Steve Richins

Promoter of “Refocusing on Key Concept Thinking,” cohost of The Cutting Edge podcast

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

When Charlotte Hayes posted a video in which she told people to 'kill' conservatives, the Police dropped the case saying she didn't do anything wrong.

Yet Pete North @FUDdaily was arrested for posting an anti-hamas meme

British Police are obviously completely politicized

[Steve Richins @steverichins]

https://t.co/S5VbBXhBeM
Adventures in the "Anteroom of Epistemology" (and Psycho-Epistemology) Part 4: Is volitional action a two-stage process (separate "primary" and "secondary" choices) or a one-stage process (volition as a "vector," with a magnitude and a direction).

[Steve Richins @steverichins]

Join our 3rd show tomorrow: Adventures in the “Anteroom of Epistemology” (and Psycho-Epistemology) Part 3: Mostly Volition.

https://t.co/dc2Q2KBtA9

[Steve Richins @steverichins]

https://t.co/NOYg82CpnH

We continue "Sense Perception and Volition" ch2 OPAR: what is "form of perception" in Objectivism is it a valid idea? What is a percept? A proper comceptualization of the“Anteroom of Epistemolgy” can and will inform your psycho-epistemology.

[Steve Richins @steverichins]

We are unsheathing the https://t.co/a4L6rIDJgq Cutting Edge today venturing into the "anteroom of epistemology," Dr. Peikoff's term for "sense perception and volition" and the title of chapter 2 of OPAR. A near masterpiece, except for this chapter. This show will be controversial

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

A brave woman at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport confronted a cleric harassing her for not wearing a hijab. In a bold act of defiance, she removed his turban and wore it like a scarf, turning oppression into resistance.

For years, clerics have claimed their turbans and robes are sacred and untouchable, but this woman’s act of protest shattered that myth. Iranian women are exhausted and enraged by gender apartheid.

#WomanLifeFreedom

[RadioGenoa @RadioGenoa]

Incompatible cultures.

[Steve Richins @steverichins]

@JeffBezos Most excellent news I've heard in a long time!

[Jeff Bezos @JeffBezos]

I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:

I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.

We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.

I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.

I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.

Jeff

[Nick Sortor @nicksortor]

🚨 JUST IN: The Pacific Palisades reservoir was EMPTY AND OFFLINE when the firestorm exploded, per LA Times

This is CRIMINAL.

The reservoir holds 117 million gallons of water, and would’ve given firefighters ample pressure to effectively fight the blaze.

Overpaid Dept. of Water and Power officials have now been forced to admit the reservoir being offline likely contributed to dry fire hydrants and low water pressure.

DEI did this.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

I have been raising the alarm about inadequate action to prevent catastrophic fires since 2019. During that time Gov @GavinNewsom and LA Mayor @MayorOfLA cut critical funding for fire prevention. Don't let anyone tell you they couldn't have prevented this.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

This is not a parody

[Capitalism Magazine @CapitalismMag]

"The solution to dangerous, out-of-control wildfires in California is addressing the root cause: “excess fuel load” from bad forest management. Focusing on climate change, a minor variable that we have no near-term control over, is a craven political ploy." - @AlexEpstein

🔗in comments

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

For more than a decade, the media, Democrats, and Hollywood have told us that Western civilization in general and the United States in particular are white supremacist, genocidal, and unsustainable. The founding of America occurred not in 1776 but rather in 1619 with the beginning of slavery, whose effects are felt more strongly than ever. The original colonies and the expansion of the Western frontier depended on the extermination of indigenous people and theft of their lands. And our crimes against nature have resulted in apocalyptic climate change, which requires radical changes to the way we live our lives.

The consequences of this self-hating Woke ideology can be seen today in catastrophic fires, mass evacuations, and burned rubble of Los Angeles. So-called progressives finally achieved what they supposedly warned of but in truth wished for: the eviction of the affluent descendants of colonizers, the incineration of their homes, and the destruction of a city that, more than any other, represents our bloody history of white supremacy and conquest.

I’m not suggesting that Democrats consciously sought to destroy Los Angeles. The entertainment industry professionals in Malibu, Topanga Canyon, and Pacific Palisades, who voted overwhelmingly for California’s progressive Governor, Gavin Newsom, and LA’s radical Left mayor, Karen Bass, thought they were voting for social justice and sustainability. They didn’t imagine their vote would result in their homes burning down.

And yet that’s what their votes resulted in. Over the last 24 hours, the evidence of gross mismanagement and incompetence by Newsom and Bass has only grown more overwhelming. On January 2nd, a full eight days ago, the National Weather Service urgently warned of extreme fire conditions. To drive home the point, the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office held a press briefing warning of impending catastrophe.

