Paying people to find fossils backfired

In 1937, finding fossils in Indonesia was hard. The solution? Pay locals for every bone fragment they find. Enterprising locals brought bone fragments that fit together so well, one paleontologist realized they were breaking larger pieces to get a bigger bonus. 💀💰 #history #historyfacts #historytime #Indonesia

[MarcellusJasonClay]

Fun fact: a few marine scientists trained dolphins in the wild to collect trash and give them a fish for each piece they collect.
The dolphins ended up breaking the trash apart to get more fish as rewards.

[Whyforgodsake]

My stupid ass thought they were gonna dig up dead bodies to disguise them as human fossils

[dillonpatel]

I thought the locals were gonna kill each other and pass it off as a fossil

[krani]

Solution: pay by weight, not by piece.

[Edit: people are coming up with some pretty unlikely loopholes for a pre- or semi-industrial people of 1937 to exploit. I say pre- or semi- because all the photos I could find on the era make it look like only the ports were industrialized, while the rest was still very rural]

[Iowa]

At least they weren't bringing their neighbors in pieces!

[xploss]

As Indonesian we always say "We don't lack smart people, but we lack honest people."

[resolvanlemmy]

People will always find silly ways to cheat the system, ALWAYS.

[rgamexd]

And here i thought they were gonna do something messed up like making their own fragments or something

[senoreljoynes]

at least they weren't faking the fossils

[thechaostornado]

Honestly, not the worst solution even with that loophole!

[SamHardie]

Takes 0.5 seconds to realize paying by piece would encourage them to break up larger pieces

[mathieuaurousseau]

Honestly the fact they did get a complete human skull by the end makes it a much better result than most thing you talk about

[cdfffvffb]

Easy fix lower the bonus for a single fragment and make a bigger bonus if you find a whole part like most of a skull or most of the bone

[mikec]

That's why you pay by weight with a bonus for larger, more intact pieces.

[horsesaychristisking]

lowkey thought they'd start killing each others
btw this sounds exactly like the thing where the dolphins would clean up trash for a reward but one would hoard trash and bring little bits for a bigger reward

[RobotNinjaZombieBatman]

Man I totally thought the punchline was gonna be murder

[regular]

Here's the solution: each piece counts as an item. The bigger the item, the more money per weight you get. If 10 grams of fragments is 100$, then 20 grams of fragments is 220$. This has practically no loopholes IF the pieces are real

[johanandhira]

As an Indonesian, this is how you hustle your colonizer

[ojol_gameing]

When it come to money We Indonesian can be verry creative 😅

[thegreatchaos]

Those locals acting like children when they are told to "Pick up ten pieces of garbage" ☠️