In this episode:
- Could ChatGPT kill the billion-dollar romance industry?
- We are scoring Thomas’s 2025 predictions.
- Substack betrays its ad-free promise with sponsored content
- Audible brings TikTok-style videos into the app.
- We also may have found a leader for the Butlerian Jihad against AI, and she has half a million views.
Prediction Update
Will ChatGPT Adult Mode Kill Romantasy?
Jonathan: Now, ChatGPT has adult mode, romance, and why this even exists. I am honestly disgusted that there is demand for this, which means there is now supply.
Thomas: An industry insider sent me this prediction after we did our predictions episode last week, and I thought it was very clever.
As you may know, ChatGPT is adding an adult mode that will allow sexually explicit content, essentially smut-style writing, which people were already doing with other tools.
The prediction is that readers who were getting their fix from romance and erotic literature may soon start getting it directly from ChatGPT, which can cater to their every base desire.
I do not want to gloss over this. Morally, I object to it. I find it reprehensible. Lust is not love. I subscribe to a very different sexual ethic, and I find much of this distasteful. That said, ChatGPT is clearly going through a shift in its sexual ethics.
There is speculation that AI-generated smut could pull readers away from paying for similar content on Amazon. This is something to watch closely. I do not expect romance to grow in sales this year, but I do think it will hold steady. I would not be surprised if some readers start using machines for their “fix” instead of buying books.
Jonathan: I cannot wait for the arguments on whether robot-generated or human-generated smut is better.
The Butlarian Jihad May Already Have a Leader, but It Still Lacks a Name
Thomas: Speaking of the machine, last week we predicted that the anti-AI movement would take on a political identity and get its own name. We jokingly referred to it as the Butlerian Jihad from the Dune books, though many people opposed to AI have not read Dune.
Shortly after our episode went live, Hillary Lane released an excellent video called AI Is Here to Stay, And No One Cares. In it, she argues that AI is making people stupider. It is a full-throated anti-AI message.
We may have a leader for the Butlerian Jihad, at least within the author community, though she has not named the movement or embraced that identity yet.
Jonathan: Probably once she figures out how to monetize it.
Thomas: I do not think she is motivated by money. I really like Hillary Lane and her other content. I do not fully agree or disagree with her AI video. She is more correct than she realizes.
The arguments she makes are the same arguments Socrates made against reading and writing. Socrates warned that if people embraced writing, they would stop memorizing The Iliad and The Odyssey. They would stop internalizing the wisdom of the ancients and rely on parchments instead, and we know that because of the writings of Plato. Socrates did not write anything himself. He fully committed to orality. He was not entirely wrong. Wisdom is lost when we stop memorizing and internalizing texts.
We see this today. Compare how many phone numbers you knew as a child to how many you know now. That said, while tools can make individuals weaker, they allow humans to do more. Digging with a spoon makes you stronger than digging with a shovel and digging with a shovel makes you stronger than digging with a backhoe. But if your goal is digging ditches, you will get more done with the backhoe.
Tools weaken us individually while strengthening us collectively.
Tools weaken us individually
Thomas Umstattd, Jr.
while strengthening us collectively.
I have also seen these same arguments used against video essays. People claimed that moving from written essays to video made people stupider. Now those same critiques are delivered via video essays criticizing AI writing.
To her credit, Hillary Lane acknowledges that these arguments also apply to social media and television. That intellectual honesty makes her a strong candidate for leading an anti-AI movement. She recognizes that the problems of AI are the same problems posed by social media and television.
She does not go full Socrates, and almost no one does. The society that supports memorizing The Iliad and The Odyssey no longer exists. Reading and writing are here to stay, and AI is here to stay. She acknowledges that, and I encourage you to watch her video.
This debate matters. I also enjoy having my predictions proven right, though I did not expect this one to happen so quickly. My real prediction was that the movement would take on a name, and that has not happened yet.
Jonathan: We used to debate this in the military. Would a Spartan or a Marine win in a fight? One-on-one, the Spartan would win. But if both had to fight five hundred people, the Marines would kill far more because they are trained with tools and systems. The Spartan is a superior individual fighter. The Marine is designed to win wars.
