Épisodes

  • Episode 282: Did I Meet My Writing Goals For 2025?

    Episode 282: Did I Meet My Writing Goals For 2025?
    Dec 22 2025
    In this week's episode, I take a look back at my writing goals for 2025, and see how many of them I met. I also take a loog ahead at my writing goals for 2026. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my Anthologies series at my Payhip store: STORIES2025 The coupon code is valid through December 29, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 282 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December 19th, 2025 and today I'm taking a look back at my writing goals from the start of 2025 and seeing how many of them I reached. We'll also take a look ahead at my writing goals for 2026. Before we get to that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing projects. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my anthology series at my Payhip store. And that is STORIES2025. And as always, I will put the coupon code and a link to the store in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through December 29th, 2025, so if you need new ebook to read as you travel for this upcoming Christmas week, we have got you covered. A reminder that the anthology series is collections of my short stories, which I tend to release every year. And in fact, next month, if all goes well, we'll have 2025: The Complete Short Stories. Now for an update on my current writing projects. Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Rivah Half-Elven series is now done. By the time this episode goes live, you should be able to get it off Amazon and Kindle Unlimited since it is my series that is in Kindle Unlimited. So I hope if you are looking for something to read, you will give that a shot. Now that Wizard-Assassin is done, my main project is going to be Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. And I believe I'm 12,000 words into that. I'm hoping to have that out in January, but depending on how January goes, it might slip to February, but January would be ideal. And after that, my next main project will be Cloak of Summoning, the 14th book in the Cloak Mage series. And I literally just started it this morning before I went to the gym, which puts me at 250 words into it, so there's definitely a ways to go in that. In audiobook news, we are still waiting on Cloak of Embers (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) to get through processing at the various platforms, which always, as you imagine, tend to slow down this time of year. And Brad Wills has just started working on recording for Blade of Shadows. So hopefully we should have Cloak of Embers available for you at all platforms before too much longer. And Blade of Shadows will probably be our first audiobook for 2026. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:28 Main Topic: 2025's Writing Goals and My Writing Goals for 2026 And speaking of 2026, in this week's episode, we're going to take a look back at my writing goals for 2025, see how many of them I met, and then look ahead for my writing goals to 2026, which is in fact just around the corner. So first off, a big thank you to everyone who read one of my books over the year of 2025. 2025 for me was an interesting year, both in a personal and a professional way, and sometimes in both the good and bad senses of the word interesting. Sales were down from 2024, but given all the economic turbulence of the year, I am grateful they were only down a relatively small amount compared to 2024. Facebook ads went from my main advertising platform at the start of 2025 to near uselessness by the end of the year due to all the AI nonsense Meta has injected into them. Spotify converted Findaway Voices to Inaudio and made a total mess of it this summer, which after that got settled is why I now upload my audiobooks directly to Google Play and Kobo rather than through Findaway Voices. It seems like a lot of companies are pursuing AI in the desperate hope that it will somehow magically become profitable even as the expense of running AI services devours them from the inside out and renders them incompetent at their primary missions. I was so annoyed at all the half-baked AI stuff Microsoft shoved into Windows 11, I did all my writing on a Mac Mini this year and have been pretty happy with it as a writing platform. Apple, of course, has AI stuff as well, but what Apple has that Microsoft doesn't is a switch that flips it all off at the system level and doesn't do any "install later" passive aggressive crap that Microsoft does. On the plus side, my Super Summer Of Finishing Things let me finish The Shield War, Stealth & Spells Online, and Ghost Armor one after another. Five unfinished series at once was too many. Three has been more manageable. And after five years, I finally got my weight down to what it was before COVID in 2025. Watching some relatives go on Ozempic and the side effects ...
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    11 min
  • Episode 281: So The Pope Is Mad At You – A Practical Guide For Secular Lords

