German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city proves global hit

Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by usr1106 on Monday August 25, 2025 @12:35AM (#45010232)

Depopulated sounds like nobody is living there, something like Pripyat. This town is said to have lost over 50% of its former 53,000 so still over 25,000 left. And apartments in GDR were rather small.

Not a native speaker, but is depopulated really the right word here or just clickbait? At least I was expecting something else. Heavily shrunk of course.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by dotancohen on Monday August 25, 2025 @12:47AM (#45010311)

Does decaffeinated coffee have zero caffeine? Do deboned fish have zero bones? Does debugged software have zero bugs?

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by usr1106 on Monday August 25, 2025 @01:06AM (#45010396)

Not zero, but an only insignificant residual because zero is hard to achieve in real life. Also Pripyat has some illegal inhabitants.

(I don't think debugged software is a commonly used term, so no need to discuss the meaning)

Edit: Genuine question: Would native speakers call Detroit depopulated? The shrinkage seems to be about the same ratio.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by weregiraffe on Monday August 25, 2025 @06:11AM (#45012250)

Does detroit contain zero troits?

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by dotancohen on Monday August 25, 2025 @11:55AM (#45015214)

I don't speak French, but I think that Detroit contains one big troit (strait), hence the city's name.

But that's certainly less troits than bones in a deboned fish!

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by relaxing on Monday August 25, 2025 @08:09AM (#45012980)

Does desaturated mean a color with zero saturation?

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by kortilla on Monday August 25, 2025 @02:29AM (#45010853)

If decaffeinated coffee had half the caffeine of regular coffee it would most certainly not be called that. Same with deboned fish.

The expectation using those terms is that only a negligible amount remains if any at all.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by DaSHacka on Monday August 25, 2025 @12:47AM (#45010306)

I guess the difference between "unpopulated" and "depopulated" is the former means no one at all, while the latter just means the population had a (meaningfully significant) decrease.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by popalchemist on Monday August 25, 2025 @01:00AM (#45010374)

You're thinking of "unpopulated." "Depopulated" means the population has DEcreased.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by usr1106 on Monday August 25, 2025 @01:09AM (#45010416)

Unpopulated is static, no change implied.

Depopulated implies change, people used to live there. For me it meant no significant number left.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by willvarfar on Monday August 25, 2025 @01:23AM (#45010491)

Does 25000 people leaving a city not count as depopulation then?

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by kortilla on Monday August 25, 2025 @02:30AM (#45010860)

No, people wouldn’t call Detroit depopulated

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by popalchemist on Tuesday August 26, 2025 @12:11AM (#45022186)

> Depopulated implies change

yes, as I said, it means a decrease, but the question of to what degree is unspecified. The assumption that it means to a near-zero degree is erroneous.

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by aprilthird2021 on Monday August 25, 2025 @01:32AM (#45010540)

> is depopulated really the right word here or just clickbait?

I would consider depopulated to be correct

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Re:German contest to live in depopulated Soviet-era city pro... by benterix on Monday August 25, 2025 @04:37AM (#45011634)

> Not a native speaker, but is depopulated really the right word here

Straight from the dictionary:

depopulate (v): to substantially reduce the population of (an area)

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