How Farmers Become Serfs or Bankrupted by the Illegal, Monopolistic Practics of Big Meat, Big Chicken and Big Food companies
You never hear about this method of bankrupting family farms and forcing them to sell out. 2 stories from Investigate Midwest on how Tyson deliberately broke contracts and bankrupted farmers
… The company’s plans came at a human cost. Tyson closed eight meatpacking plants in 2023, six of them chicken processing and two beef processing. It laid off more than 4,200 workers across all of its plants last year.
The company has a lot to gain from its contract growers. In 2023, Tyson Foods had nearly $53 billion in sales — a third of which was from chicken. The company operates 183 chicken facilities across the country, which include processing plants, hatcheries, feed mills and grain elevators. The company’s website states it contracts with more than 3,600 poultry farmers nationwide.
The vertical consolidation (the same company owning hatcheries, feed mills, grain elevators and processing plants) and horizontal consolidation (contracts with over 3600 farmers growing eggs, broiler, chicks, etc.) give Tyson extraordinary power to control all aspects of the chicken business and squeeze the biggest profits from everyone it deals with. It also has extraordinary power in other meat industries.
It did make chickens cheap—but now this monopoly power is also directed at the consumer, who is paying a lot more for less quality. Food in nearly all of Europe and the rest of the world is now cheaper than in the US. But the quality in the US is one of the worst, due to the immense consolidation and use of the cheapest inputs to feed poultry and livestock, and lack of care by agribusinesses to give back to the soil what is taken out using compost and manure, instead pushing chemicals that fail to provide the nutrition we seek.
From the pivotal early morning phone calls to the millions in debt, former Tyson contract growers who spoke to Investigate Midwest said they have had to take out upwards of $2 million loans to become Tyson contract growers. Their contracts canceled, they’re now saddled with massive debt. They said the company pushed them to go into more debt to upgrade their barns to meet company demands. Growers also said the company told them that they would be given chickens to raise for as long as they had loans on their barns.
Now that their contracts have abruptly ended, Tyson contract growers said they aren’t able to pay off the debt. Growers are staring down bankruptcy and foreclosures. Some have sold off land or other property to pay off debt while others have retired or looked for work off the farm….
Here is another story. Why is this happening? Because in large part, the mega-food companies have been able to get away with it. Now farmers are banding together and filing antitrust lawsuits, while the federal government should have stopped these practices already.
DEXTER, Missouri – On an early August morning in 2023, Shawn Hinkle received a call from one of his technicians at Tyson Foods who, through tears, told him the company’s plant in Dexter was shutting down.
Hundreds of jobs at the poultry slaughterhouse would be lost and farmers like Hinkle, who contracted with Tyson to raise egg-laying hens, would be out of business.
A decade earlier, Hinkle borrowed $2.3 million to build two chicken houses on his land. After struggling to keep up with Tyson’s standards and investing in his farm, Hinkle now owed $2.8 million and faced the prospect of losing it all in bankruptcy.
But Tyson’s explanation didn’t make sense to Hinkle and several other farmers who, in December 2023, sued the giant meat company for breaking its contracts.
As the lawsuit moves forward, a Watchdog Writers Group analysis of documents filed in the case, in partnership with Investigate Midwest, reveals Tyson coordinated closely with Cal-Maine Foods, the company that ended up buying the Dexter plant. That coordination prevented farmers from continuing their same operations with another Tyson competitor.
Documents also show Tyson tried to prevent its former contract farmers from seeking legal remedies over the broken contracts, and has possibly attempted to discourage farmers from speaking with federal officials and journalists.
Tyson Foods declined to answer detailed questions about the allegations of the lawsuit.
After purchasing the Dexter plant, Cal-Maine offered contracts to local farmers if they retrofitted their farms to raise table egg-laying hens rather than chickens for meat. [Putting them even more into debt—Nass]. Unlike many area farmers, Hinke raised egg-laying hens to produce more chicks, which were sent to other farmers. Raising hens for Cal-Maine would have required a significant operational overall for Hinkle and other farmers.
But Cal-Maine’s offer came with a catch: The farmers would have to agree not to sue Tyson Foods for any losses because of the plant closure, according to court filings…
This newsletter was created with the goal of helping others, and over time, I’ve received many messages from people with important questions I’d love to answer. However, writing each article takes a considerable amount of time—just as an example, I’ve spent the past month working on the final installment of the DMSO series, and it’s still not quite finished. Because of this, I’m not always able to respond individually to every inquiry I get.
While I truly wish I could, the most practical solution I’ve found is to host monthly open threads. These provide readers with a space to ask any outstanding questions—especially those left over from previous content—and I make it a priority to respond. Having all the questions in one place also makes it easier for others to benefit from those answers as well.
