enki

not if the amount of training data required to learn by example is exponential or even combinatorial. we might not even be in the same ballpark. all data ever recorded on digital media might not be enough to learn even a simple intelligence without assumptions about structure.

a kind of analogous problem is: can you learn how to build a living thing purely from digitally recorded DNA samples, if you don't have access to the internal structure of any living thing? How many dna samples would you need?

author: there's no fundamental objection. i'm only pointing out that throwing faster computation at the problem doesn't necessarily solve it. right now all the work essentially needs to be done by humans.

If you follow the link to the lower bound to learning by example, you'll see that it's really hard to learn by example if you haven't pre-encoded ideas about the interpretation into the reading program. Without prior knowledge, you need lots and lots and lots of examples.

All the information that humanity has ever stored on digital media is likely not remotely enough to reconstruct a human mind from.

That help won't be coming from politicians, because they don't even remotely get that wealth and wealth creation are linked. And despite what OP wrote, the fundamentals haven't changed in any other way that was perceptible to me.

I can't tell you exactly what's wrong with startups in Europe. It's no one thing. It's thousands of things.

Unless you've experienced the Bay Area, it's probably impossible to anticipate what you're missing. I didn't. The stuff you get in the Bay Area is stuff that doesn't transfer over the internet - so just by reading hackernews and techcrunch you have no means to figure out what is or could be different.

I think Paul Graham's argument (paraphrased) that all startups die by default, but in some environments they sometimes get saved, might come closest in describing what's happening.

I think the statistics argument really is the most solid one (though admittedly self-fulfilling, because it means the most driven entrepreneurs leave). Unless something fundamentally changes, any improvements to the ecosystem will have to be gradual over a long time.

I'm far less optimistic. I was one of the most vocal and active pro-european-startup activists before I left for San Francisco in 2009. With no capital, I started multiple companies. Some failed, some are still active and now do combined multiple millions of annual revenue (e.g. mjam.net). I started Europe's first YC-inspired accelerator (YEurope) in 2006 and helped put the current global hackerspaces movement into motion so we'd have support infrastructure. Back then I regularly talked to european politicians up to the president level.

The point where I left for San Francisco was when I realized that no one there realizes that there is a causal link between wealth creation and having wealth. They don't know they have a problem, or even should they suspect it, they don't know what causes it.

On a recent trip back I haven't noticed any change in that - so even if they wanted to improve something, they wouldn't know what or how. The economic crisis provides a convenient excuse for all problems, not an incentive to explore what's wrong.

The easiest argument against Europe for startups is sadly on an individual level: Statistics. If you're one of the best - but not the best - entrepreneur in Europe (500 Million People), you know that almost no one more talented than you ever succeeded. And almost no one less talented either. In San Francisco, both people more and less talented succeed all the time.

So statistics. It's far more pretentious to think you're so much better than the best among 500 million, than to think you'll do well among the 8 million in the Bay Area.

i love your description of this.

using up resources is not valuable by itself. forcing someone to spend on anything, anything at all, does not lead to a good allocation of resources. it might increase GDP, but it does not create value.

under inflationary interpretations of value creation, building a road circling back onto itself - not connected to anything - in the middle of a desert that no one ever visits - increases GDP and thus helps the economy. the better if you afterwards tear it up and rebuild it a second time.

on the other hand, in a stable currency system, if someone holds on to their capital, they actually free up resources for those who do spend. this means the purchasing power of those who do spend goes up.

in such a system money flows away from those who spend on things that have no return (consumption), and towards those who create (value creation by seizing and creating opportunities).

only if you're ok with never buying any physical goods with bitcoin. the weak point is the exchange between bitcoins and classical currencies or physical goods.

thanks! date added to template!

How is bitcoin a non-commodity currency? If bitcoins have value because they allow you to do things you couldn't otherwise do (my point), it's a commodity.

why is it desirable for a currency to be a non-commodity currency?

bitcoin's problem is that the financial sector is massively regulated - you're going to jail if you attempt to compete.

creating a website where you can store $10, send it to me, and then let me withdraw it, is a 5 year felony in california. that's even when the site is complying with all anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer regulation that could be argued for because of terrorism. it's purely a licensing issue.

bitcoin's influence probably won't significantly grow until people find legal workarounds/ways to comply (of which there are plenty, but likely implementing them takes someone committed at least a year), or something happens that makes enforcement of the law unlikely.

i personally know of a sizable number of bitcoin startups with working/finished software and a great marketing strategy, that gave up in the face of financial regulation and threatened jail time.

because an attacker controlling less than 50% of the computational resources can be lucky and find the first solution before anyone else.

he can even be lucky twice or thrice. but to be lucky 12 times against everyone else with less than 50% of the resources, is statistically improbable.

2 hours is the result of those two values (12 being statistically relevant, and 10 minutes a chosen parameter of problem difficulty), not an input variable.

yes, bitcoins in theory can be infinitely divided. classical observations about hoarding and "bad currency driving out the good" likely don't apply. if you want to spend, you just spend however little you want to spend.