Comment by FunnyUsername
2 days ago
> There is no census scheduled for 2027
2027 is the expectation, since it's supposed to be at least every ten years.
> Numbers of deaths aren't being estimated from WhatApp chats.
Unfortunately they are. [1] was based on messages in "X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram". An example of content they scraped is [2], but they also included non-public chats in WhatsApp etc.
> The most widely agreed upon estimates are based on morgue data, which if anything should undercount the actual death toll as plenty of bodies never make it to a morgue operated by health professionals.
This isn't the case even for GHM's official counts. Anyone can report a Gazan "martyr" or missing person on a web form right here [3]. Those get included in GHM's counts, if they pass basic checks like the existence of that name and ID.
> That's not what one significant digit means.
I think the concept still applies, though I should have said zero significant digits, since "tens of thousands" implies an exponent but zero digits of the mantissa. But my point is that responsible estimates involve acknowledgement of uncertainty.
> I believe everyone is in agreement that the death toll of the gaza war was likewise in the tens of thousands.
Most of Israel's critics are not satisfied with Hamas' ~70k casualty figure, and seek out higher estimates like the aforementioned one that used WhatsApp chats. For example, a HNer yesterday wrote "They've killed people in the hundreds of thousands in Gaza now."
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
I recommend you actually read the first source you cited.
I did, can you just spell out what you're trying to say?