For each of these open threads, I like to tie in a topic I’ve been meaning to discuss—usually something I’ve been thinking about but haven’t felt warrants a full-length article. This time, I want to focus on a topic near and dear to my heart, healthy children.
The Chronic Disease Epidemic
One of RFK’s rallying cries has been that our children are being stricken by an onslaught of chronic diseases and that this is undermining the strength that is our future, and his organization, the Children’s Health Defense frequently references this chart:
Since trends in motion tend to persist unless significant measures are taken to shift them, as a recently published study confirmed, this problem has continued to worsen.
Nearly half of all children receiving care in the PEDSnet multicenter network had a chronic health condition, while one-third of children in the general population experience from 1 to 15 parent-reported chronic conditions. Furthermore, obesity now affects 20% of children, and early puberty is increasingly common among girls, with 1 in 7 beginning menstruation before age 12 years. Temporal trends also showed deterioration in sleep health and increasing limitations in activity, alongside worsening of an extensive range of physical and emotional symptoms.
In turn, the study’s data shows that the rates of these conditions have roughly doubled over the last 12 years.
Likewise, many other things have rapidly gone awry
Note: this study also highlighted a myriad of other issues, such as our children being more likely to die than other developed nations, in large part due to sudden infant death syndrome (a condition strongly linked to vaccination).
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The Other Half of The Picture
While I agree with the gravity of these findings and the urgency to re-evaluate our vaccination program, I feel they only tell half of the story. That is because:
•There are many other factors besides vaccines that also adversely affect children’s health.
•All illnesses (particularly those which result from being poisoned) tend to distribute on a bell curve, so that the severe, easy to spot reactions are only a minority, whereas less severe (and harder to spot) reactions are much more common.
On the one hand, this is due to the “measurement” problem in science, where scientific studies can generally only be conducted if they have a clear metric by which to measure things, thereby creating clear, reproducible data. This becomes an issue when an agent has so many different symptoms that it can make (many of which are quite subtle), they typically will be written off as anecdotal unless they are deliberately traced, and as a result, many common side effects of vaccines are never formally associated with them. Note: the most recent glaring example of this happened with the COVID vaccines where trial participants were only given a small list of (relatively benign) symptoms they could check off (e.g., fevers or fatigue) so as a result, those were the side-effects that appeared in the published trial reports. Likewise, V-Safe, the CDC program designed to monitor vaccine side effects, did the same; however fortunately, it also included a free text field where participants could enter other symptoms—most of which were never publicly analyzed (and which the government fought in court to avoid disclosing). Because of all of this, the majority of the medical field assumed most of the side effects patients reported from the vaccines (despite many others experiencing the same symptoms) were anecdotal and had nothing to do with the vaccines).
On the other hand, it’s because many of these pathological changes are more subtle and more complex to spot, so since people aren’t trained to notice them, and have gradually become habituated to all of it “being normal” they don’t realize how much things have changed. Note: doctors are virtually never trained to recognize the subtle neurological injuries which follow vaccination (which indicate damage has also occurred within the brain).
The Hidden Chronic Disease Epidemic
For as long as I can remember, many natural healers have told me that they can normally spot the unvaccinated children as they are much healthier and vibrant than their peers. For example, after I explained some of the ways this can be identified, two readers shared:
Thanks to this substack, I am now the unofficial medical godfather of 4 unvaccinated babies across several families. All are incredibly healthy with none of the typical problems associated with the microstrokes. All have been described by strangers and family as, “wow, your baby is really aware and paying attention. It’s like they’re sentient, I don’t know how else to say it”. And I am sad when I see those other people’s babies because I know they were supposed to be more, undergo less suffering when I hear their random high pitched shrieks.
Last year I attended a fundraiser auction to raise money for local Mennonite schools. Many families, many children. I was struck by the fact that there was a light, a brightness, in these children’s eyes that I had not seen for decades in other children. The Mennonites here do not vaccinate. Now I understand. It hurts my heart.
Likewise, I received this email a few weeks ago from a mother who followed all of my suggestions for a healthy child:
Other than a minor rash, my daughter has never had any health issues. She’s been ahead on all her developmental milestones, and from the very beginning, she’s been incredibly alert and engaged with her surroundings. She’s always exploring, and only cries when there’s a clear reason—if she’s hungry, tired, hurt, or not getting the attention she wants.
When we’re out in public, she smiles at everyone and tries to make friends. People constantly stop us to comment on how beautiful and full of life she is—some even ask if they can hold her. It wasn’t until I had her that I realized how unusual that kind of energy is in a baby. So many infants I see seem withdrawn, like they’re in a kind of daze, avoiding eye contact, and often looking genuinely sickly.