    Episode 281: So The Pope Is Mad At You – A Practical Guide For Secular Lords
    Dec 15 2025
    In this week's episode, I indulge my hobby of medieval history, and take a look at six times Catholic monarchs came in conflict with the pope during the medieval peroid. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store: NIGHT2025 The coupon code is valid through December 22, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 281 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December 12th, 2025 and today, even though this is a podcast about indie writing and publishing, I'm going to indulge one of my hobbies and talk about Medieval history, specifically six specific instances of conflicts between Popes and Catholic Monarchs during the Middle Ages. We'll also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing and publishing projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off all the ebooks in the Ghost Night series at my Payhip store, and that code is NIGHT2025. And as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode, and this coupon code will be valid through December the 22nd, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this winter or something to read as you do Christmas holiday travels, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. I am pleased to report the rough draft of Wizard-Assassin is done at exactly 70,000 words. I have also written a tie in short story called Dwarven Treasure that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook format when Wizard-Assassin comes out. So this is an excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter, in my opinion. If all goes well, I am hoping to have that book out very shortly before Christmas, like maybe the Monday or Tuesday before Christmas because that way if I do, I can reward myself by taking off the entire week between Christmas and New Year's, which is what I really want to do. So I am going to definitely hustle and try to get Wizard-Assassin out before Christmas. I'm also 9,000 words into Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and that will come out in January or February, depending on how things go, hopefully January, maybe February, we will see how things go. After Wizard-Assassin is published, Blade of Storms will be my main project and my secondary project will be Cloak of Summoning, the 14th book in my Cloak Mage series. Cloak of Worlds, the last book in the series, just came out in October, so considering the year gap between the last two books, that is quite a bit shorter, but as I mentioned before, the summer of 2025 was my Summer of Finishing Things. I am now down to just three active series, which means thankfully there is less of a wait between books in the series. There is a year gap between the last book in the Half-Elven Thief series and a year gap between the last book in the Cloak Mage series. Hopefully we will avoid those kind of big gaps moving forward. In audiobook news, Cloak of Embers is done (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) and is gradually filtering out to the retailers. I believe as of this recording, you can get it at Payhip, Google Play, and Kobo. The other retailers, including Audible, should be showing up before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. 00:03:11 Main Topic: So The Pope is Mad at You: A Practical Guide for Secular Lords And with that, let us move on to our main topic this week and our main topic is So The Pope is Mad at You: A Practical Guide for Secular Lords. This episode was inspired by news reports, which we'll get to in a little bit. John F. Kennedy was elected the first Catholic President of the United States in 1960. Before that, there is a widespread suspicion against having a Catholic president in the US, partly because the origin of the United States was heavily Protestant and partly for fear that a Catholic president would take his orders from the Pope in Rome. However, practical experience has proven robustly otherwise. In the past 20 years of United States history, there has been one officially Catholic president and two Catholic vice presidents and their disagreements with the various popes have made frequent news articles. For that matter, American Catholic officials of lesser authority such as Speaker of the House, mayors, governors, and senators have also found themselves frequently in disagreement with the Pope. Whenever a US Catholic political official or office holder disagrees with the Pope about something, the news media always seems to react in baffled astonishment, but Catholic political leaders disagreeing with the Pope is not shocking. It is in fact a tradition going back centuries if not millennia. Compared to the way the things used to be, the ...
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    31 min
  • Episode 280: Six Software Tools For Indie Authors

    Episode 280: Six Software Tools For Indie Authors
    Dec 8 2025
    In this week's episode, we take a look at six software tools for indie authors to help them write and improve their workflow. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: BLADES2025 The coupon code is valid through December 15, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT [This episode's content is not sponsored. Jonathan has not received any compensation for these reviews and has not received any free products or services from the companies mentioned in this episode. He does not currently use affiliate links for the products mentioned.] 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 280 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is a very snowy December 5th, 2025, and today I'm discussing six software tools that are useful for indie authors. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and then an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. And that is BLADES2025. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through December the 15th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for this winter or for your Christmas travels, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Shadows is out and it's available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store, and it's been doing quite well and gotten a good response from everyone. So thank you for that and I am looking forward to continuing that series. Now that Blade of Shadows is done, my main project is the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, which is Wizard-Assassin. I had originally planned to name it Elven-Assassin, but decided Wizard-Assassin sounded a bit punchier, so I went with that instead. I am 46,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 10 of 16. The final draft will have more chapters because one of the chapters is 11,000 words. I'm going to have to cut it up. I've also noticed that readers in general these days seem to prefer shorter chapters, so I've been trying to lean more into doing that and having books with shorter chapters. I think the rough draft is going to be about 70 to 75,000 words, give or take. So I'm hoping I can finish that next week, and I am cautiously optimistic I can have the book published before Christmas. If I can't get it published before Christmas, it is going to slip to my first book of 2026. But at the moment, and of course, barring our old unwelcome friend unexpected developments, I am cautiously optimistic I can have it out by Christmas 2025. So watch my website and listen to this space for additional news. My secondary project is Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series and the direct sequel to Blade of Shadows. I am about 6,000 words into that, and once Wizard-Assassin is done, that will be my main project. I'm hoping to have that out at the end of January, but if Wizard-Assassin slips to January, then Blade of Storms will [of necessity] slip to February. In audiobook news, Blade of Flames, the audiobook of the first book in the Blades of Ruin series, is now out and you can get that at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, my own Payhip store, Spotify, and all the other usual audiobook stores. So if you're looking for something else to listen to during your Christmas travels this year, I suggest checking out Blade of Flames (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). Cloak of the Embers, the 10th book in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy)…the recording of that is done and it is being proofed right now, so I am hopeful we can hopefully have that out before Christmas (if all goes well). In fact, after I record this podcast episode, I'm going to have to convert the ebook cover of Cloak of Embers into an audiobook cover for Cloak of Embers. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. There is definitely a lot going on. 00:03:40 Main Topic: 6 Helpful Writing Tools for Indie Authors in 2025 [All Prices referenced are USD.] Now we're going to move on to our main topic this week, which is six helpful writing tools for indie authors in 2025. Last year in 2024, I did a roundup of popular software tools for writers and I thought I would give a quick update for it. Some of these tools like Calibre and LibreOffice I use, while others like Scrivener and Notion just aren't great fit for my workflow, I still want to talk about them anyways since just ...
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    19 min
  • Episode 279: Five Things I Am Thankful For As An Indie Author

    Episode 279: Five Things I Am Thankful For As An Indie Author
    Dec 1 2025
    In this Thanksgiving episode, I take a look at five things I am thankful for as an indie author. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store: EXILE2025 The coupon code is valid through December 8, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 279 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 24th, 2025, and today I'm discussing five things I'm thankful for as an indie author for this Thanksgiving themed episode. As you might guess, I am recording this a little early to get ahead of the [United States] Thanksgiving holiday, but all the news and updates should still be current. We will start off with Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing and publishing projects. First up is Coupon of the Week and this week's coupon code will get you 25% off all the ebooks in the Ghost Exile series at my Payhip store. And that code is EXILE2025, and as always, the coupon code and the link to my store will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through December 8, 2025, so if you need a new ebook this winter as we head into the Christmas season, we've got you covered. Now an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Blade of Shadows is done and it should be available on all the ebook stores: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my own Payhip store. Initial reviews and reactions have been positive, so thank you all very much for that. My next main project is Wizard-Assassin, and that will be the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series. If my math is right, I think I'm about 25% of the way through the rough draft, and my goal is to get that out on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited before Christmas 2025, which will make (hopefully if all goes well) Wizard-Assassin the final book I publish in 2025. The first book I hopefully publish in 2026 will be Blade of Storms, the third book in the Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, and the direct sequel to Blade of Shadows. I am about a thousand words into Blade of Storms, so just starting and hopefully that will be the first book I publish in 2026 (if all goes well). In audiobook news, Blade of Shadows…the status of that is pretty much the same as the last time I recorded three days ago. It's available at some of the audiobook stores but hasn't finished processing and gotten up on ACX yet. That was narrated by Brad Wills. We are approaching proof copies of the audiobook of Cloak of Embers, and that will be narrated by Hollis McCarthy. So that is where we are at with my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:24 Main Topic: 5 Things to Be Thankful For as an Indie Author So let's move on to our main topic in keeping with the Thanksgiving holiday, which is only a few days away as I record this and was only a few days past when this episode was live, and that is five things to be thankful for as an indie author because I do spend on the show a lot of time talking about the various challenges and difficulties of being an indie author, but there are a lot of things to be thankful for as well. So as I said before, the Thanksgiving holiday is coming up here in the United States and that day always leads [me] to reflect on what we have to be thankful for. And one of the things at the top of my list is my work as an indie author and publisher. Today I'm going to talk about five things that I can be thankful for as an indie author and that other indie authors may be thankful for as well. #1: Creative freedom. As I've talked about before on this podcast, the most immediate benefit to indie publishing is not having to make creative compromises in order to get published. For example, you can make a series the exact length that you want it to be, not what the market can support. You can write in whatever genre, style, and using the themes you want without any interference. As we all know, traditional publishing is pretty trend driven and they seek out books that match trends because they are very risk averse. There's a time about a decade and a half ago when publishers were outright telling authors not to submit books with goblins and orcs and other traditional fantasy creatures, for example. Instead of trying to change your book or writing style in order to get accepted by traditional publishing, indie publishing allows you to create and share the exact book that you want to and then it can rise and fall on its own merits and how well you market it. In fact, what has been traditionally called genre writing (such as categories [like] science fiction and fantasy and mystery and so forth) have flourished without the constraints of traditional publishing. The Internet and platforms like Amazon and the other ebook platforms as well have made it easy for readers to discover books that fit in their...
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    10 min
  • Episode 278: Autumn 2025 Movie Roundup - Frankenstein, Universal Monsters, The Naked Gun, and others

