Hacker News: volkk

New comment by volkk in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

volkk — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:35:08 +0000

> True intellectualism recognizes the value of institutions and the models and frameworks of organized thought that they produce

there's a lot of asterisks I left out of my initial comment. I think there's a lot to elaborate on. but the shortest version I can state is -- STEM fields suffer from it a lot less where there is a lot of measurable "truth." I think people are jumping on these comments protecting academia (which is fine) but the large point is that academia also suffers from the same effects of which those they look down on

New comment by volkk in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

volkk — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:33:31 +0000

there's a fine line between competence and elitism. competence usually has direct measurable impact with ego. elitism is 0 impact, and all ego.

New comment by volkk in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

volkk — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:32:29 +0000

nope, you're definitely not understanding me correctly.

New comment by volkk in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

volkk — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:24:10 +0000

> It depends on the field, but just to use one that I'm familiar with, philosophy: everyone seems to think they have novel insights on philosophical issues, but unfortunately these opinions tend to be really, obviously wrong and half-baked when analyzed by actual philosophers.

I think there's a lot of irony and my point being further proven within this sentence

New comment by volkk in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

volkk — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:42:40 +0000

goes both ways. elitism exists on both ends of the spectrum. the academic side is largely the same thing except it's attained from years of schooling through certain pedagogues that tout the one true way and if you haven't been through that wringer, then your understanding doesn't count. true intellectualism, has humility and the everlasting honest pursuit for truth. neither of these extremes have this quality.

New comment by volkk in "Yann LeCun raises $1B to build AI that understands the physical world"

volkk — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 19:06:07 +0000

oh nice, i actually used you guys for some labs a few months ago. Glad you're competing with function & superpower

New comment by volkk in "Grammarly is offering ‘expert’ AI reviews from famous dead and living writers"

volkk — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 19:00:45 +0000

i think there's a lot to be said about the process as well, the motivations, the intuitions, life experiences, and seeing the world through a certain lens. this creates for more interesting writing even when you are inspired by a certain past author. if you simply want to be a stochastic parrot that replicates the style of hemingway, it's not that difficult, but you'll also _likely_ have an empty story and you can extend the same concept to music

New comment by volkk in "Anthropic raises $30B in Series G funding at $380B post-money valuation"

volkk — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 21:43:35 +0000

yeah it's a slippery slope forcing companies to go public at X valuation. who decides that? what number makes sense? etc. but i do think we need to somehow fix massively overpriced companies going public and dumping on retail

New comment by volkk in "Nanobot: Ultra-Lightweight Alternative to OpenClaw"

volkk — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 17:42:12 +0000

we kind of already are with our phones and Slack, the difference at this point is negligible. i personally won't have airpods in 24/7 with my kid (or ever) so if i were doing something like this, it would be through my phone, which is already something i use fairly often. not too much difference there IMO (at least anecdotally speaking)

New comment by volkk in "Where I'm at with AI"

volkk — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:57:55 +0000

no, but AI isn't going to light on fire as I drive and potentially kill me. it's also not an exorbitant expense.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 15:08:51 +0000

give me a break. have you read the other comments? asking for proof in the most smug attitude possible. it's the definition of obnoxious HN commenters. and that's not even counting the one guy that wrote "you sound and write like a bot", got downvoted and deleted the post. i don't need to take any high roads here--it's the internet. As far as being "rude" it's a solid 2/10.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:22:13 +0000

it's too difficult honestly. there are a lot of the classic easy traps -- "it's not just X, it's y" which are a dead giveaway, especially when they're used like 3-4 times in one essay. But the harder to spot ones, IMO, are ones where the overall tone is unnecessarily complex. E.g:

"When replacement is cheaper than retention, the decision gets framed as strategy instead of consequence."

This sentence is tight and on paper reads well, but it's robotic. It's kind of like taking a dead simple if/else statement that's pleasurable to read into a one line ternary statement. Technically a one line sentence, but now I have to re-read it like 5 times to understand it. The flow is dead.

Another example:

'AI becomes the excuse, not the cause. It’s the clean narrative that hides what’s actually happening: experienced workers being swapped out through global labor substitution while leadership talks about “efficiency” and “the future of work.”'

Starts off with a short & trite sentence (LLMs loves this if you don't steer it away). The other thing LLMs _love_ to do unprompted is: "It's the X: _insert_next_loaded_statement_here"

It's hard to get my point across, and I hope you kinda see it? I'm not a linguist, but these patterns are literally in every piece of LLM writing I've ever seen.

New comment by volkk in "AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected"

volkk — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 20:01:27 +0000

seems like it depends on what your goal is. i'm guessing if you want to be a musician that makes a living in your current life, a personal brand is extremely important. if you don't mind doing it for the sake of the art and soul fulfillment and the offchance you'll be discovered posthumously then i think it doesn't matter!

New comment by volkk in "AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected"

volkk — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 19:28:29 +0000

the wonderful modern world of "everyone must build their personal brand"

New comment by volkk in "Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants"

volkk — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 19:07:25 +0000

i thought that the mechanism in green tea is that it has l-theanine that helps with caffeine jitters/spikes. a bunch of people drink coffee + theanine which gives a much calmer high.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:07:47 +0000

yep, that's my signature way of writing -- "unpolished & verbose" :D

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:40:34 +0000

my point was that its AI slop. whether his original point is intact doesn't matter to me. the fact that you're now defensively doubling down and steering the conversation into a direction which serves you better is just cringe. i bet you're a pleasure to work with. c ya later nerd.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:09:19 +0000

i don't think that's what this means. it just means to me a certain population of people are clueless and don't use these tools enough. what's _actually_ damaging/obnoxious are the ones arguing that this guy is a good writer and that this isn't AI. IMO, telling the difference can be as simple as looking for the common giveaways, or as complex as reading between the lines of the structure of sentences, the terrible adjectives, and the soullessness of it. If you have half a brain and are well read, you can _probably_ tailor these LLMs to write in a way that reads better. But, it requires people to read a lot of content and literature to understand what good writing is, and this contrived, overly convoluted soulless soup of words is certainly not an example of it.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:01:54 +0000

thank you. even without this tweet, i was willing to die on this hill. certainly feels nice to place these obnoxious HN know-it-alls into their place.

New comment by volkk in "Amazon cuts 16k jobs"

volkk — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:16:01 +0000

here's your evidence, tanner https://xcancel.com/PlumbNick/status/2016590894485385347#m

I'm not going to say i told you so, but you should utilize these tools more before you start arguing, especially when it's so goddamn obvious