I’m incredibly grateful we were spared that, but at the same time, I’ve started to feel increasingly unsettled by what I see around me. I think a lot about what other parents must be going through—especially single mothers trying to raise kids on limited incomes—and I honestly don’t know how they manage.
One of the most challenging things when you “step out of the matrix” is becoming able to see (fairly disturbing) things all around you, and one of the key reasons why I appreciate stories like these three is because they illustrate that’s what’s been hidden right in front of us is at last becoming more and more visible.
Screens and Children
As cell phones and tablets became widely available, I would see more and more parents (who had their children with them) at medical visits using devices to keep their children content. In many cases, if a device was withdrawn, the children would have a fit (at which point the device was returned to them).
This greatly concerned me, as I could see that the way the screens pulled them in was not having a healthy effect on the child’s developing nervous system (which is why I advise parents to use audio-only media, such as small devices that play children’s songs).
Note: quite a few social media executives have said they have tremendous regret about what their products (intentionally designed to be addictive) have neurologically done to our children. Likewise, many articles have been written about how Silicon Valley tech executives send their kids to an alternative school where phones and screens are banned.1,2,3,4,5
In this publication, I’ve written numerous articles on the mass neurological damage being caused by vaccination.
In one, I showed that neurologic damage from vaccination has been a well-known problem for over a century (that previously was widely reported in the medical literature) and that conditions like autism used to be widely referred to as “mentally retarded,” a change I strongly suspect was done to obfuscate the issue (as autism exists on a wide spectrum, so hearing that someone “became autistic” is much easier to push into the back of one’s mind than if a child rapidly “becomes retarded” after a vaccine).
In the other, I highlighted that the original pertussis (DPwT) vaccine was particularly problematic as it would often cause encephalitis (which was often accompanied by piercing screams) and then leave the child with lasting brain damage. One author who studied this extensively made the fascinating observation that after the DPwT vaccine entered the market in the 1940s, a variety of societal changes followed which matched when the initial cohort who received the DPwT vaccine reached each age bracket.
For example, in the 1950s, a condition termed “minimal brain damage” [MBD] was coined (with the defining characteristic of it being hyperactivity), which before long became “perhaps the most common, and certainly one of the most time-consuming problems in current pediatric practice”. The symptoms of MBD (as defined by America’s Public Health Service and the American Psychiatric Association) had a significant overlap with what was seen after encephalitis, DPT injuries, and what was associated with autism.
In the 1960s, Ritalin came into use for treating attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity, and minimal brain damage was gradually phased out and replaced with ADHD (a condition independent studies show a 3-20 fold increase from vaccination).
I mention all of this because I have had a nagging suspicion that something similar is happening with screens, as they both draw in and pacify neurologically injured children. Furthermore, patterns set in childhood are very difficult to shake for life, and as we are now starting to see a variety of signs the first generation raised on technology has a variety of mental health issues linked to their technology exposure, which further argues for avoiding screens at an early age.
Note: the mother I mentioned above said one of their major challenges with her daughter has been keeping her away from screens (as she is drawn to them whenever they are left open), and as a result they are using screens less now.
Raising a Healthy Child
\As I’ve shown throughout this publication, there is significant evidence that vaccines are damaging to a child’s neurological development, particularly as more and more are given closely together. However, while I believe vaccines are the primary issue, there are a lot of things I think merit serious consideration (e.g., avoiding screens) for parents wishing to have healthy children—most of which essentially equate to “do what people did 100 years ago,” and in the mothers I’ve counseled through the child birth process, I found the best results came from doing all of them. As such, over the last year, I’ve worked on compiling a series about all the most critical aspects I believe deserve attention before, during, and after pregnancy.
In the final part of this article (which exists as an open forum for you to ask any questions you may have), I will cover the key points from each of those that you can directly incorporate into raising a healthy child.
Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of A Midwestern Doctor.
Google slashed traffic to Mercola.com by 99.9%, replacing years of trusted content with pharma-backed search results that promote junk food and drugs as “healthcare” solutions
A new term, “nonaginate,” describes Google’s tactic of wiping out 90% or more of alternative health websites’ visibility — a practice now threatening hundreds of holistic sources
Under the guise of safety, Google uses vague policies like EEAT and YMYL to bury licensed doctors and researchers who question mainstream pharmaceutical narratives
Google’s so-called “quality raters” depend on Wikipedia for judgments about credibility — even though its anonymous editors openly oppose natural health and block factual corrections
To protect your health freedom and privacy, I recommend ditching all Google products — from search to Gmail — and switching to platforms that respect your data and independence
Have you noticed how it’s getting more challenging to find non-mainstream health info in your search results lately? That’s not your imagination — it’s a deliberate tactic employed by Google to control the information you see. They’re targeting websites that question pharmaceutical orthodoxy or promote natural approaches to health, even those that are run by licensed practitioners, researchers, and authors with longstanding reputations — myself included.
