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Figuring out the connection between seeing someone stepping on a rake and immediately after getting smacked in the head seems much simpler than knowing about th

Figuring out the connection between seeing someone stepping on a rake and immediately after getting smacked in the head seems much simpler than knowing about the .com bubble and from that alone managing to avoid the same mistakes decades later. It's easy to call out the similarities now, but I doubt it's easy to avoid the mistakes in the situation.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
I'm even more skeptical now. I lived through the .com bubble and the hype and bullshit were blandly obvious at the time. I worked briefly in the mortgage industry during the run up to the 08 implosion and after about 90 days of wondering what the sideways fuck was going on with all these obviously bullshit loans I decided someone was probably going to jail for something and got tf out of the industry before I found myself caught up in whatever. Now, I'm not carrying any kind of degree, so it obviously doesn't take a doctorate in economics to glance at a business (or even an entire industry) and pick up on the fact that their business model looks like a few tons of horseshit hiding behind a billboard for disney world. Drilling into vertical farming specifically, all one has to do to surmise the entire industry is a crock of shit is note the following: - agriculture has some of the narrowest margins of any industry - vertical ag claims they'll be printing money by adding additional layers of complexity and overhead to the process In my opinion the reason shit like this keeps happening is it's become standard practice in the financial industry to bet on dumb money instead of betting on actual value.
- Version467 3y ago
  I don't think that's a fair characterization of vertical farming. Yes, some of the startups in vertical farming say that they can print money right now, and I am with you that this is stupid. However I think the actual value proposition is different. Agriculture does have very thin margins. The current approach is only viable by achieving scale through enormous monocultures. Unfortunately this is very bad for the soil and the surrounding eco-system. We try to mitigate this by using fertilizer, but this is a stopgap solution and it won't work forever. One example of this is that there now exists a thriving industry for rentable beehives, because all the bees living in the areas where we grow food that needs to be pollinated are dying. So instead we truck dozens of hives across the country, let them pollinate the fields and then pack them back up for the next one. We are currently forced into ever more complicated counter measures, just to keep the output we have. This will get more expensive until it ultimately just won't work anymore and output shrinks. Meanwhile, vertical farmings biggest expense is electricity, which will get cheaper over time. It uses way less water, does not have to rely on huge amounts of fertilizer, can grow anything year round and can be set up in dense urban spaces so that the output does not have to be shipped all over the place. This isn't better than traditional farming right now (and for some food it probably won't be for a loooong time), but the balance will steadily shift in favor of smaller, more localized agriculture. Eventually, with ever growing citys/urban areas, vertical farming will be more economical. However that day is not this day and the startups that burned through their stacks of vc cash while drinking their own kool-aid deserve to crash and burn.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    A lot of people don't think that's a fair categorization of vertical farming. Sadly they either simply don't know anything about some combination of agriculture, real estate, the concept of unit margins, or they're pushing an agenda. All of the problems you highlight with standard monoculture ag absolutely exist, and can only be solved by reducing the global population by some terrifyingly large number to get field utilization down to the point where rotation and fallow schedules start to make sense on a global scale. Attempting to resolve these issues with vertical farming would have you trying to capitalize a 10 story structure almost exactly the size of Vermont just to cover the US domestic wheat crop. We've all heard the marketing song and dance around the industry and none if it scans in the face of even the most cursory examination of actual field acreage utilization figures either domestically or worldwide. You want to solve the global over-farming crisis (and it definitely is one) start engineering a pathogen.
- psd1 3y ago
  I agree with your general point but I think you have to inspect the numbers. Ag has problems that vertical farming still looks like a solution for: - market gardening is labour-intensive - water shortages look like getting worse, not better, in many regions - food miles, fertiliser and pest controls are significant costs - time to market is critical for some produce Just today I read an article on HN about the labour costs of asparagus. A capital outlay that can reduce that labour is still appealing. And may I point out the complexity of conventional agricultural machinery? A bubble bursting doesn't invalidate the field. Maybe the first generation of startups will go tits-up, but the growth opportunity is still there. You had inside perspective on the mortgage bubble, but I think that without that perspective in this case, you're only right by accident. I am not sure this is even a vertical farming bubble, it might be better described as a credit crunch affecting startups in multiple industries, and VF might be hit hard simply because it's all startups at the moment.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    You get different pictures depending on what numbers you're squinting at. Staring at luxury produce like asparagus might lead one to believe the industry has a point. Turn your attention to cereals and grains and literally nothing the industry says makes sense. A quick examination of what percentage of the world population considers asparagus a dietary staple, and the delta in acreage utilization between say asparagus and soybeans makes industry claims that vertical farming has anything relevant to add to the current slow burning agricultural crisis seem ludicrious at current global population numbers.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