Thomas: That gets to the difference between a warrior and a soldier, which is crucial for authors writing violence. A warrior prizes individual combat skill. A soldier sees themselves as part of a greater whole.
Rome conquered the world because it embraced a soldier ethos. A famous story from the early Roman Republic illustrates this. General Manlius forbade single combat against the Gauls. His son accepted a challenge anyway, defeated a Gallic chieftain, and secured victory for Rome. After the battle, Manlius had his own son executed for breaking orders.
Every Roman legionnaire knew that story and was taught to think, “We are Romans. We are not warriors. We are soldiers.” Roman tactics were about coordination and formation, not individual heroics. Gladiators were entertainment, not models for warfare.
The Marine Corps is largely based on the Roman model in doctrine and ethos.
Scoring Thomas’ 2025 Predictions
Thomas: I asked Grok to evaluate my predictions from last year:
✅ Prediction: Old-school traditional publishing will continue to decline in status, but houses will remain financially fine due to backlists and new models.
Grok: This prediction holds up well. Status continues to slip as successful authors favor indie for creative freedom and profits. Financially, traditional publishers show resilience with modest overall industry growth and stable print performance.
Thomas: Remember, nine out of ten bestselling nonfiction books in 2005 were not published in 2005. The backlist matters.
🔘 Prediction: More traditional publishers will launch imprints like the Bloom Books/Author’s Equity model.
Grok: This one shows partial accuracy. Hybrid and alternative models gain traction, with publishers acquiring proven indie titles and experimenting with profit-sharing. No widespread new imprints exactly matching that model emerged prominently by early 2026, but the direction aligns.
Thomas: This one missed. I overestimated how innovative traditional publishers would be.
✅ Prediction: Readers shift away from politics overall, toward less political content like stoicism or religious texts.
Grok: Spot on. Amazon bestseller lists in 2025 showed fewer political titles and more focus on values-aligned books, including religious and self-improvement categories. Network news declines reinforced the broader retreat from politics.
Thomas: The exception was Kamala Harris’s biography, which broke into the top ten. There is still demand for politics, but people are more interested in culture than red-team versus blue-team exhaustion.
✅Prediction: AI will see at least one more year of exuberant growth before economic limits hit.
Growth continued robustly through 2025. Publishers adopted AI for operations, covers, and marketing. No major crash occurred yet, though ethical and governance discussions intensified heading into 2026.
Thomas: Looking back, many of these predictions seem obvious now, though they felt risky at the time. Joanna Penn made a similar point that predictions about AI no longer feel controversial. A few years ago, saying “AI” could get you burned at the stake. Today, while authors complain loudly, publishers are quietly using AI everywhere they can.
Jonathan: When you talk to people who are still publicly preaching against AI, they will say, “Of course we are using AI for translations.” That does not seem like a big deal until you compare it to where they were a year ago, which was “no AI for anything, ever, under any circumstances.” Now it is obvious. Of course you would use AI for translation.
Thomas: People used to check the perforated edges from dot-matrix printers to see if you had written something on a word processor. They would look for em dashes as proof you were cheating.
Announcement: Patrons Appreciation Ice Cream Social
On January 29th I’m hosting an ice cream social in Austin, Texas. If you are a patron, you can attend for free! If you are not a patron, you can become a patron for $4. That is less than a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and the ice cream will be way better than Ben and Jerry’s. If you’ve never had Blue Bell or Creamy Creations, you are in for a treat!
Patrons will just be enjoying ice cream and conversation with one another. There will be no stage or speaking at the ice cream social.
Last year, the venue made it very hard to hear, so this year, we are moving it to the same large room where the Novel Marketing Conference is held. It will be quieter, with more space. Put a hundred authors in a room talking about their books and it gets loud.
Substack Starts Selling Ads
Jonathan: Substack broke a promise. They launched a limited pilot program for native sponsorships in newsletters, which means ads. They announced this in December 2025, describing it as a creator-first, opt-in beta. A small group of writers can insert paid brand sponsorships directly into their posts.