I’ve been sounding the alarm on Google’s monopoly for several years now, and how they’re gravely endangering the free-flow of information, particularly in the health industry. Google views alternative health as a threat to Big Pharma, and uses its search ranking system to severely reduce natural health websites’ visibility and accessibility to the general public.
‘Nonagination’ — Google’s Attempt to Suppress Alternative Health Information
In his Substack page, Bill Dembski, a researcher, design theorist, and mathematician, wrote an extensive exposé on “the evilization of Google,”1 and how this nefarious company strategically dismantled the reach and visibility of alternative health websites, including Mercola.com. Dembski introduced the term “nonaginate” to describe a tactic that goes far beyond censorship.2
•What does “nonaginate” mean? Dembski says this word was inspired by “decimate,” which dates to the old Roman practice of eliminating “one-tenth of an unruly band of Roman soldiers.” However, what Google does is so much worse, so using the word decimate is a grave understatement.
•It’s much worse than decimation — Dembski then turned to the Latin term for 90, “nonaginta,” and from here, he coined the word “nonaginate,” saying that this was a better-suited word for what this company does.
“Nonaginate — hat tip to Google for inspiring the term — is thus defined as destroying at least ninety percent of a thing. Nonagination is therefore much more extreme than decimation (in decimation’s strict literal sense of only destroying ten percent). Google prefers to nonaginate sites it doesn’t like,” he writes.
•I first-handedly experienced nonagination back in 2019 — Six years ago, on June 3, 2019, to be exact, Google implemented a broad “core update” that eliminated most Mercola.com pages from its search results. Virtually overnight, Google traffic to my site dropped by approximately 99.9%.
•Decades of valuable health information has been buried — Since 1997, Mercola.com has been considered a highly relevant source of health content, and has been one of the top natural health websites worldwide. But in one fell swoop, Google removed all our high-ranked results, and replaced them with health information from advertising companies that promote junk food and drugs instead.
Google Hides Behind Its So-Called ‘Policies’
Mercola.com wasn’t the only victim of nonagination — countless alternative health websites were also hit with similar penalties, losing their visibility, reach, and revenue streams. For many, this meant bankruptcy. Yet, Google does not publicly admit to this bias; instead, it hides behind abstract policy language.3
•Bias is hidden behind policies that claim neutrality — To justify its move to downrank alternative health websites, Google invokes content guidelines like “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness” (EEAT), and “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL).4
•On paper, these standards sound like they exist to protect users — But in practice, they create a false sense of objectivity that allows Google to bury dissenting voices without admitting to any ideological filtering. Even licensed physicians and researchers are downgraded if they suggest that healing might come from something other than patented drugs.
•This suppression is systemic, not incidental — EEAT and YMYL policies are enforced by both machine algorithms and human raters, all trained to flag anything outside of conventional dogma as untrustworthy — even if that information is backed by clinical experience or published studies.
•The result? Websites that promote natural, research-backed concepts like real food, mitochondrial health, sunlight exposure, or EMF reduction are treated the same way as snake oil scams. Google nonaginates them in the name of “safety.”
From Crowdsourcing to Crowd Control
In the past, google search results were based on crowdsource relevance. An article’s rankings on Google search would ascend based on the number of people who clicked on it. Basically, if you produced unique and high-quality content that matched what people were looking for, you were rewarded by ranking in the top of search results.
•To help you ideate this, here’s an example — Let’s say you have an article about Akkermansia that is found on the seventh page of Google’s search results, and then your competitor also has an Akkermansia article on the fifth page of search results. If more people click on your article than your competitor’s, your article will move up in rank. So, in a nutshell, these search results are based on popularity.
•But this is no longer the case — Now, Google is manually lowering the ranking of undesirable content with the help of “quality raters.” These raters are basing their feedback largely on Wikipedia’s assessment of the author or site (more on this in the next section).
•Who are these so-called quality raters? According to the company’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, they have 16,000 external search quality raters working for them to “provide ratings based on our guidelines and represent real users and their likely information needs, using their best judgment to represent their locale.”5
•However, these raters are not Google employees — Rather, they are employed by external firms who have contracted them to Google. According to an article by ARS Technica:
“They’re carefully trained and tested staff who can spend 40 hours per week logged into a system called Raterhub, which is owned and operated by Google. Every day, the raters complete dozens of short but exacting tasks that produce invaluable data about the usefulness of Google’s ever-changing algorithms.