I'm even more skeptical now. I lived through the .com bubble and the hype and bullshit were blandly obvious at the time. I worked briefly in the mortgage industry during the run up to the 08 implosion and after about 90 days of wondering what the sideways fuck was going on with all these obviously bullshit loans I decided someone was probably going to jail for something and got tf out of the industry before I found myself caught up in whatever. Now, I'm not carrying any kind of degree, so it obviously doesn't take a doctorate in economics to glance at a business (or even an entire industry) and pick up on the fact that their business model looks like a few tons of horseshit hiding behind a billboard for disney world. Drilling into vertical farming specifically, all one has to do to surmise the entire industry is a crock of shit is note the following: - agriculture has some of the narrowest margins of any industry - vertical ag claims they'll be printing money by adding additional layers of complexity and overhead to the process In my opinion the reason shit like this keeps happening is it's become standard practice in the financial industry to bet on dumb money instead of betting on actual value.

Version467 3y ago
I don't think that's a fair characterization of vertical farming. Yes, some of the startups in vertical farming say that they can print money right now, and I am with you that this is stupid. However I think the actual value proposition is different. Agriculture does have very thin margins. The current approach is only viable by achieving scale through enormous monocultures. Unfortunately this is very bad for the soil and the surrounding eco-system. We try to mitigate this by using fertilizer, but this is a stopgap solution and it won't work forever. One example of this is that there now exists a thriving industry for rentable beehives, because all the bees living in the areas where we grow food that needs to be pollinated are dying. So instead we truck dozens of hives across the country, let them pollinate the fields and then pack them back up for the next one. We are currently forced into ever more complicated counter measures, just to keep the output we have. This will get more expensive until it ultimately just won't work anymore and output shrinks. Meanwhile, vertical farmings biggest expense is electricity, which will get cheaper over time. It uses way less water, does not have to rely on huge amounts of fertilizer, can grow anything year round and can be set up in dense urban spaces so that the output does not have to be shipped all over the place. This isn't better than traditional farming right now (and for some food it probably won't be for a loooong time), but the balance will steadily shift in favor of smaller, more localized agriculture. Eventually, with ever growing citys/urban areas, vertical farming will be more economical. However that day is not this day and the startups that burned through their stacks of vc cash while drinking their own kool-aid deserve to crash and burn.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  A lot of people don't think that's a fair categorization of vertical farming. Sadly they either simply don't know anything about some combination of agriculture, real estate, the concept of unit margins, or they're pushing an agenda. All of the problems you highlight with standard monoculture ag absolutely exist, and can only be solved by reducing the global population by some terrifyingly large number to get field utilization down to the point where rotation and fallow schedules start to make sense on a global scale. Attempting to resolve these issues with vertical farming would have you trying to capitalize a 10 story structure almost exactly the size of Vermont just to cover the US domestic wheat crop. We've all heard the marketing song and dance around the industry and none if it scans in the face of even the most cursory examination of actual field acreage utilization figures either domestically or worldwide. You want to solve the global over-farming crisis (and it definitely is one) start engineering a pathogen.
psd1 3y ago
I agree with your general point but I think you have to inspect the numbers. Ag has problems that vertical farming still looks like a solution for: - market gardening is labour-intensive - water shortages look like getting worse, not better, in many regions - food miles, fertiliser and pest controls are significant costs - time to market is critical for some produce Just today I read an article on HN about the labour costs of asparagus. A capital outlay that can reduce that labour is still appealing. And may I point out the complexity of conventional agricultural machinery? A bubble bursting doesn't invalidate the field. Maybe the first generation of startups will go tits-up, but the growth opportunity is still there. You had inside perspective on the mortgage bubble, but I think that without that perspective in this case, you're only right by accident. I am not sure this is even a vertical farming bubble, it might be better described as a credit crunch affecting startups in multiple industries, and VF might be hit hard simply because it's all startups at the moment.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  You get different pictures depending on what numbers you're squinting at. Staring at luxury produce like asparagus might lead one to believe the industry has a point. Turn your attention to cereals and grains and literally nothing the industry says makes sense. A quick examination of what percentage of the world population considers asparagus a dietary staple, and the delta in acreage utilization between say asparagus and soybeans makes industry claims that vertical farming has anything relevant to add to the current slow burning agricultural crisis seem ludicrious at current global population numbers.