On that day, Newsom and Bass should have called out the National Guard. They should have had planes and helicopters circling over Los Angeles spotting fires and putting them out immediately upon detecting them. They should have issued emergency warnings to residents. And they should have used various methods to spray water, including mobile sprinkler units alongside normal firefighter hoses, to wet down vulnerable areas.

Instead, the following day, Karen Bass flew to Ghana on a frivolous junket. And Gavin Newsom only called out the National Guard yesterday, seven days later than he should have.

In truth, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Newsom and Bass should have constructed two to three times more water reservoirs than Los Angeles has in order to deal with fires of that magnitude. Newsom and Bass should have not only built water recycling and desalination plants, like they have in Israel, they should have built them with excess capacity so that, in an emergency, those plants could have pumped fresh water to supplement the water in the reservoirs.

And instead of emptying the prisons and jails, subsidizing rampant homelessness, eliminating penalties for breaking the law, and allowing addicts the mentally ill to camp everywhere and start fires, Newsom and Bass should have cracked down on the rampant disorder and violent crime, all of which has skyrocketed under their misrule.

It now appears that at least one of the fires was started by a homeless man. Whether or not that’s the case, over half of all fires put out by the Los Angeles Fire Department are started by the homeless, which has diverted the agency from doing what it should have been doing, which was preventing catastrophic fires, including by putting them out as soon as they started.

Why didn’t they? Why did Newsom and Bass make so many catastrophic errors?

Part of the reason is that they are self-centered and craven politicians, typical of the people who hold office in California. They claim to care about society’s victims; in truth, they care only about themselves and their self-image. Newsom, Bass, and other California politicians are uninterested in doing a good job and instead obsessed with their own personal promotion. For that reason, they have long been focused like a laser on playing politics rather than governing effectively.

Another reason is that they are beholden to affluent, radical Left environmentalist and social justice donors who live in places like Marin County and Hollywood. These are the same people who bankroll radical Left groups like the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, who have successfully blocked desalination and water storage plants, the proper clearing of flammable debris in forests, and effective management of landscapes around housing development, for over 45 years.

Before that, the same groups and financial interests halted the expansion of nuclear power, which is the perfect energy source for desalination.

And these are the same people who demanded that homeless encampments be allowed to spread throughout the city and that addicts and the mentally ill be given free housing with no strings attached.

All of these things were done in the name of saving the environment, social justice, and saving black lives. The result of them was the destruction of the environment, grotesque injustice, and the disproportionate loss of black lives, including from violent crime, which increased 15% since Newsom took office and grew to be 31% higher than the national average.

For decades, Hollywood cranked out movies and TV depicting the exhaustion of natural resources and climate as causing the apocalypse. Yesterday, some reporters and scientists blamed climate change for the lack of rain in LA. That’s ridiculous. There's no trend in annual rainfall from 1877 to 2024. We have wet years and dry years.

Destroying civilization turned out to be expensive, not cheap. Californians pay the highest taxes for the most expensive gasoline, electricity, and water in the nation. Under Newsom, we spent $24 billion to increase homelessness by 40%.

Both ancient wisdom and modern psychology teach us that one can understand a person’s motivation by the consequences of their actions.

California’s Democrats, progressives, and politicians lied when they said their highest priority was protecting the people of California. They lied when they said they cared about social justice. And they lied when they said they cared about protecting the environment.

Instead, what they cared about was destroying the civilization they had long ago decided was evil. All civilizations require a story. The story that built Los Angeles and California was one of human progress. The story that destroyed it was of human sin. For decades, progressives, Democrats, and the news and entertainment media preached that civilization was evil and doomed. Slavery, indigenous genocide, and climate change were proof.

And now, as the city of angels smolders, it’s clear that progressives reaped what they sowed.

[Ayn Rand Institute @AynRandInst]

Leonard Peikoff introduces his course applying Objectivist epistemology to daily thought processes. https://t.co/R2NMvUNnHV

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

I'm at the 90th percentile of Ayn Rand appreciators.

Just had a conversation with @AlexEpstein, who is at the 99th percentile.

We cover Rand's fiction and defense of capitalism, in addition to her remarkable life. Watch or listen here.
https://t.co/F0dGDCHdkM

[C. Bradley Thompson @CBradleyThomps1]

The DEI chickens are coming home to roost.

New Orleans and Los Angeles were preventable.

Ideas have consequences!

[Adam Mossoff @AdamMossoff]

If you had on your antisemite bingo card that Jews/Israel are to blame for the LA fires, Code Pink took only one day to check that one off.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Perfectly articulated

[Maral Salmassi @MaralSalmassi]

My last video about Taleb Al Abdulmohsen went viral—thanks to all of you for sharing and boosting it. The overwhelming response shows just how much we're all grappling with the unprecedented levels of deceit and violence we see today.
Naturally, the Jihad Orcs and their leftist friends didn't take it well and wasted no time voicing their indignation. So, in this video, I'm here to address their grievances head-on.

#Magdeburg