They contribute significantly to several Google and Android projects, from search and voice recognition to photos and personalization features.”6
Google Quality Raters Rely on Wikipedia for ‘Expertise’ and ‘Trustworthiness’
As mentioned earlier, one of the primary sources Google’s quality raters are instructed to use when assessing the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an author or website is Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia.”
•Wikipedia is highly biased against natural health — Unfortunately for many of us in the field of alternative health, Wikipedia’s founder and editors are well-known to have extreme bias against natural health content and authors.
•What’s more, the editors are completely anonymous — Wikipedia’s editors are purely volunteers, and there are a few who have reached the most powerful editing status. They’re known as the administrators. However, you will not know their identity as they hide behind pseudonyms and usernames.
So, basically, you have no idea whether the editors who are editing your content are truly experts on the topic. So how can we consider Wikipedia to be an authority of credibility when the editors are anonymous and uncredentialed?
Wikipedia Is Aggressive When It Comes to Censorship
While Google’s censoring of content started just several years ago, Wikipedia has been censoring information and blocking editors since the beginning. About 1,000 users are blocked from the platform on any given day.
•Wikipedia is often edited by people with a very specific agenda — According to investigative journalist Sheryl Attkisson, anyone who tries to clarify or clear up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked. The reality is a far cry from Wikipedia’s public promise, which is to provide readers with unbiased information.
•Google is funding Wikipedia — Considering its history of bias and its incredibly effective blocking of opposing views, no matter how factual, it’s not surprising that Wikipedia is Google’s chosen arbiter of expertise and credibility. And Wikipedia is profiting from this partnership, financially speaking. In January 2019, Google donated $2 million to Wikimedia Endowment, Wikipedia’s parent organization, and another $1.1 million to the Wikimedia Foundation.
•So what does this mean? Since Google’s freelance raters rely on Wikipedia, it means the whole “quality rating” system they’ve set up is rotten from the ground up, as its quality raters are instructed to base their quality decisions on an already biased source.
Google Is the World’s Biggest Monopoly
There’s no doubt that Google is now one of the largest and clearest monopolies in the world. It monopolizes several different markets, including search and advertising. In the case of search, it controls 90% of the market; its closest competitor, Bing, only has 2% of the market.7 Google also controls about 60% of the global advertising revenue on the internet.
•Google’s primary business is the harvesting of user data — Google catches every single thing you do online if you’re using a Google-based feature, and this data is then used to build powerful personality profiles that are sold for profit and used in a variety of different ways.
This data gathering goes far beyond what most people realize was even possible and is one of the primary reasons smaller advertisers cannot compete — they don’t have the user data Google has.
•Google also owns DeepMind, the world’s greatest artificial intelligence (AI) company — With nearly 6,000 employees worldwide,8 many of them AI researchers, it is not hard for them to sort through all your data with their deep learning algorithms to detect patterns that can be exploited for profit.
•Unfortunately, many still fail to see the problem Google presents — Its services are useful and practical, making life easier in many ways, and more fun in others. However, the complete and utter loss of privacy is a high price to be paid for such conveniences. Ultimately, your user data and personal details can be used for everything from creating personalized advertising to AI-equipped robotic warfare applications.
Say Goodbye to Google Today
Today, being a conscious consumer includes making wise, informed decisions about technology, and one of the greatest personal data leaks in your life is Google. If you need an extensive list on just how pervasive Google is, I recommend reading my article, “Goodbye Google.”
Here’s a summary of action steps for you to take right now to protect your privacy. I recommend sharing them with your friends and family so they too can protect themselves from Google’s data theft practices.
•Swap out your browser — Uninstall Google Chrome and use Brave or Opera instead. Everything you do on Chrome is surveilled, including keystrokes and every webpage you’ve ever visited. Brave is a great alternative that takes privacy seriously.
•Switch your search engine — Stop using Google search engines or any extension of Google, such as Bing or Yahoo, both of which draw search results from Google. Instead, use a default search engine that offers privacy, such as Presearch, Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Qwant and many others.
•Use a secure email — Close your Gmail account and switch to a secure email service like ProtonMail. If you have children, don’t transfer their student Google account into a personal account once they’re out of school.
•Switch to a secure document sharing service — Ditch Google Docs and use another alternative such as Zoho Office, Etherpad, CryptPad, OnlyOffice or Nuclino, all of which are recommended by NordVPN.9
•Delete all Google apps from your phone and purge Google hardware — Better yet, get a de-Googled phone. