Authored by Michael Matulef via The Mises Institute,

Every major economic illusion begins with the corruption of a word. Inflation once meant popularly what it still means in truth—the artificial expansion of money and credit. But, over time, it has been redefined to describe its consequence rather than its cause.

This deliberate inversion of language serves a political purpose: it shifts blame from those who create money to those who merely spend it, transforming an act of monetary fraud into a mere statistical “phenomenon.”

The result is profound.

By redefining inflation, governments have obscured its nature, economists have lost its meaning, and citizens have come to accept their gradual impoverishment as an unavoidable fact of life.

The Austrian tradition—more than any other—seeks to restore that lost clarity: to call things by their proper names, and to remind us that inflation is not a symptom of capitalism’s failure, but of government’s assault on money itself.

The Nature of Inflation

Inflation, as understood by the Austrian School, is not a general rise in prices but an artificial expansion of the money supply. Everything else flows from that root cause. Prices do not rise uniformly, nor do they rise spontaneously. There are supply and demand reasons why prices can rise. However, prices largely rise at present because additional monetary units are injected into the economy, altering the structure of production and distorting economic calculation from the ground up.

As Ludwig von Mises insisted in Economic Freedom and Interventionism,

There is nowadays a very reprehensible, even dangerous, semantic confusion that makes it extremely difficult for the non-expert to grasp the true state of affairs. Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country [the United States], means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term “inflation” to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. It follows that nobody cares about inflation in the traditional sense of the term. As you cannot talk about something that has no name, you cannot fight it. Those who pretend to fight inflation are in fact only fighting what is the inevitable consequence of inflation, rising prices. Their ventures are doomed to failure because they do not attack the root of the evil.

Only later, as political expediency demanded it, was the definition corrupted to mean “a general rise in prices.” That semantic sleight of hand allowed governments to claim innocence while committing the very act they had redefined away.

Murray Rothbard brought Mises’s insight to its logical conclusion in The Case Against the Fed:

The culprit solely responsible for inflation, the Federal Reserve, is continually engaged in raising a hue-and-cry about “inflation,” for which virtually everyone else in society seems to be responsible. What we are seeing is the old ploy by the robber who starts shouting “Stop, thief!” and runs down the street pointing ahead at others. We begin to see why it has always been important for the Fed, and for other Central Banks, to invest themselves with an aura of solemnity and mystery. For, if the public knew what was going on, if it was able to rip open the curtain covering the inscrutable Wizard of Oz, it would soon discover that the Fed, far from being the indispensable solution to the problem of inflation, is itself the heart and cause of the problem.

Every expansion, Rothbard argued, constitutes a form of legalized counterfeiting that “robs all holders of money,” redistributing wealth from savers and producers to those nearest the new money’s points of entry. Prices adjust unevenly because new money does not enter all pockets at once. It flows—first to borrowers, banks, and state contractors—before dispersing through the broader economy. This “Cantillon effect” is central to the Austrian understanding: new money changes prices, which beget other chances, from injection points; inflation benefits those who receive new money first and penalizes those who receive it last.

As Jörg Guido Hülsmann demonstrates in How Inflation Destroys Civilization, inflation springs “from a violation of the fundamental rules of society,” transforming what should be honest economic exchange into systematic deception. Inflation is not merely a monetary distortion but a moral hazard that corrupts the language of economic communication itself. When fiat inflation “turns moral hazard and irresponsibility into an institution,” it destroys the pricing system’s ability to convey truth. In such an environment, where “everything is what it is called, then it is difficult to explain the difference between truth and lie,” prices cease to function as reliable signals coordinating economic decisions. Inflation “tempts people to lie about their products, and perennial inflation encourages the habit of routine lies,” spreading this corruption “like a cancer over the rest of the economy.” The result is a society where the very medium of economic coordination has been falsified at its source, leaving entrepreneurs to navigate by systematically-distorted signals that make sustainable economic calculation impossible.

But the damage extends far beyond falsified price signals into the moral fabric of civilization itself. Inflation “constantly reduces the purchasing power of money,” and “the consequence is despair and the eradication of moral and social standards.” Through debt-based policies, “Western governments have pushed their citizens into a state of financial dependency unknown to any previous generation.” This dependency corrodes character:

Towering debts are incompatible with financial self-reliance and thus they tend to weaken self-reliance also in all other spheres. The debt-ridden individual eventually adopts the habit of turning to others for help, rather than maturing into an economic and moral anchor of his family, and of his wider community. Wishful thinking and submissiveness replace soberness and independent judgment.

