Article postulates that we're under-reporting, in case anyone doesn't want to read the article.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Oops, Scientists May Have Severely Miscalculated How Many Humans Are on Earth
(www.popularmechanics.com)
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
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.
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.
People are not leaving cities
oh yeah. every time I see that type of stuff I assume there is some bs around it. I'll believe it when high rises start looking deserted like malls.
It's both things. People like me are headed out to the country, most others are just piling up in the cities.
Yeah, eventually I'll move out of the city too, but overall as you said the trend is more people moving to cities
I mean this is a little surprising given wfh thing. You would think the trend would be reveresed. Personally I like a metro system.
I think people often get exhausted with cities at a certain age. I'm starting to want to sacrifice all that I like about the city over the crowdedness and general rudeness you observe while adjacent to so many people.
I have been pretty lucky with really great neighbors so my trend has been the opposite as I age. Like when I was in college I was sorta like. I could really live here if there was only jobs out here. Now its like man, I really like not needing to drive.
Yeah, I hate driving. I wish that in my (very walkable) city, I didn't have to, but I do sometimes. Today was a rough start due to having to drive around town.
I have to because we are outside of it now but when we could live there I could do anything without driving. We are just close enough that I can get to most places without driving but it takes much more work planning it out and is more of a pain overall.
I have a dream of living somewhere that at most requires me to bike 20 minutes while rarely/never driving. But I also want a place that isn't super crowded and I can have a garden. Tall order, I know.
I had that and it was the best time of my life. Three miles to work so 45 mins to walk, 15 to bike, and bus could be in the single digits if I was lucky. I was renting from these sisters who owned a four flat and they asked If I want to use half the garden. Then get this. They had a guy till it each spring and put weed blocker cloth over the whole thing. Then they would ask when they went somewhere if I would water it. Oh my the hardship /s. It was so awesome. Unfortunately lost my job at the time and my wife and I had to move in with my brother (we have our own place again. for now anyway.)
Well the country thing is a more recent phenomenon. I have been hearing about how everyone is leaving the state since the 80's and it became a political bs talking point. We should be empty by now with the way they have talked over the decades.
Some are leaving, but even more are arriving?
my guess is any year with a drop certain politicians play it up like its the apocalypse.
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.