Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍

Rebuilding Africa's lost confidence One mind at a time.

[shaunn armah @shaunnarmah]

Accra has a traffic problem.

Over the past 2 months we’ve been digging for secrets on how Accra got into this mess, and more importantly how we dig ourself out.

and we’re finally ready to share it.

Our first explainer - Accra, the City that Can���t Move, premieres on YouTube today at 6pm.

see you thereee.

[shaunn armah @shaunnarmah]

why expanding roads in Accra will only cause WORSE traffic.

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@NanaAbrefaBusia We’re moving forward or backwards? Wei

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@AquaFunded 1:0 against France

[SABC News @SABCNews]

WATCH | Former President Thabo Mbeki says unemployment and crime in South Africa are genuine concerns but warns that blaming foreign nationals for the country's economic challenges is misguided.

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@footwear_rack Solid combo

[Africa Liberation Activist @SafoNative]

The Kumasi Atonsu Shoe Factory founded by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah 😍. He overworked

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@SafoNative Bro was ahead of time

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@rayganofficial 😌

[Roan @RohOnChain]

This 2 hour Stanford lecture shows exactly how Stanford trains it's engineers to build AI systems. It's more practical than every Claude tutorial & prompting threads you've seen.

Bookmark & give it 2 hours, no matter what. It'll be the most productive thing you do this weekend.

[Jaynit @jaynitx]

Jordan Peterson: "The most dangerous person is one who is articulate"

"Articulate is an interesting word. If your joints are articulated, that means you can do things with them because they're not one solid vague mass. They're differentiated. Someone who's graceful is compelling because they're articulated. And speech is a form of articulation in that manner."

Peterson explains why this matters:

"It is definitely the case that there is no more exceptional form of the capacity to be dangerous than to be articulate. And one of the things that really shocks me is that young men in particular are never taught this."

He makes the case bluntly:

"Do you want to be competent and dangerous, or do you want to be vague and useless? Because those are your options. And I don't care what your job is. If you're a plumber, and I have great respect for plumbers, and you're articulate: you can negotiate with your clients, introduce your co-workers, make a case for your employees, advertise your services, think through your problems. You're firing on all cylinders."

Peterson shares a deeper truth:

"Our whole culture is based on the idea of the supremacy of the word. The idea that it is the word itself that extracts habitable order from chaos and possibility. And the reason our culture is predicated on that is because it's a deep truth."

He gives an example from the military:

"I know a former special operations soldier, Jocko Willink. He's about four feet wide and three feet thick. One tough son of a bitch. You don't want to mess with him. And he knows perfectly well, and is very capable of articulating, that his success as an eminent warrior is in no small part dependent on his ability to communicate."

Peterson explains why:

"Because he could communicate well, he could listen to the men under his command. Because he was articulate, he could explain to his superiors the situation on the ground. Because he was articulate, he could make a case that the men under his command who were deserving would be promoted. Because he could think in an articulate manner, he could plan strategically and not lose battles."

He asks the hard question:

"What's the alternative? You want to be inarticulate? You want to say 'uh' and 'like' and 'um' and pause and stumble? Be unable to formulate a strategy? Be unable to elucidate a vision? Be unable to compel and convince other people to entice them with your articulated vision of what might be? You would choose awkwardness over grace. It's preposterous. It's beyond foolish."

How do you become articulate?

Peterson offers a metaphor:

"Imagine you're trying to walk across a swamp. The swamp is murky, but you know there's a path of stone under the water, and it twists and moves. If you stay on the path, you won't drown. The crocodiles won't devour you. As you walk forward, you feel with your next step where the stone might be. Then you feel it solid. Then you take that step. You search and find out what's solid, and you move forward in that manner."

He applies this to speech:

"That's what you do with your words. You feel, is this the right word? Is the fact that I'm uttering it putting me together and making me intact and stronger? Or is it tearing me apart and making me dissolute and weak? You can learn to do that."

Peterson shares what he noticed 40 years ago:

"Much of what I said actually made me feel weak. I didn't know why exactly. But sometimes some of the things I said didn't have that effect. They weren't accompanied by a sense of shame. They weren't accompanied by a sense of vulnerability. They were solid. At the beginning, that was probably only about 5% of what I said. The rest of it was instrumental ��� language I was using to get my way. There was an arrogance in my use of language that had to do with the desire to attain proximal victories. To appear smart. To win an argument."

He contrasts that with real articulation:

"A very different idea than merely feeling my way along to see what word was appropriate for what moment. But you can learn to do that. You can listen to yourself. You can stop humming and hawing and using 'like' and 'you know' and fillers. You can take the time necessary to craft your words carefully. You can practice merely saying what you believe to be true. You can read great writers. You can write about the problems that obsess you. And you can become articulate as a consequence."

The power of the pause:

"When you're in a discussion with someone, they might present you with a question or a conundrum. Instead of responding with what you 'know' to be right, you could just ask yourself: what do I actually think about that? But it has to be a real question. It has to be the kind of question you pose to someone you didn't know. It has to be a question predicated on the idea that you might not know who you are, and that you could ask."

Peterson continues:

"Someone presents you with a question. You think: okay, what do I think about that? But you have to want to know the answer. And then the answer will make itself known because that's how thought works. And then you can just communicate that answer."

He explains what happens next:

"If you do that, you'll be interesting right away. You'll be interesting to the person you're talking to. And if they do that to you, they'll be interesting too. And then if you both do that, you'll have an interesting conversation. And if you have an interesting conversation, you'll both grow as a consequence. That's actually the pathway to growth."

Peterson uses Joe Rogan as an example:

"One of the reasons Joe Rogan is so successful is that that's what Joe does. He just asks questions. He isn't trying to get something from his guests. He's not trying to become more famous. He doesn't need any more money. There's no instrumental utilization of language in his discourse. He's just a humble lunkhead in the most profound sense who would like to know more than he knows, and who asks all the stupid questions he can think up."

He continues:

"It turns out he's actually very smart and very well educated now, after talking to hundreds of people and listening. The stupid questions he asks aren't stupid. They're questions shared by virtually everyone who's listening. He takes his listeners along on this process of exploratory endeavor. And it's the pathway to success."

Peterson closes with this:

"The same thing can be true of your life. If you're guided by the spirit of honest inquiry and every word you say is reflective of what you believe to be the truth, then the pathway that you walk on is a golden pathway to success. I know that to be true."

[Kentah Gwanjez @GWANJEZ]

“Slavery is not African history. Slavery interrupted African history.” Mutabaruka

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

It’s time we rethink how our churches serve communities.
What if every church had a food bank?
Our collections could feed the less privileged, not just fund operations.

This is what true humanity looks like.

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@EiiScanty https://t.co/uEoGw9qGcy

[Thomas Davis Sarfo���� @SarfoTom]

@elliot_solution It’s about time we demand Food banks from every church in every community

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@HeadlessYouTube https://t.co/uEoGw9qGcy

[Thomas Davis Sarfo���� @SarfoTom]

@elliot_solution It’s about time we demand Food banks from every church in every community

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@garyalsmith https://t.co/uEoGw9qGcy

[Thomas Davis Sarfo���� @SarfoTom]

@elliot_solution It’s about time we demand Food banks from every church in every community

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@elliot_solution It’s about time we demand Food banks from every church in every community

[KAHALA @KAHALA123Y]

Every man you respect today had a season nobody clapped for. The locking in happened right there.

[Reagan Marfo 💜 @rayganofficial]

Ghanaians travel outside and suddenly become patriotic l

[Thomas Davis Sarfo🌍 @SarfoTom]

@elliot_solution It’s about time we demand Food banks from every church in every community