Worse still, “Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of personal happiness.” What emerges is a culture where “fiat inflation leaves a characteristic cultural and spiritual stain on human society”—a stain that transforms independent citizens into dependent subjects, erodes the standards that sustain civilization, and ultimately reveals inflation as “a powerhouse of social, economic, cultural, and spiritual destruction.”

Inflation as Lived Experience

Inflation’s true theater is not the spreadsheet but the home. The harm is intimate—felt not in economic aggregates but in the quiet recalibrations of daily life. Inflation acts as the cruelest and most imprudent tax, for it strikes invisibly, eroding the purchasing power of the very people least equipped to hedge against it. It destroys the link between effort and reward, between prudence and security.

Inflation punishes thrift and rewards debt. Those who save in money lose; those who borrow in money gain, at least temporarily. The saver’s virtue becomes folly, and the speculator’s recklessness becomes advantageous. Over time, entire societies shift their time preferences—impatience replaces diligence, consumption replaces production and saving. Once the money signal is corrupted, society loses its sense of future orientation. Inflation de-civilizes by teaching people to live for the present. This is civilizational decay.

In daily life, this manifests gradually. The middle-class family that once dined out weekly now eats at home. The young worker saving for a house discovers the dream receding each year. The retiree, promised security through “stable” investments, realizes that the stability was priced in nominal, not real, terms. Everyone adjusts—economically, psychologically, morally. The harm is slow, individualized, and cumulative.

The Austrian economist sees inflation not as a statistic but as a story of distortion—a story of moral inversion, misallocation, and progressive social demoralization. The calamity is not merely higher prices but confused values and distorted choices. Inflation is, in essence, a lie against time and value, and, like all lies, it eventually collapses under its own contradictions.

Conclusion: Sound Money as Civilization’s Foundation

The path forward is not mysterious; it is a choice. Societies that wish to recover from inflation’s moral and economic wreckage must begin where the corruption began: with money itself. The Austrian remedy demands the restoration of honest money—money that cannot be inflated at will, that holds its value across time, and that reconnects effort with reward.

To call for sound money is to demand the reestablishment of truth as the foundation of economic life. Inflation is first and foremost a lie—a lie embedded in the very medium we use to communicate value. When that medium is corrupted, the moral architecture of society collapses with it. Restoring sound money means restoring the conditions under which civilization can flourish: where savings accumulate rather than decay, where long-term planning replaces short-term desperation, and where currency becomes an ally of virtue rather than an engine of vice.

The inflation that impoverishes and demoralizes continues, not by economic necessity, but by political will and public acquiescence. History offers no comfort to those who ignore economic law indefinitely. To choose sound money is to choose civilization over decay. The Austrian School offers no utopian promises, only stark clarity: sound money is the precondition for a free and civilized society, and its absence is the precondition for barbarism.

Authored by Gerry Bowler via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In July 1876, Sandford Fleming, a Scottish Canadian engineer, was standing on an Irish railway platform fuming—he had misread his timetable, confusing a.m. and p.m., and as a result had missed his train. Spurred by this inconvenience, Fleming began thinking how a 24-hour clock would have made this sort of mistake impossible. But his highly inventive mind did not stop there: he had visions of worldwide time zones, 24 of them around the globe, each comprising 15 degrees of longitude and each an hour different.

The notion of standardized time would be an extremely valuable one in an age of unprecedented railway expansion and increased travel. It was customary for each locality to keep to a different time, making timetables an unreliable nightmare and accidents much more likely to happen. In October 1841 near Westfield, Massachusetts, two trains operating on the same track, one east-bound, the other west-bound, collided because of inaccurate timekeeping. Only two people died in that crash, but 20 passengers and crew died near Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1853 because of a similar miscommunication, with a new train conductor using a milkman’s borrowed watch upon which to base his train’s schedule.

Fleming, also an inventor and scientist, was a tireless advocate of scientific cooperation, founding the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Institute. He promoted his concept through publications, presentations to scientific societies, and extensive lobbying with railroad executives with whom he had excellent connections due to his extensive experience with the Intercontinental Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

He enlisted scientific allies across North America and Europe and spearheaded transatlantic cooperation to make his proposal a reality.​ In this work he was assisted by astronomer and meteorologist Cleveland Abbe, the head of the United States Weather Bureau, who had urged standardization of clocks in other to ensure consistency from his far-flung reporting stations.

The climax of their campaign arrived on Nov. 18, 1883—known as “The Day of Two Noons.” At noon on this date, North American railroads officially adopted the system of standard time zones. Railroad clocks across the continent switched from local time to one of the four primary zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. This historic moment, coordinated by the General Time Convention (later renamed the American Railway Association) and railroad managers, represented a dramatic shift for millions. In cities such as New York, residents watched as their clocks marked noon twice: once by the sun, and once by the new standard. The transition was so significant that some regarded it as an affront to tradition and a dangerous break with nature.

This new system specifically followed Fleming’s recommendations and gave structure to North American industry and commerce. The immediate effect was a drastic reduction in railway accidents and scheduling errors, paving the way for faster, safer travel and more efficient movement of goods and people.​

Fleming’s advocacy extended beyond North America. He participated in high-profile international conferences, culminating in the 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. Here, his proposals played a pivotal role in persuading delegates from over 20 countries to adopt the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian, the basis for a new global standard of timekeeping. Countries gradually established legal frameworks to adopt standardized time zone usage for civil and commercial purposes.​

Today, Canada has six times zones from Newfoundland (always a tricky 30 minutes different) to the Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific zones. The continental United States has five, plus four more for their island possessions in the Pacific and Caribbean. Russia has an amazing 11 time zones, while autocratic China has only a single one.

Fleming’s vision permanently altered how societies measure, understand, and organize time. The widespread adaptation of his time zone model meant that, for the first time, vast regions could be coordinated with precision, whether for train schedules, telegraph messages, or cross-continental business. This system remains essentially unchanged in the 21st century, a testament to the enduring value of Fleming’s intellectual achievement and his ability to foster cooperation.​

Fleming was an astonishingly productive man, one that Canadians—who are presently suffering a dearth of heroes (particularly from the 19th century)—ought to know more about. He had keen ideas about electoral reform, favouring a system of proportional representation, and he advocated for transoceanic undersea cables connecting North America, Europe, and Australia. In 1851, he designed Canada’s first postage stamp.

Fleming’s work on railways in the Maritime provinces and in the construction of the CPR was of paramount importance in securing Canadian unity. For those of you familiar with the photograph of the pounding of the CPR’s “last spike,” he is the tall bearded gentleman in a top hat standing behind CPR director Donald Smith, who is wielding the hammer. For his many services to his country, Fleming was knighted in 1897.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

After the Trump-Xi trade agreement cooled the tit-for-tat tariff war and opened the door for a more stable phase of negotiations, we’ve been tracking a series of agricultural twists and turns that can only be viewed as a rollercoaster ride: 

• ‘Signatures As Soon As Next Week’: U.S.-China Deal Close, Bessent Unveils Major Victory For American Farmers

• China Boosts U.S. Soybean Purchases Following Trump-Xi Trade Talks

Then this. 

• China’s Purchases Of U.S. Soybeans Abruptly Stops

Now we’ve come full circle after Bloomberg reported Tuesday that China has returned to the U.S. soybean market, purchasing nearly a million tons, or about 20 cargo ships worth, for December and January delivery. 

Traders told BBG that state-owned giant Cofco made the purchases from both Pacific Northwest and Gulf Coast ports. As we’ve previously reported, these purchases end the one-week pause in buying and signal Beijing’s continued commitment after last month’s trade truce. 

That commitment: the Trump administration says Beijing pledged to buy 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans by year-end and 25 million tons annually for the following three years. 

Trump told reporters on Friday aboard Air Force One that China has already begun the buying process and expects “a lot of soybean purchases,” potentially even before spring.

On Monday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox Business, “We’ve already got about 330,000 TONS out… we’re going to get that deal signed – then, we’re off to the races.” 

Chicago soybean futures were up more than 3% on Monday before easing in the overnight session. 

The renewed demand may lift bean prices much higher. 

