Superheroes and villains start from the same place - alone, unsupported, hurting. Tyrone Ross Jr. and Neils Ribeiro-Yemofio meet for the first time to discuss origin stories, the power of what you tell people, and why hope is both a tool and a weapon.

Eric Pachman returns to discuss a clip about serendipity and the architecture of lasting work. Fresh off another career pivot, he's launching Data 4 The People - a mission to expose uncomfortable truths about SNAP, poverty, and who we are as a society.

David Foster Wallace called television his "main artistic snorkel to the universe." Rohan Routroy asks: what happens when that snorkel runs through algorithmic comfort content and the Netflix Borg? A meditation on media consolidation, imagination, and the stories we need.

Ben Hunt and Rusty Guinn of Perscient have developed a revolutionary technology for tracking narratives in real time.

The stories we're told precede the decisions already made. Ben Hunt and Rusty Guinn teach us to see the narrative architecture beneath the headlines – the way language is weaponized, how certainty is constructed, and how we're brought along to support predetermined conclusions. Using Perscient's Semantic Signatures technology, they reveal what Storyboards can show us: how narrative operates across media, politics, and markets – not just finance. This isn't cynicism. It's literacy. The question isn't whether the ending is inevitable. It's whether you're discovering it or being led toward it.

There are only three reasons to think the works of Tolkien offer a favorable analogy for white American nationalism:

Ignorance, Malice, or Cynicism.

If I had a nickel for every time a random person on social media and an AI model collaborated to manufacture and spread a viral narrative in the last week, I'd have two nickels.

Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. But this time, it's the story of how a proud southern lady, Catturd, an AI community note bot named zesty walnut grackle, and Elon's Waifu AI model made half of America and a sitting senator believe that oak trees sprout beautiful leaves in January.

The story of how a date, an age, a ham radio operator, an big anonymous account from Ireland, the Homeland Security press secretary, and Elon's waifu AI changed what tens of millions considered reality.