This formalizes what many of us already do. I put mid-post and end-of-post promotions for my own work in my Substack. Now Substack wants a slice of that pie. This moves them closer to how YouTube operates, just in written form.
Thomas: I suspect this is the beginning of the end of what made Substack special. Advertising leads to inevitable outcomes.
There is a saying in podcasting that advertising is censorship. Once you accept advertisers, they want a say in what you say. I do not run ads on any of my shows because I want to preserve an outsider, prophetic voice. When you accept ads, you lose the freedom to critique and criticize.
That is why I am so grateful to our patrons who support the show directly. I do use affiliate links, but only for products I genuinely recommend. In the past, I even used affiliate links for tools I disliked, so people could see the contrast. At this point, I barely mention Mailchimp because it is the worst, but if you want to use it anyway, I suppose you can still use my affiliate link.
Jonathan: Substack made two mistakes. The first was trying to become a social media platform. It used to be long-form writing. Now when I open the app, I see surface-level reactions and hot takes. That is not why I go to Substack. I already have X and Bluesky.
Substack is now inheriting the blame that creators used to take for excessive ads. When YouTube interrupts Baby Einstein with a violent video game ad, I blame YouTube, not Baby Einstein. Substack is reducing its platform value by drifting away from what it was.
Thomas: Every platform wants to be something else. Facebook became TikTok. Most content on Instagram is now video reels, which means authors are pressured into video ads, even though video does not sell books well. Authors also struggle to make good video.
If you want to advertise there, hire BookTok creators instead of trying to become one yourself.
Jonathan: I would push back on that. People are getting tired of BookTok. There is resistance to that delivery style. I have noticed Americans watching more European influencers because the tone is calmer and more direct.
Thomas: Substack ads will be text, not video. That could be good for authors if the targeting is strong. If you can advertise on ten specific Substack newsletters that already reach your ideal reader, that could be effective.
Jonathan: If you know how to provoke curiosity effectively, low production value can help. Talking into your phone can work. Some creators do well playing two sides of a conversation. Elizabeth Wheatley does this brilliantly for her historical romance books, reacting as both author and reader. It is funny and effective.
If you cannot do that, do not stress about video content.
Thomas: You are still better off hiring professionals than trying to master a format people are already getting tired of. I have a Patron Toolbox feature called Influencer Finder to help you locate creators who can either promote your book or create ad content for you.
- Substack Begins Testing Sponsorship Ads in Newsletter Pilot
- Substack is launching native sponsorships
- Substack pilots creator-led sponsorships as traffic surges
- The Ultimate Guide to Substack Advertising
Personal Update!
Thomas: Margaret and I are expecting a baby #5, which is why I did not schedule patrons-only Q&As for July and beyond. Babies do not follow schedules.
My kids will be at the ice cream social. Jonathan’s kids probably will too. We are not hiding them completely, but we are being more intentional. As the show grows, I want my children to choose when and how they enter the public eye.
We have seen the harm that the oversharing of mommy bloggers can cause. Protecting childhood matters. I do not have perfect answers. You will still see older photos, but we are not in a rush to update them.
Jonathan: There is not enough data yet. Social media is still too new. We do not know the long-term effects of sharing children online.
Thomas: That is why we are cautious.
Jonathan: Touch my kids and you will see a very different side of me.
Audible Tests In-App Promo Videos
Jonathan: Audible is testing in-app promotional videos. These are short vertical videos meant to boost audiobook discovery. They better not interrupt my audiobook.
The beta launched in late December and covers about half of U.S. users. Publishers can upload trailers, author interviews, and behind-the-scenes content. Each video links directly to the audiobook page.
Audible says this responds to discovery trends on visual platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Publishers want to add a visual layer to audiobooks. Whether listeners want that is another question.
Thomas: The “behind the scenes” content reminds me of an old Monty Python sketch. Two commentators are narrating an author writing a book. He writes one word and they say, “Oh, he wrote the word ‘the.’” Monty Python could make something that boring feel interesting because the sketch is the point.
I do not think this Audible video feature goes anywhere. There is a reason Amazon has never let authors upload book trailers.
And if it does take off, I doubt Audible will roll it out to indie authors. This kind of feature is usually built for publishers.
Authors and even publishers often create video content that reduces demand. A book with a trailer on Amazon tends to sell fewer copies than a book without one, which is why Amazon does not allow authors to upload trailers. They will let readers upload video reviews, but not authors. Authors often post terrible videos, Amazon pays to serve them, and the videos reduce sales.
Jonathan: Audible is a top-tier platform. This is not for the masses. This is for Sarah J. Maas, Brandon Sanderson, and the biggest names. It is for the books that already move audio at scale. It is not for the little guys.
This will not function as discovery. It will be reinforcement. It increases craving by applying social pressure. You have heard of the book, you just have not grabbed it yet. Now you see everyone engaging with it, because Audible said so, and you want to keep up. But it will not be discovery for indie authors. Not anytime soon.
Thomas: I was reading an article where someone in traditional publishing argued that advertising does not work for books. They pointed out that if you read the New York Times book section, the ads around book content are rarely for books.
That is a revealing glimpse into what some traditional publishers think advertising is. They think it means buying ads in the book section of the New York Times. That is not how indie authors advertise.
Indie authors can profitably drive millions of dollars in sales with ads because the targeting is specific. “People who read the New York Times” is not a target. That kind of broad placement often does not work, even for generally popular books.
- Audible Tests Use of Video Content to Promote Audiobook Discovery
- Audible tests in-app promotion videos to ‘support audiobook discovery’
Zeitgeist: Radical Islam Moves to Europe
Thomas: The United Aarab Emirates just put a ban on Emirates going to university in the UK out of fears that students are getting radicalized by the Islamic Brotherhood.
Meanwhile in Iran, protesters are setting Mosques on fire. The protests in Iran are against Islam as much as they are against the government.
Jonathan: That is not a surprise. We have known this for fifteen years.
Thomas: The UAE is one of the wealthiest per-capita Arab nations. The fact that they see the UK as a greater hotbed of radical Islam than the UAE shifts how Europeans see themselves.
Now contrast that with Iran. Right before we went live, I saw footage of mosques on fire in Iran. Iran is experiencing nationwide protests against the government and against the religion itself. Reports suggest many mosques are empty. People are turning to anything but Islam. Christianity is rising. Atheism is rising. We are now in Jonathan’s area of expertise.
Jonathan: I spent my Marine Corps years focused on the Islamic Middle East. I have done research and briefings. Here is the short version.
Americans use the term “fundamentalist” as if Christian and Muslim fundamentalists are interchangeable. They are not. You have to look at the fundamentals of the religion.
Islam is survivalist. Do what you have to do to survive. Early Islam emphasized accommodation. Later, once it had power, it became expansionist and coercive. The religion of submission is literal. You do not even have to believe it, you just have to say the shahada: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Under their rules, saying it makes you Muslim.
Now apply that to Iran.
Iran is Persia, an ancient civilization. It modernized in the twentieth century, then the Islamic Revolution imposed a theocratic model where obedience to the government was framed as obedience to God. The hijab became law. Women who dress differently are attacked.
After decades of pressure, people still alive remember Iran before the revolution. Now they look at what Iran has become and blame Islam.
Then Trump destroyed their nuclear facility a few months ago and threatened further strikes. He warned the Iranian military not to massacre protesters.
Jonathan: Which gave the protesters confidence. They now believe an outside power may restrain the regime. They are looking to something beyond the regime’s religious authority, because the regime has used religion as a tool of control. Now the country is on fire.
Thomas: The photos coming out of Iran are more radical than most people realize. When you see a woman protesting with her hair visible, she is already breaking the law and risking her life.
There is a viral image of a woman lighting a cigarette with a picture of Iran’s supreme leader while her hair is uncovered. Many people think the radical act is burning the picture or smoking. The radical act is showing her hair.
This contrast is fascinating. We may be seeing the beginning of a civilizational shift where the center of Islam moves toward Europe the way the center of Christendom moved into Europe.