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Pennsylvania school district is using artificial intelligence to keep guns off its campuses. But civil liberties advocates have warned that the technology could lead to mass surveillance and violation of constitutional rights.

The Chartiers Valley School District in Allegheny County has implemented AI that harnesses the district’s Wi-Fi signals to determine whether people are carrying weapons as they enter the schools.

The technology, called Wi-AI, was developed by CurvePoint of Pittsburgh. CurvePoint grew out of AI research at Carnegie Mellon University.

According to the company, Wi-AI uses “spatial intelligence” to find weapons such as guns before they enter a school.

The AI system analyzes a space and detects where potential weapons are located by interpreting “how Wi-Fi signals reflect off people and objects.”

Once a possible weapon is found, security personnel, school administrators, or others can go to the location to determine whether there is actually a threat.

It is now in use at Chartiers Valley School District high school, middle school, and primary school campuses. CurvePoint CEO Skip Smith said that in a recent test, the system found a pistol hidden in a backpack. He said the technology has a 95 percent success rate, failing only 4 percent of its searches.

Smith said the Wi-AI does not carry the same privacy concerns of other security systems because it does not rely on facial recognition or biometric data.

“We don’t know it’s you,“ Smith told The Epoch Times. ”We have no biometric information about you. Our system just sees a big bag of salt water.”

Darren Mariano, president of the Chartiers Valley Board of School Directors, said the district is excited to be the first in the country to adopt the technology.

“The safety of our students and staff is always our top priority,” he said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to be the first district in the nation to implement this groundbreaking technology.”

But some say the technology should be approached with caution.

Jeremy Rovinsky is a constitutional law professor at Crestpoint University in Phoenix. He said the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure apply to public school students, although the standard is slightly different in a school setting.

Under the Fourth Amendment, a government official must have probable cause to believe that a crime is being committed before obtaining a search warrant.

However, in New Jersey v. T.L.O., the Supreme Court ruled that a school administrator needed to have only a “reasonable suspicion” that the search would turn up evidence of a crime.

In that case, a teacher reported that two students had been smoking in a girls restroom.

One of the 14-year-olds denied the allegation. An administrator searched the girl’s purse and found cigarettes, what appeared to be marijuana, paraphernalia for smoking marijuana, and evidence that she was selling pot to her classmates.

The student was found to be delinquent in juvenile court. She appealed the decision on the grounds that the search was illegal.

Reasonable Suspicion

The high court ruled that the administrator had a reasonable suspicion for the search based on the teacher’s report and that a search warrant was not required.

In a message to The Epoch Times, Rovinsky said the law also recognizes “administrative searches.” These are non-intrusive, general searches that are targeted to preventing a specific danger such as keeping guns out of school.

Still, Rovinsky wrote, new technology should be introduced carefully to ensure that it does not become a constitutional problem.

“While school authorities have greater latitude to search students and their possessions than authorities outside of school, the scope of what counts as reasonable imposes limits on school searches,” Rovinsky wrote.

Seattle-based lawyer Evan Oshan said the technology could devolve into allowing warrantless searches of every person to enter the campus based on no evidence or reasonable suspicion.

If not checked, according to Oshan, the technology could be implemented in all public spaces, creating an even larger surveillance state.

“We’re normalizing constant surveillance of our children under the guise of safety,” Oshan wrote in a message to The Epoch Times. “This dragnet approach sweeps up everyone, guilty and innocent alike, which is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.”

Smith agreed that the technology will grow. However, he said, growth will provide more benefits than risks.

He said the technology can be used to monitor the elderly or those with dementia, or to provide security and marketing data by tracking for business.

“Our view of the future is we’re offering inferences on how spaces are being used … but without capturing, you know, private information on who the individual [user] is,” he said.

He acknowledged that AI is a relatively new technology and that some glitches may arise. But he said that as the Wi-AI learns, the company will prioritize privacy and security.

Oshan’s view is not quite as rosy.

“This technology creates a slippery slope,“ he said. ”Today it’s Wi-Fi signals searching for weapons in schools. Tomorrow it’s on public transportation, in shopping malls, at government buildings. Where does it end? The Constitution provides the guardrails, and we ignore them at our peril.”

Ecuador just had a major vote which has gone some underreported in US mainstream media, given perhaps the current focus on the Venezuela crisis. The Latin American country held a referendum Sunday on allowing allowing the return of foreign military bases in the country.

This was ultimately seen as a vote on allowing an American military presence, which the US has long sought to reestablish. Ecuadoreans voted down the proposal in a significant blow to President Daniel Noboa, who has sought a change in the constitution. Since 2008, the constitution has banned foreign bases on Ecuadorean soil.

One of Noboa’s key rationales for seeking a reversal of the prior legislation was to have outside assistance in fighting soaring crime and drug-trafficking in the country and region. 

The referendum was held 16 years after the United States was made to shut down a military site on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

The New York Times suggests that Ecuadoreans currently see the Trump administration pushing its military might around in the Caribbean while threatening countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and even more recently Mexico:

They soundly rejected a national referendum on Sunday that he had backed, aimed at authorizing a foreign miliary presence in Ecuador. With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, 61 percent opposed the measure.

The vote comes as the region has been roiled by the intensifying U.S. military campaign against boats the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs.

The Ron Paul Institute also sees in this a grass roots movement among foreign peoples to reign in US foreign policy and militarism in their lands. Journalist and pundit Adam Dick writes the following:

There is not a lot of reason for hope for the US to start adhering soon to a noninterventionist foreign policy. Indeed, President Donald Trump has been moving the US in the opposite direction. He continued US participation in the wars of his predecessor. This includes the Ukraine and Israel wars, in regard to which Trump had promised, in the lead-up to becoming president, to bring peace very quickly. Further, Trump has begun a new war against Venezuela and is threatening to pursue a new “Global War for Christians,” starting with threats of US military attacks in Nigeria. Meanwhile, Congress does nothing to stop or curtail the intervention.

There seems to be little hope of the US government choosing to move toward nonintervention abroad soon. Maybe some of the best hope for change in that direction comes from people in other countries saying “no more” to aiding the US government’s interventionist pursuits.

On Sunday, a majority of voters in Ecuador voted in a national ballot measures election against allowing the US government to have military bases in the South American country. The “no” vote win occurred despite Ecuador President Daniel Noboa strongly campaigning for the ballot measure’s approval.

So long as Americans fail to put an end to their government’s interventions abroad, there is hope that people in Ecuador and elsewhere around the world can impose some restraint.

Also in the background has been Trump admin officials really pushing and reviving concept of influence in the world based on the 18th century Monroe Doctrine.

The historic Monroe Doctrine declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to other countries, while vowing at the same time the US would stay out of European affairs. Of course, Washington is currently only interested in the former part of this and not so much the latter.

Authored by Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times,

A panel of federal judges in Texas has ruled that the state cannot use newly redrawn House maps aimed at securing additional seats for Republicans.

“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map,” wrote U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown in the 2-1 ruling.

“The Plaintiff Groups are likely to prove at trial that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map. So, we preliminarily enjoin Texas’s 2025 Map.”

The decision marks a loss for Republicans who have been looking to gain a seat advantage in the House of Representatives, where they currently hold a slim majority.

Texas may appeal the decision directly to the Supreme Court of the United States, pursuant to the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was cited in the ruling.

The preliminary injunction was ordered by a three-judge panel mandated by the VRA for such cases, which voted 2–1 in favor of granting it.

Maryland has awarded $6 million to We Our Us, a nonprofit led by Antoine Burton, who owes more than $200,000 in federal and state tax liens dating back to 2017, according to investigative reporting by Fox 45 Baltimore. The situation has renewed concerns about how officials vet organizations receiving major public funding.

Gov. Wes Moore approved the $6.1 million Department of Juvenile Services contract to “engage justice-involved youth in Baltimore City.” The award came shortly after Moore praised Baltimore’s community partnerships, saying, “We know that partnership produces progress, and there’s no better case study than Baltimore.”

Burton, who owes $176,000 to the IRS and $32,000 to Maryland, told Spotlight on Maryland he has a plan to resolve his liens: “Right now, that’s something that’s being disputed… there’s a team that’s in place to make sure that funds are facilitated properly.” He did not provide any documents.

DJS said the nonprofit is in good standing with the state and has received $815,398 since 2023 through the Thrive Academy. It has not yet billed the state for the new $6 million contract. Gov. Moore’s office and DJS did not say whether they were aware of Burton’s liens before granting the award.

