Ben Despain

Chief Engineer at Flight Enabled (hibernating). Some AI/ML (

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

What a description

[Knowing Joseph Smith the Prophet @KnowingJoseph]

“President Joseph Smith was in person tall and well built, strong and active, of a light complexion, light hair, blue eyes, very little beard, and of an expression peculiar to himself, on which the eye naturally rested with interest, and was never weary of beholding.
His countenance was ever mild, affable, beaming with intelligence and benevolence;
mingled with a look of interest and an unconscious smile, or cheerfulness, and entirely free from all restraint or affectation of gravity;
and there was something connected with the serene and steady penetrating glance of his eye, as if he would penetrate the deepest abyss of the human heart, gaze into eternity, penetrate the heavens, and comprehend all worlds.
He possessed a noble boldness and independence of character; his manner was easy and familiar;
his rebuke terrible as the lion;
his benevolence unbounded as the ocean;
his intelligence universal, and his language abounding in original eloquence peculiar to himself—not polished—not studied—not smoothed and softened by education and refined by art;
but flowing forth in its own native simplicity, and profusely abounding in variety of subject and manner.”

Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857)

Quoted in Joseph Smith – Physical Characteristics, Joseph Smith Foundation, https://t.co/AjNJdaQOuJ

[Knowing Joseph Smith the Prophet @KnowingJoseph]

“President Joseph Smith was in person tall and well built, strong and active, of a light complexion, light hair, blue eyes, very little beard, and of an expression peculiar to himself, on which the eye naturally rested with interest, and was never weary of beholding.
His countenance was ever mild, affable, beaming with intelligence and benevolence;
mingled with a look of interest and an unconscious smile, or cheerfulness, and entirely free from all restraint or affectation of gravity;
and there was something connected with the serene and steady penetrating glance of his eye, as if he would penetrate the deepest abyss of the human heart, gaze into eternity, penetrate the heavens, and comprehend all worlds.
He possessed a noble boldness and independence of character; his manner was easy and familiar;
his rebuke terrible as the lion;
his benevolence unbounded as the ocean;
his intelligence universal, and his language abounding in original eloquence peculiar to himself—not polished—not studied—not smoothed and softened by education and refined by art;
but flowing forth in its own native simplicity, and profusely abounding in variety of subject and manner.”

Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857)

Quoted in Joseph Smith – Physical Characteristics, Joseph Smith Foundation, https://t.co/AjNJdaQOuJ

[james hong @jhong]

It blows my mind that Tesla is the only company trying to make self driving without lidar. Everyone else is fixated on making systems that are perfect without any regard to the cost. But cost matters, a lot. What works better is a solution that is good enough (better than humans such that it makes sense to deploy widely) but also extremely cheap. This leads to greater scale of data collection which leads to an even better system in the next generation. The system that is cheap and scales up the biggest is the one that will survive and will evolve to become the best. Going for the best possible but very expensive solution up front is a losing strategy.

I also don't understand all the legacy car makers are not licensing fsd, but thats another story. My guess is eventually they will.

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@jhong Elon has done this with most of his businesses. Space was floundering because it was stuck in the "has to be perfect before its usable" regime.

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@Timcast Can we please calm down the rhetoric and start from a default position of niceness, empathy and love?

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

This infallibility framework is exactly why the Jews (and many others) rejected (and currently reject) Christ. They couldn't understand how a mortal with obvious flaws could be God. Think about it, Jesus wasn't perfect in his speech, demeanor, appearance, etc. He couldn't have been or he wouldn't have been mortal. If he had perfect speech or perfect anything, other than His essence -something only the pure in heart could see-, he would have stuck out like a sore thumb as not human.

[Krzysztof Szczawinski 🇵🇱 @Kristof_Poland]

What the West Still Doesn’t Get It:

Communism’s True Core: The Systemic Lie

Most people in the West think they understand communism. They picture bread lines, gulags, failed five-year plans, and the collapsed Soviet Union. They treat it as a discredited economic theory – an experiment that proved that abolishing private property doesn’t work. Case closed, history moved on.

This misunderstanding may be the most dangerous intellectual failure of our time.

Communism was never primarily an economic system. Economics was the surface. Beneath it lay something far more insidious: a total, systemic, institutionalized commitment to lying. Not occasional dishonesty. Not spin or propaganda in the ordinary sense. Something deeper – a civilizational war against truth itself, waged through every institution, every classroom, every newspaper, every conversation, until reality itself became negotiable and the lie became the air people breathed.