    Episode 278: Autumn 2025 Movie Roundup - Frankenstein, Universal Monsters, The Naked Gun, and others
    Nov 24 2025

    In this week's episode, I rate the movies and streaming shows I saw in Autumn 2025.

    This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store:

    GHOSTS2025

    The coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered!
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    22 min
  • Episode 277: Digital Content Ownership For Readers & Writers

    Episode 277: Digital Content Ownership For Readers & Writers
    Nov 17 2025
    In this week's episode, we discuss the advantages of digital content ownership for both readers and writers. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Ashes, Book #3 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: CLOAK2025 The coupon code is valid through November 24, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 277 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 14th, 2025, and today we are discussing the benefits of owning your own content for both readers and writers. Before we get to our main topic, we will start off with Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Ashes, Book #3 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. That coupon code is CLOAK2025. And as always, the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through November 24th, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook for your Thanksgiving travels this month, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report the rough draft of Blade of Shadows is done. This will be the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. Right now, it is just about exactly as long as Blade of Flames. It may be a little longer or a little shorter depending on how editing goes since there's some stuff I'm going to cut out, but there's also some scenes I'm going to add. I also wrote a short story called Elven Arrow. Newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Elven Arrow when Blade of Shadows comes out, which will hopefully be before American Thanksgiving at the end of the month. I'm about 23% of the way through the first editing pass, so making good progress there and hope to keep up with the good progress. I am 11,000 words into Wizard-Assassin. That will be my next main project once the Blade of Shadows is published and probably the final book I publish in 2025, because I think the first book I do in 2026 will be Blades of Ruin #3, if all goes well. In audiobook news, the recording for Blade of Flames is done and it's gradually making its way out into the world (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). I think as of the time of this recording, the only place where it's actually live is Google Play, but hopefully more stores will come online soon, and it would be cool if the Blade of Flames audiobook was available everywhere before Blade of Shadows came out. Hollis McCarthy is still working on Cloak of Embers and we hope to have that to you before the end of the year, if all goes well. So that's where I'm at with current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:25 Main Topic: Digital Content Ownership as a Reader and Writer Now let's move on to our own topic, the ownership of digital content as both a reader and a writer. As the digital revolution has gone on and on and put more decades behind it, people are increasingly building very large digital content libraries and it's an increasingly tangled point of law what happens to those digital libraries when for example, their account gets suspended, or for example, someone else dies and wants to leave their Steam library of games to their heirs. We're today going to be focusing on digital content ownership for readers and writers, and we'll start with readers. Although the price of an ebook and print book of many traditionally published books are roughly the same at this point (and sometimes bafflingly, the ebook versions cost more), the rights you have as the owner of the ebook copy are substantially less powerful. In fact, technically speaking, you aren't actually the owner of an ebook purchased from Amazon or other retailers. It's more accurate to say that you purchased a long-term conditional lease. As a side note, I'm talking about this from the perspective of United States Copyright law and ebook/audiobook stores there. The laws and standards in your own country may be different. Also, I am not a lawyer and nothing in this episode should be taken as legal advice. You obtain legal advice by hiring a lawyer licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. But now back to the main argument. In America, there is something known as the First Sale Doctrine. This section of the US Copyright Act allows physical media to be lent out and resold, among other things. For example, someone who purchases a physical book is considered its owner and the publisher can't take it back from them. The physical version of books can be used in libraries or as classroom materials until they literally fall apart, unlike their electronic equivalents, which face complicated ...
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    19 min
  • Episode 276: Six Lessons Learned From A 300% Increase In Direct Sales