The report, citing experts, says the liens should have been considered. Georgia State professor Amanda Beck said, “I personally think it’s reasonable to make that a part of this decision.”

We Our Us has also not filed its IRS nonprofit forms for the past two fiscal years. The group says it requested an extension due to a voluntary audit, but Florida International University professor Erica Harris said, “That is not appropriate… You file your estimated information and then you amend with whatever audited information that you have if there needs to be adjustments. But you need to file by the filing date.”

Burton said the new funding will help expand mentoring, food distribution, addiction support, and job-assistance programs: “We are embedded in the lives of these kids. Some of them even look at some of our life coaches as father figures because we are engaged week in and week out, making sure there’s an accountability system in place.”

Burton’s divorce records show his ex-wife alleged he had “multiple affairs,” hid a “tax lien against him that he failed to inform” her about, and “accrued large amounts of financial debt and intentionally hid this information.” Burton denied the claims, telling Spotlight on Maryland, “I did not hide any finances from my wife.” He ended the interview after questions about his personal life, saying, “I can’t believe you guys did this.”

The $6 million award was issued through a “Non-Competitive Negotiated Procurement.” Beck said such processes can be “controversial” and added, “The concern is that you are giving the business to whomever you want to give the business to, and structuring proposals to give it to that business.”

We Our Us is also slated to receive $1 million from Baltimore City’s opioid settlement with Walgreens, though the grant agreement is not finalized and the funds have not yet been disbursed.

You can watch Burton humiliate himself during the interview here:

The Maryland state government awarded $6 million in taxpayer funds to a nonprofit whose president owes more than $200,000 in taxes.

Watch my tense exchange here in an exclusive interview with the head of We Our Us: https://t.co/zBx2Zb1nkB pic.twitter.com/lkXu2fnj4J

— Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) November 14, 2025

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A bombshell Griffith University study has validated a long suspected reality: short-form videos (SFVs) like TikToks and Instagram Reels are frying brains, slashing attention spans, and crippling cognitive endurance.

Such content is turning a generation into scatterbrained zombies unable to tackle real-world complexities amid algorithmic dopamine traps.

The meta-analysis, reviewing 71 studies and data from 98,299 participants, uncovered a “consistent pattern” of harm from heavy SFV consumption. 

Bingeing TikTok reels may be hazardous to your well-being.

71 studies, >98k people: The more short-form videos teens and adults watched, the more they struggled with attention, self-control, and stress and anxiety.

Read a book. Watch a movie. Long live longform. pic.twitter.com/Yzyv68kBDh

— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) November 14, 2025

Researchers concluded: “Overall, this meta-analysis revealed a consistent pattern linking higher SFV use with poorer cognitive performance, particularly in attentional control and inhibitory processes.” 

They warn: “These associations may reflect cognitive strain or emerging disruptions in cognitive endurance and attentional regulation among heavier SFV users.”

“Given the central role of attention and executive functioning in academic, occupational, and daily goal-directed tasks, these patterns may indicate broader difficulties in sustaining mental effort over time,” the study further notes.

The study pinpoints risks for deep thinking: “Tasks requiring prolonged concentration (e.g., reading comprehension, complex problem solving) may be more difficult to sustain, especially as SFV platforms reinforce brief, high-reward interactions through rapid feedback and algorithmic content delivery.”

National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty has amplified the alarm, linking SFV addiction to civilizational decay.

“The last inherited habits of civilization are giving way to the onset of paranoia, distrust, and desperation for answers. Most things you thought were solid in our civilization have been vaporized and evacuated. The second you lean on these structures, they fall apart,” Dougherty urges.

He envisions a grim future: “If we’re going to conserve anything through this period, it’s going to require heroic work and institution-building. Which will require trust, and trust implies some agreement on the deep values. But how can that be achieved when most thoughts are flattened into 15-second video shorts on TikTok and Instagram Stories? God help us.”

The study confirms that social media obsession is self-sabotage, breeding a dumber electorate hooked on snippets over substance—paving the way for real discourse to reclaim focus and rebuild what algorithms have wrecked.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Bill and Hillary Clinton have officially refused to comply with House Oversight Committee subpoenas ordering them to sit for depositions about their ties to financier to the elite and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) broke the news on Monday, stating “Bill and Hillary Clinton are refusing to appear before House Oversight for their depositions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. Notice how House Democrats suddenly have nothing to say about it.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton are refusing to appear before House Oversight for their depositions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. Notice how House Democrats suddenly have nothing to say about it.