The Words We’re Missing

The Polish language, forged by decades of living under this system, produced words for this phenomenon that English simply cannot match:

Zakłamanie [zah-kwah-MAH-nyeh] – a state of total, pervasive, socially embedded falsehood, a condition in which an entire society is saturated with lies so thoroughly that truth becomes almost inaccessible.
Obłuda [ob-woo-dah] – a deep, performative hypocrisy, the gap between what is proclaimed and what is actually practiced, the mask worn so long it begins to feel like a face.

These are not words for individual liars. They describe a system – a mode of social organization built on organized mendacity, where the lie is not the exception but the foundation. English has no single word for either concept, and that linguistic gap is not a coincidence. It reflects a gap in experience. Cultures that did not live under communism lack the vocabulary because they lack the wound.

And because they lack the vocabulary, they struggle to recognize the thing when it reappears in new clothing.

The Continuity: Communism, Leftism, Wokeism

What we call wokeism today, or the broader radical left, is not a new phenomenon. It is the same operating system running on updated hardware. The specifics have changed – instead of the proletariat, we have marginalized identity groups; instead of bourgeois class enemies, we have racists and transphobes; instead of socialist realism, we have DEI statements. But the deep structure is the same.

That deep structure is this: truth is not discovered, it is assigned. Reality is not something to be understood honestly but something to be narrated strategically. Language is not a tool for communication but a weapon of power. And anyone who resists the approved narrative is not simply wrong – they are dangerous, and must be silenced, shamed, or destroyed.

This is zakłamanie in its modern form. This is obłuda wearing a human rights badge.

The same movement that insists men can become women will insist, with equal fervor, that questioning this is an act of violence. The same institutions that claim to champion free inquiry systematically suppress dissent. The same people who invoke tolerance as their highest value are among the most intolerant forces in public life. The contradiction is not accidental – it is structural. It is the system working as designed.

Why the West Still Doesn’t Get It

People who grew up in freedom tend to assume, at some level, that bad actors know they are lying. That somewhere behind the ideological performance, there is a cynical operator who privately acknowledges reality. This assumption is wrong, and it is why Westerners consistently underestimate what they are dealing with.

The totalitarian lie, at its mature stage, is not cynical. It is believed. Or rather, it creates a condition in which the distinction between belief and performance collapses entirely. People learn to say things they do not believe so fluently, and for so long, that they lose access to what they actually think.

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[David A. Bednar @BednarDavidA]

When the Lord has a work for us to do, He does not always make it easy, but He does always make it possible.

During our inspired experience on the islands of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia earlier this week, the Holy Ghost again witnessed to us that the Lord blesses and enables us when we choose to act and follow Him in faith.

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

SpaceX engineers spent several days inspecting Ship 40 in the waters off Christmas Island. They collected heatshield samples and gained vital insight into how the vehicle handled reentry with improvements now planned on future vehicles

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@Teslaconomics Why not just start with x money or some small account first?

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Grok 4.6 takes top spot on this benchmark

[Jasmin Rappleye @JasminRappleye]

Richard Dawkins: The Book of Mormon is an obvious fake!

The problem is that the Book of Mormon is claiming to be ancient, not English.

And what's ironic is that the way the Book of Mormon uses "And it came to pass" actually reflects biblical Hebrew writing better than the KJV.

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@SawyerMerritt One ups or maybe ten ups Apple's circle

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@SawyerMerritt @Starlink This becomes clear when you start to gain back hours of time while FSD chauffeurs you around. Internet is important at home and at work. Driving/flying can be mobile home/work.

[Knowing Joseph Smith the Prophet @KnowingJoseph]

“"No," exclaimed Joseph, "I will not touch one particle of liquor, neither will I be tied down; but I will tell you what I will do—I will have my father sit on the bed and hold me in his arms, and then I will do whatever is necessary in order to have the bone taken out."
Looking at me, he said, "Mother, I want you to leave the room, for I know you cannot bear to see me suffer so; father can stand it, but you have carried me so much, and watched over me so long, you are almost worn out."
Then looking up into my face, his eyes swimming in tears, he continued.
"Now, mother, promise me that you will not stay, will you? The Lord will help me, and I shall get through with it."”

Lucy Mack Smith (July 12, 1771-May 14, 1856)
Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1958), 54-58.

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

Science Pleads The 5th
https://t.co/3Ry6yTqSve

[Seth Dillon @SethDillon]

Young Washington was so well done. Took my boys and they loved it.

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@elonmusk @brivael I'm down for the exploration and advancement associated with going to the moon/Mars and beyond, but the idea that we're protecting consciousness by moving people there is silly and misguided IMO.

[Ben Despain @bendespain]

@imPenny2x That's like saying you can't understand multiplication without understanding addition. And you can't understand a word until you can read the letters it's made of.

[Neuralink @neuralink]

We've been exploring how clinical trial participants can control a powered wheelchair — with their minds.

Here's how we’re doing it 🧵