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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

If the problem is fewer bees, and money is able to compensate by creating more bees, then there is no problem.

If you view the problem as being that bees are being killed by something, then yes, this doesn't solve the problem. But isn't the problem ultimately how many bees you have, not the rate at which they're reproducing and dying?

The comment I replied to seems to be implying that the death of the honeybee is still nigh, and that this extra money is just temporarily hiding it. But how could that be?

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> [if] money is able to compensate by creating more bees, then there is no problem.

The problem comes when "creating" more bees becomes too expensive/difficult, and you can no longer afford it.

In HN terms: a little cash infusion can make everything look great... until it runs out.

Edit: this comment does a much better job of using HN terms: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10024771

That's the trouble, all this startup mumbo jumbo makes no sense to me!

Anyway, I think these analogies fail because they keep talking about investors, where you're supposed to be spending money up front for a great return later on. If you're spending more and more money to maintain the same future return then you're in trouble. But things like money spent on bees and honey prices are just straightforward money-for-product transactions.

The empirical existence of rising marginal cost (as you point out) is not evidence of non-viability. Every economic 101 good is thought to be produced until its marginal cost is sloping upward. Economically coherent industries will continue to produce widgets. And increasing costs do not simply make an industry incoherent. Both social value ($demand/subsidization) and technology (cost/difficulty) come into play. It seems a bit arbitrary to make adverse assumptions about future ecosystems a bit more evidence.

Absolutely agreed. And it's a bit arbitrary to make favorable assumptions about future ecosystems (as this article does) without a bit more evidence too.

Since the colonies are still collapsing without explanation, a modicum of pessimism might be understandable, even if it isn't completely justifiable.

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