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) November 17, 2025

The subpoenas, issued in August by Chairman James Comer (R-KY), set Hillary’s deposition for October 9 and Bill’s for October 14. After their attorneys requested delays, the Clintons have now stonewalled entirely.

Comer has long flagged Bill Clinton as a “prime suspect,” citing more than 20 flights on the Lolita Express, multiple trips to Epstein’s island, and at least 17 visits by Epstein to the Clinton White House.

The Clintons’ defiance stands in stark contrast to President Trump’s aggressive push for total transparency. As we highlighted yesterday, Trump labeled the entire Epstein controversy a “Democrat Hoax” designed to smear Republicans and demanded the immediate release of every file:

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump noted.

Trump doubled down, insisting the files be released but warning they must not overshadow Republican victories, stating “What I just don’t want is for Epstein to detract from the great success of the Republican Party… It’s a Democrat hoax.”

🚨 BREAKING: Trump says he’ll SIGN the Epstein Files bill if Congress passes it, blasting claims he’s hiding anything. Calls Epstein “a Democrat problem” and says full transparency won’t overshadow GOP accomplishments.pic.twitter.com/PCTr9ZayEW

— Stephen Gardner (@StephenGardnerX) November 17, 2025

With House Republicans now preparing contempt proceedings and a floor vote looming on full Epstein file declassification, the Clintons’ refusal to testify only intensifies the spotlight on decades of unanswered questions.

The message from both Trump and Comer is clear: no more hiding.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Update (1730ET): Well that didn’t take long…

The Senate has just agreed by unanimous consent to approve the House-passed bill to require the Justice Department to release all unclassified records and documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – upon receipt of the legislation from the House, only hours after the lower chamber voted 427-1 to approve it – sending the bill to President Trump’s desk for a signature.

The Hill reports that, the Democratic leader received approval from all 99 of his colleagues to “deem” the bill “passed” as soon as the Senate receives the legislation from the House.

Senate aides said they expected that to happen later Tuesday evening.

Schumer secured approval to quickly send the legislation to President Trump’s desk after the Senate Republican cloakroom ran a hotline to see if there were any objections on the Republican side of the aisle.

Now we brace the avalanche of documents and the finger-pointing and stream of ‘I told you so’ media soundbites that are bound to occur.

*  *  *

The House has passed legislation to compel the Trump DOJ to release records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after the bill gained enough bipartisan support to require a House floor vote – and of course, after President Trump reversed course and decided to support it. 

My legislation with @RepRoKhanna to release the Epstein files just passed 427 to 1 ! pic.twitter.com/iI9VZ6WFLe

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 18, 2025

We also just learned, thanks to ‘Epstein Files’ releases by House Republicans, that Epstein was close with Larry Summers and Del. Stacey Plaskett. 

Before debate concluded on the bill, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) read the names of some of Epstein’s victims on the House Floor; Haley Robson, Jena‑Lisa Jones, Michelle Licata, Ashley Rubright, Annie Farmer, Marina Lacerda and Rachel Benavidez. Oddly, the recently deceased Virginia Giuffre. 

The bill now moves to the Senate after clearing the House 427-1, after which – assuming it passes, will go to President Trump’s desk to sign into law, and after which the files should then be released. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly said that the legislation should be amended to protect the identities of innocent individuals – which we assume will take lots of time, perhaps forever. 

Senate Majority Whip John Thune, meanwhile, has signaled caution on the legislation, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has pledged to bring the bill to a vote immediately. 

Also interesting is that Rep. James Comer torched Hakeem Jeffries for soliciting a meeting and donations from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender.

🚨 HOLY CRAP! House Oversight Chair @JamesComer just EXPOSED Hakeem Jeffries on the House floor for soliciting a MEETING and donations from Jeffrey Epstein — even AFTER Epstein was a convicted s*x predator

This Epstein thing going to backfire MASSIVELY on the Democrats.… pic.twitter.com/QPDFuSPOww

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) November 18, 2025

Developing…