expensive at around $4-5 per person per year!

On the contrary, that is a small percentage of the taxes I pay from a single paycheck.