Christianity began in the Middle East. The churches in Revelation are in regions that are now predominantly Muslim. Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, these were once largely Christian. Islam spread through those regions violently over time. Now we may be seeing a reverse dynamic. Meanwhile, inside Iran, people are rejecting it.
We do not know if this spreads beyond Iran. Iran’s version of Islam is different from what emerges from Saudi Arabia.
Sunni is closely associated with Saudi Arabia. Shiite is closely associated with Iran.
Civilizational shifts move slowly. Islam has pushed into Europe before. It was stopped by Charles Martel. Spain was conquered, and later reconquered. Later advances were stopped at Vienna. There is something about Vienna.
Jonathan: This connects directly to what “hero” means right now. Trump acted as a catalyst by doing what leaders have only talked about for decades. Policymakers tried to pacify Iran to avoid confrontation. Militaries planned for years around the assumption that Iran’s defenses and capabilities were serious.
Then Trump acted. When Iran threatened nuclear proliferation and violated treaties, he struck their nuclear facility with stealth bombers that were not detected until they were already on the way back. He did not just hit a strategic target, he hit a symbol of power that the regime claimed Allah was protecting.
When Iran responded by firing missiles at Israel and nothing meaningful happened, it exposed weakness. If you have lived under oppression and been told, “God is in charge and God will punish our enemies,” and then God does not, that creates a crisis for the regime. A hero from outside the system just demonstrated how impotent that system is.
Then protests begin, and that hero says, “Touch these protesters and the American military gets involved.” After what happened last time, that is a credible threat.
Jonathan: We have talked about this in the context of the turnings. There is a kind of hero who is not a builder. He is a destroyer. He destroys evil systems. Trump fits that archetype. He is not a good person, but he is a disruptor.
Thomas: Solomon Kane, who just entered the public domain, is a similar kind of hero.
Jonathan: Exactly. He is here to upend the system, “drain the swamp.” You can hear it in the rhetoric. He destroys, then other people rebuild. That is more like Marco Rubio’s role.
Thomas: This connects to narrative fiction. The Muslims surround Vienna, and the city is about to fall. Poland sends the Winged Hussars. Poland and Vienna had a complicated relationship. The Hussars appear out of nowhere, charge the Muslims from the rear, rout them, and save Vienna.
Guess who took that narrative and worked it into a novel? J. R. R. Tolkien. That charge becomes Gondor and Rohan. The ride of the Rohirrim echoes the Winged Hussars.
Part of why that moment lands is because it resonates with history. You do not have to know the original event for it to hit, but the fact that a version of it really happened gives it verisimilitude. It feels real, and that makes it more emotionally powerful.
Jonathan: If you look at social media, which is a shallow reflection of culture, you see a desire for destroyers. In these stories, the destroyer is not trying to rebuild society. He is there to break what is corrupt.
Think of Darksiders. Hell descends to earth, demons attack civilians, angels fight them, and the war between heaven and hell spills onto the world. That summons War, one of the Horsemen, whose job is to keep heaven and hell in check and protect humanity.
War does not focus on reconstruction. He focuses on killing angels and demons. At the end, he breaks the seventh seal, calling down the apocalypse, and summons his siblings, Death, Strife, and Fury. He is a destroyer.
Nobody wants the Doom Slayer to build anything. They want him to rip and tear. Nobody wants John Preston in Equilibrium to build a new government. They want gun fu. That is the archetype.
Trump’s major threat to the world is that he does not play the game by the rules everyone else is using. He breaks the system. When people react to him, they are often trying to preserve the rules that gave them power.
You see this in the rhetoric. Instead of saying, “It is wrong to blow up drug traffickers,” people say, “You are breaking the rules,” or “You are committing a war crime.” The outrage is often about rule-breaking, because the rules are what protect the system. Destroyers do not care. In fact, the rules are part of what they destroy.
Thomas: That is part of what they are destroying. It is very Conan. Conan does not follow society’s rules. He relies on strength.
Jonathan: And this is a core concept for storytelling. Ask yourself, what is the threat to the innocent? Sometimes the threat is the law. Sometimes the threat is the rules, designed to benefit a few.
