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It’s because people are significantly more likely to lie or omit some facts if you don’t guarantee their privacy, which means your census data ends up being worth less than a pile of shit.

The alternative is to water down the census questions, which also leads you down the same path (i.e. manure as data).

by abletonlive5 hours ago|

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So you seem to have at least a surface level of understanding of incentives.

Check this then:

If the census is responsible for allocating federal funds and congressional apportionment, what are the incentives for making census data private and encouraging people that would otherwise hide their identity?

by Cyph0n5 hours ago|

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And you seem to not realize that a census has a much wider impact than allocation of federal funds. It’s a nationwide survey done once every 10 years. No other survey compares in scale.

Now think about the data you could collect and the decisions you could make based on this data to ensure a better future for all in this country; in fact, this is a stated goal of the survey that you either didn’t know about or are willfully ignoring.

On the flip side, think about the repercussions of tainting this data and basically wasting such a valuable chance that won’t come around again for another 10 years.

by simonw5 hours ago|

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How about we should be "counting illegals" so that we know how many of them there are?

(Do you reject that? As someone who uses the phrase "counting illegals" I imagine you would be interested in knowing what that number is.)

by latency-guy25 hours ago|

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Counting illegals on a poorly defined framework of which is largely self attestation?

by latency-guy25 hours ago|

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We also know that this premise is simply wrong, Census is statistical survey, no party in the world is legally allowed to inspect the contents of the individual form via Title 13.

Counting illegals is not possible under the Census currently or in any point in the future most likely

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13/9

https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born/about/...

by abletonlive5 hours ago|

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First off the census is used for determining how many seats are used for congressional apportionment and allocating federal funds.

So unless you're willing to also say that counted illegals cannot used for either of those, then you're just being obtuse.

But if we can agree that they cannot be used for that then sure, lets identify and count them. If we can't identify (make non-private) and count them then why should we trust that those counts are accurate?

by knollimar5 hours ago|

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"If we can't identify (make non-private) and count them then why should we trust that those counts are accurate?"

You're trading a chance of accuracy (good faith handling of data) for a guarantee of non-accuracy