yawboakye (u/yawboakye)

yawboakye commented on Grokipedia by xAI grokipedia.com... · Posted by u/thsName

yawboakye · 2 months ago

patiently waiting for grokipedia’s article on grokipedia. it seems to not be available at the moment. i’m interested from a philosophical perspective: on the completeness of self-description. for example, here’s wikipedia on wikipedia[0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

yawboakye commented on Grokipedia by xAI grokipedia.com... · Posted by u/thsName

solid_fuel · 2 months ago

> If you found something wrong in that article you should submit some fixes.

Why? This site isn't run by people who are interested in factual accuracy.

If they think Wikipedia articles are inaccurate, they could always propose changes and have a proper discussion with the rest of the contributors. Grok was trained on Wikipedia so realistically this is just a jumbled regurgitation of Wikipedia articles blended with other sources from across the web without the usual source vetting process that Wikipedia uses.

This is a politically motivated side project being run by the worlds richest man, and frankly I doubt many people are interested in helping him create his own padded version of reality.

yawboakye · 2 months ago

the pursuit of truth doesn’t work by keeping so-called falsehoods up while a debate rages on about their veracity. especially given that there’s no indication on wikipedia of contested facts. i may not be involved in the debate but i’d love some indication and perhaps a hyperlink to where the debate is happening.

the proper discussion you want will never happen. it’s an exercise in persuasion ie trying to move people from one entrenched position to another, and there’s nothing more impossible than that. the only way out is to offer competition, and that’s what grokipedia seems to be doing. check the history of christianity, heresy, reformation. when the catholic church set itself up as the object to be won over persuasively it successfully stifled doctrinal progress. until the intolerants exited.

yawboakye commented on Beetroot juice lowers blood pressure by changing oral microbiome: study news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty... · Posted by u/lightlyused

edwardbernays · 5 months ago

So is the idea that widespread lead exposure led to the decline of the Roman empire largely pop science? Are you saying that's not accurate, or that the source of the lead exposure is miscounted?

yawboakye · 5 months ago

there are many ways to account for the fall of the roman empire, and everyone chooses their favorite (usually depending on where their interest bends). for example, it could be explained by the increased usage of mercenaries in the roman army. i like this theory because the fall was brought by losses to renegade forces. it could also be explained by bad leadership.

yawboakye commented on The U.K. closed a tax loophole for the global rich, now they're fleeing wsj.com/world/uk/the-u-k-... · Posted by u/fortran77

slater · 5 months ago

what are these 'extraordinary efforts'?

yawboakye · 5 months ago

if the wealth isn’t inherited then it obviously requires extraordinary effort to amass. i’m not a billionaire and it’s not from a lack of trying to be. the fact that my efforts over the years—which are non-trivial btw—haven’t made me one is a clear signal.

starting and running a successful business is extraordinary effort. my life is better thanks to founders of all the companies whose good and services i depend on. i’m full of gratitude for their extraordinary efforts because they’ve made life worth living.

yawboakye commented on The U.K. closed a tax loophole for the global rich, now they're fleeing wsj.com/world/uk/the-u-k-... · Posted by u/fortran77

only-one1701 · 5 months ago

If only there was some historical data, maybe even 30 years of it, that could tell us whether or not putting money in the hands of the ultra wealthy had a sort of “trickle down” effect that benefited everyone else too!

yawboakye · 5 months ago

> putting money in the hands of the ultra wealthy

that’s a very sinister way to describe the reward for their extraordinary efforts. who’s putting money in their hands? where did this ‘who’ get the money from?

yawboakye commented on The U.K. closed a tax loophole for the global rich, now they're fleeing wsj.com/world/uk/the-u-k-... · Posted by u/fortran77

foobarchu · 5 months ago

Why does it have to be assumed that having the ultra wealthy living in your country and not paying taxes is a net positive? It seems close minded to just ignore the possibility that those people are causing more harm than good.

yawboakye · 5 months ago

if i understood the article, these people (1) didn’t make their money in your country, and (2) are not making money in your country. they just happen to reside there. it seems nonsensical to me to tax revenue that was made in foreign land. but people who love and swear by taxes think that more tax revenue can solve world hunger.

if the uk wants tax money on revenue maybe they should incentivize these so-called super-rich to run their affairs from within the uk?

yawboakye commented on Meta says it won't sign Europe AI agreement cnbc.com/2025/07/18/meta-... · Posted by u/rntn

messe · 5 months ago

> Which is very much what Europes market looks like today. Stasis and shifting to a stagnating middle.

Preferable to a burgeoning oligarchy.

yawboakye · 5 months ago

eu resident here. i’ve observed with sadness what a scared and terrified lots the europeans have become. but at least their young people can do drugs, party 72 hours straight, and graffiti all walls in berlin so hey what’s not to like?

one day some historian will be able to pinpoint the exact point in time that europe chose to be anti-progress and fervent traditionalist hell-bent on protecting pizza recipes, ruins of ancient civilization, and a so-called single market. one day!

yawboakye commented on Generic interfaces go.dev/blog/generic-inter... · Posted by u/Merovius

Cthulhu_ · 5 months ago

It's definitely weird in this day and age, but in the Go code examples... I don't miss it.

Paraphrasing, but if you need syntax highlighting to comprehend code, maybe your code is too complicated.

yawboakye · 5 months ago

one wonders why colors exists after all. why, we should know all about vegetation, streams, living, and non-living organisms so that their chromatic attributes are very unnecessary. monochrome for the win! i propose dark gray btw /s

on a more serious note: somehow nature choose to let us see colors, and this sense has been immensely useful to our existence and pleasure. maybe go could learn a thing or two from nature?

yawboakye commented on Why English doesn't use accents deadlanguagesociety.com/p... · Posted by u/sandbach

eesmith · 5 months ago

In 6th grade, so back in 1982, I read the French SF novel "Malevil".

I was astounded (speaking as a US kid here), to learn that French people born and raised in France didn't natively speak French, but instead learned their regional language.

Here is an example, from https://archive.org/details/malevilmerl00merl/page/150/mode/... :

> And besides, Thomas was already quite isolated enough as it was: by his youth, by his city origins, by his cast of thought, by his character, and by his ignorance of our patois. I had to ask La Menou and Peyssou not to overdo the use of their first language — since neither of them had learned much French till they went to school — because at mealtimes, if they began a conversation in patois, then everyone else, little by little, would begin to drop into patois too, and after a while Thomas was made to feel a stranger in our life.

Two minutes ago I learned that "patois" has a distinct meaning in France: "patois refers to any sociolect associated with uneducated rural classes, in contrast with the dominant prestige language (Standard French)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patois

I am very ill-informed on the history of the topic, including the national language policies of France and Italy. I do know that Sardinian is not a dialect of Italian, but my knowledge isn't much deeper than that. ;)

yawboakye · 5 months ago

it remains true to this day. gascon[0] is still spoken in south of france, by both young and old. i know because i've heard it spoken. the idea that the french speak french, italians italian, is very modern. european nations weren't as properly integrated as modern history will have us believe. iirc the integration sped up post-ww2. cf seeing like a state[1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gascon_dialect

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State

yawboakye commented on Ask HN: How do I give back to people helped me when I was young and had nothing? · Posted by u/jupiterglimpse

yawboakye · 6 months ago

what seems to have worked for me:

- speak to them frequently and deliberately remind them of how immense their help has been to me. i try to share important updates with them as well.

- gifts

- paying it forward. easiest, kind of natural responsibility though (even if no one helped you). hence least emphasized as a way to show gratitude.