    Episode 276: Six Lessons Learned From A 300% Increase In Direct Sales
    Nov 10 2025

    In this week's episode, I take a look at my direct sales for 2025, and consider six lessons for improving direct sales. I also answer a reader question about Kobo Plus.

    This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Shield of Battle, Book #5 in The Shield War series, (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store:

    SHIELD2025

    The coupon code is valid through November 17, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered!
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    15 min
  • Episode 275: The Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome & Fantasy Novels

    Episode 275: The Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome & Fantasy Novels
    Nov 3 2025
    In this week's episode, we take a look at the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire, and consider how ancient history can inspire fantasy novels. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025 The coupon code is valid through November 10, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 275 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 31st, 2025, and today we're talking about the Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome and how that can inspire fantasy novels. Also, Happy Halloween (or Happy Protestant Reformation Day, if you prefer). Before we get into all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025. And as always, both the coupon code and the links to my store will be in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through November 10th, 2025. So if you need a new ebook for this fall as we come into winter, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Cloak of Worlds is now out and you get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and at my Payhip store. The initial response has been very strong and very positive, so thank you for that and I'm glad that people are enjoying and reading the book. Now that Cloak of Worlds is done, my next main project is Blade of Shadows, which will be the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I'm currently 44,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 9 of 20, though I'll probably have more chapters in the final draft than I will in the first draft. I found people really do tend to prefer shorter punchier, shorter chapters. Anyway, I'm about 44,000 words into it. I think I'll be about 109,000 words, when all is said and done. So hopefully that will be out in November. I'm also 4,500 words into the next Rivah book, which is Wizard-Assassin. It'd originally been entitled Elven-Assassin, but I decided Wizard-Assassin sounded punchier, so we went with that instead. I'm about 4,500 words into that and if all goes well, it will come out in December, which will make it the final book I'll publish in 2025, though hopefully I'll be publishing more books in 2026 before too much longer. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is currently recording Blade of Flames and we've been listening to some proof chapters of it and are very excited about what we're hearing. Hollis McCarthy is starting work on recording Cloak of Embers. That'll be the 10th book in Cloak Mage, and hopefully we will have both of those audiobooks out before the end of the year, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. 00:02:33 Main Topic: Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire Now let's move on to our main topic this week, which is the Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire, and they were very bad at their jobs, but we'll get into that more very shortly. One of the fascinating (if occasionally depressing) aspects of history is how often institutions end up having the exact opposite outcome of what they were intended to do. The late science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle had something called Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which once the bureaucracy got large enough, it will inevitably start turning its main focus to perpetuating the bureaucracy rather than carrying out its actual mission. And we can see examples of that time and time again, and no doubt you yourself can think of many examples: schools that make their students dumber, military organizations that fail to defend, hospitals that make people sicker, bureaucracies that exacerbate the problems that they are created to solve, and so forth. This can also apply to social movements as well. My favorite example of this is Prohibition in America. The Temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th century achieved its goal of banning alcohol sales in the United States during the Prohibition period, but the backlash and the consequences made it unpopular. And today, while alcohol is much more heavily restricted than it was at the end of the 19th century, the idea of banning alcohol in the United States is utterly implausible. The Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome, the personal bodyguards of the Emperor, might be another example of such an institution that utterly failed at its primary goal. For over a thousand years, people have been asking why the Roman Empire fell, and I think that might actually be the wrong question. The better question is why did the Roman Empire last as long as it did, because it sure almost didn't. At the height of its power, the Empire controlled land ...
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    14 min