This has been a core concept on the left for a long time. The system is racist. The system is sexist. The problems are systemic, therefore the system must be destroyed. That produces destroyer-style heroes. This archetype works across the aisle.
What does this mean for writers trying to reach an audience?
Jonathan: People are responding to destroyers right now. Trump gets the strongest positive and negative reactions I have ever seen toward a president. People either hate him or worship him. Very few are neutral.
So when you write stories, consider that audiences are strongly responding to destroyer heroes.
Thomas: And your audience is likely on one side or the other. I cannot name many stories that appeal equally across the political divide. This might be part of why anime and Japanese media are doing so well. They are not coded left or right in the same way. The culture is different. Japan is on a different turning.
Jonathan: The problem is that once you pick a side, people expect you to respond to the other side. Sometimes people just want to play the game.
That is why audiences get frustrated. “I just want to play Assassin’s Creed. I want to climb a building, jump off a roof, stab someone, and disappear.” They do not want it to become a political lecture about identity in a setting that does not match the story they came for.
Zeitgeist: Steak & Shake
Thomas: We have one more zeitgeist story, and it is an interesting contrast. This whole conversation has been very fourth-turning, destroyers, collapsing institutions, hard times that make strong men.
As we look ahead to a first turning, we do not know how far away it is. The current troubles could end quickly, or they could drag on. Either way, there is a fast-food company poised to do very well. In fact, it was the fastest-growing fast-food company in the country last year.
Many chains saw declines. Jack in the Box was down 7%. Wendy’s was down 4.7%. Papa John’s was down 2.7%. Even McDonald’s only climbed 2.4%.
One company grew 15% in same-store sales, the metric restaurants care about most. That company is Steak ’n Shake.
I have been following Steak ’n Shake all year. I finally took my family to one in Dallas because I want to see why it is doing so well.
It is a perfect encapsulation of first-turning optimism. It is a vision of the future that is optimistic. In the middle of all this darkness, Steak ’n Shake is a fascinating dichotomy. It embraces the future while reclaiming the past.
Beef Tallow Fries Overhaul
Thomas: Steak ’n Shake is known right now for beef tallow fries. They moved away from seed oils. There are two kinds of people in the world, people who know what seed oils are and people who do not. If you care, you really care.
If you want French fries that taste like they did when you were a kid, Steak ’n Shake is one of the only places you can still get that. It is true. The fries taste like McDonald’s fries from the late eighties and early nineties, before the switch to soggier oil-based fries. They are also more satisfying. You feel full afterward. They are not vegan. It is a satisfying meal.
Public Endorsement and Collaboration with RFK Jr.
Thomas: Steak ’n Shake is leaning into a lot of the MAHA initiatives. MAHA is “Make America Healthy Again.” It is adjacent to MAGA but not identical. RFK had his own coalition. A lot of yoga moms would follow RFK anywhere because they do not care about party politics. They care about their kids having healthy food, and they felt like everyone else was talking nonsense.
That RFK alliance helped Trump win the swing states. I have talked to people who were block-walking for Trump even though they did not like Trump, because they supported RFK.
I have cut out seed oils and have lost forty pounds. I am doing other things too, but that change was a big part of it. I tried A2 milk, and it does not bother me the way regular milk does.
Jonathan: He is a seventy-year-old man doing twenty pull-ups. You should probably pay attention to what he is doing.
Thomas: Exactly. Look at Bill Gates, look at the health outcome, and then look at RFK. I know who I am listening to.
Most people do not know what seed oils are or what beef tallow is. They just know the fries taste better. They notice the milkshake tastes like real milk instead of fillers. It is a satisfying milkshake, and the milkshakes are excellent.
Monster American Flags at Every Outpost
The aesthetic is very 1950s diner. They fly the largest American flags allowed by law at every location.
Jonathan: And you have to remember what that era represented. It was the height of American victory. We had just won World War II. The diner became associated with safety and prosperity. You drive in with your girl, get a milkshake, share a straw, and head out. Steak ’n Shake’s design taps that American victory mindset, before Cold War fear took over.
