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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying that large infrastructure projects have been systematically overcounting population in order to pay more compensation? That there's an interest in making them seem more disruptive, and as if they displace more people?

If that's an obvious conclusion, I need more explanation.

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It doesn't need to be top-down corruption on the part of Dam Corp, LLC.

Think about it this way - you and your family live somewhere and are being displaced to make way for a dam, some guy in a suit comes around and says "we'll pay $1000 per resident to move you somewhere else".

Maybe your uncle lived at your house with his wife for 5 years, until they moved to the city last year. Your grandmother lived there until she died 6 months ago. So lets say it's just you, your partner, and 2 kids.

But, that's a lot of money - do you tell the man in the suit that your house has 4 residents, or maybe stretch the truth to 5 or 6 (your uncle might move back soon, after all)?

And remember, corruption often stacks - individuals might add an extra person here and there, but then the local relocation manager adds a few % to get a little extra on top, and their boss adds another few %, and so on... soon you're seeing 25% more people than actually reside there.

Chekhov, "Dead souls". The scam can go both ways, you need to be local to know how it works and not benefit from it enough to snitch.

Gogol, not Chekhov

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls

I always mix those two. If it's on the funny side it's usually Chekhov

My high school was Ft. Knox, armed guards, metal detectors, ID must be worn and visible at all times. No backpacks, waist band exposed. Class doors automatically lock when the bell rang, anyone in the hall would be escorted out. No hall passes, no bathroom breaks, cameras everywhere.

Except for 1 week. We had basketball tournaments and activities, movies, pizza parties, free ice cream. Wear whatever you want. No ID enforcement.

That was the week they counted attendance to determine how much funding the school got. They even bussed the "bad" kids in from the satellite campus.

This is so foreign to me, as a forty-something. Why do we let schools take security theatre to such tragicomedy. It likely breeds more killing than it prevents.

This wasn't so much theater. Even with all that we still had shootings, just mainly in the parking lot. This was well before Columbine and after every one joked how it wouldn't have happened here because too many students would have returned fire.

All of this security was in response to gangs and general violence of the late 80s / 90s.

The issue is that the availability of money gives people an incentive to be counted, even if they don't live there.

No, I think the conjecture is more that people from the surrounding areas could be claiming residency in the affected area to receive the payouts, even though they normally live elsewhere.

Likely the manager who makes the payouts happen and not people themselves

The way i see it people really do often live in multiple locations at once and bureaucracy has a hard time with that fact. Think of the itinerant workers travelling around for seasonal jobs. The census might count them in one location but it’s quite reasonable they count for the relocation too.

So it’s possibly a matter of edge cases in the wheels of bureaucracy than outright graft.

No, it's the people being resettled who have an incentive to overcount themselves.

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