Explore the Research

The Cost of Leaving the Tower: Bungie, Destiny 2, and the Strategic Miscalculation of Social Capital

This episode features an AI-assisted audio discussion of Dr. Eric Hannel's white paper, The Cost of Leaving the Tower. Using synthetic voices, the conversation explores the paper's major themes, arguments, and cultural implications in an accessible podcast format.

The underlying research examines how online communities generate social capital, creator ecosystems, and long-term franchise value. Using the reaction to Destiny 2's sunset as a case study, the paper explores broader lessons for the gaming industry, digital culture, and the challenges organizations face in managing communities that have become part of a product's value.

The podcast is intended as a companion to the written paper, not a substitute for Dr. Hannel's original analysis.

Choose the format that works best for you:

📄 Read the Full White Paper

🎥 Watch the Video Presentation

The Policy Compilation for May 16–26, 2026, reviews key federal developments affecting Tribal sovereignty, Veterans, education, and environmental stewardship. This report tracks recent legislation, court decisions, new legal challenges, agency rules, and federal policy actions, with attention to how decisions made in Congress, the courts, and federal agencies affect communities on the ground.

The compilation covers major Tribal sovereignty issues, including Native voting rights, Tribal child welfare, Tribal identification, gaming jurisdiction, Native Hawaiian health programs, and the Dakota Access Pipeline. It also reviews Veterans legislation and litigation involving disability compensation, due process, VA labor rights, reproductive health access, and prescription-drug monitoring. In education, the report examines federal action on parental-rights legislation, student-loan restrictions, civil-rights enforcement, faculty speech, and Tribal education funding.

Together, these updates show how policy decisions move beyond paperwork and into the lives of Tribal Nations, Veterans, students, families, and the land itself.

Native and Veteran Policy Insights.

In this episode, we unpack what the President’s FY 2027 budget could mean for Indian Country. While the administration says it is honoring trust responsibilities and continuing support for tribal communities, the budget also proposes a significant reduction in overall Interior funding, raising serious questions about the future of programs tied to tribal law enforcement, education, and core services. We break down the Native-specific lines that matter most, including cuts to Indian Housing Block Grants, changes to Native community finance, reductions to the Native American Veteran Housing Loan Program, and the impact on cemetery grants that also serve tribal organizations. We also look at the mixed health picture, where Indian Health Service funding shows increases even as the broader budget points toward contraction. This episode explores what the numbers say, what they do not say, and why tribal leaders, Native organizations, and advocates should pay close attention before Congress begins rewriting the proposal.

In this episode, we examine the Supreme Court’s latest birthright citizenship argument through a Native American lens. What happens when the justices revisit the Fourteenth Amendment’s phrase “subject to the jurisdiction,” and how does that language connect to the long history of tribal sovereignty, Native citizenship, and federal power? We break down the April 1, 2026, argument in Trump v. Barbara, including the exchange in which Justice Gorsuch pressed the Trump administration on whether its theory would have excluded Native Americans from birthright citizenship under the original understanding of the Constitution. We also look at Justice Sotomayor’s defense of tribal nations as distinct political communities and Justice Barrett’s questions about whether Native citizenship history can fit inside a rigid originalist framework. This episode explores why a case framed around immigration also carries deep meaning in Indian Country and what it reveals about belonging, jurisdiction, and sovereignty in American law.

This is our first kinship tale in a storytime series.

Three big themes this week: tax parity for Tribal governments, infrastructure access tied to defense communities, and a VA benefits rule that whiplashed, then rescinded.

Gulf War Illness now has a diagnostic code, which may improve medical treatment and VA disability claims approval rates.