Bitcoin Payments and Strategic Reserve
Thomas: And yet it also looks forward. They run promos for Tesla drivers. They have a Bitcoin burger. You can pay in Bitcoin.
When you order, you do not order from a cashier. You use kiosks. You tap the touchscreen, pay, and then someone brings your burger wearing the little white hat. It is a forward-and-back combination.
It is basically saying, “We can preserve the good things about what made us great while also embracing the good parts of the future, and rejecting the bad parts.”
Jonathan: It is the future the 1950s promised. We were supposed to have flying cars by now. We were supposed to be the Jetsons.
Thomas: Exactly. They are also switching to cane sugar Coke, moving away from high-fructose corn syrup. They are changing ketchup. Real sugar again. It is a reset.
This is something to watch. Visit a Steak ’n Shake if you can, just to see it. I suspect this is a roadmap for where culture is headed. Their version of the optimistic first turning may not be the one that wins, but they are early, loud, and it seems to be working.
While Chick-fil-A and Cracker Barrel are declining and losing the way, , Steak ’n Shake is growing faster than anyone.
Jonathan: Steak ’n Shake is concentrated in the South, especially the Southeast, and it has spread into Texas. Someone mentioned Utah too. I have not seen them in California or Arizona. The South is food culture. You show love with meals. You bring cookies at Christmas. You have potlucks at church.
So when a chain switches to ingredients that taste better, and then aligns with a health movement, it hits hard. It undercuts the messaging that says you should stop enjoying food and eat an Impossible Burger that “almost” tastes like a real burger.
This matters for storytelling, too. Stop preaching at people. Make something they enjoy. Help them remember a time when things were better and show how to make things good again.
Stop preaching at people.
Jonathan Shuerger
Make something they enjoy.
That is the other side of the destroyer story. The destroyer tears down the corrupt system. Then you need builders. You need a life worth living afterward.
There is room for that in romance. There is room for it in mysteries. You catch the bad guy, and the neighborhood breathes again. You need rebuilding, hope, and to see the sun rising at the end.
Destroyer stories are terrible at that. You usually need a side character who can build while the destroyer does what he does.
Thomas: It is the difference between a Moses story and a Joshua story. Moses tears people out of slavery. He confronts Pharaoh. He dismantles an evil system. He never gets to step into the Promised Land. Joshua is the one who goes in, takes ground, and builds.
And if you study the turnings, you can see those patterns in the biblical narrative. Sometimes the difference is stark. Are you telling early Moses, later Moses, or Joshua? Those are different kinds of stories.
Jonathan: Let me push back. Moses is a shepherd. A shepherd carries two tools, a crook and a club. The crook guides the sheep. The club kills predators.
The plagues are the club. The Red Sea is the crook. The staff does both. But when Moses struck the rock the second time, he misused the staff. He used it like a club on the people he was supposed to shepherd. That is not how a shepherd leads.
Joshua is a general. He learned under Moses during the wilderness years. He was one of the twelve spies.
Thomas: And this is the perfect contrast. Do you have the optimistic vision, or the pessimistic vision? Joshua saw the same giants the others saw, but he believed they could overcome them.
Jonathan: That was Caleb.
Caleb is the destroyer. Caleb did not build a nation. He built for his family and that is it. He killed giants because he was wired for that. You need Calebs, but they should not be in charge.
Your destroyer cannot lead the nation afterward. Sometimes the best ending for a destroyer is for him to die destroying. He wins, then there is evil somewhere else, and everyone says, “Thanks,” and he says, “See you,” and walks into the next fire.
Thomas: Have you read Larry Correia’s Saga of the Forgotten Warrior books? It is the Son of the Black Sword series.
Jonathan: I read the first one. I did not get into it.
Thomas: They get better, and the ending sticks the landing. The dedication of the final book is to George R. R. Martin, and that is all I will say. Correia builds a Conan-like character and delivers a real ending.
These zeitgeist conversations are riskier than we normally do, but that is why we are here. We want to talk about culture, how it is changing, and how to stare the giants in the face and have difficult discussions.
If you disagree, leave angry comments. It helps engagement.
Watch on YouTube
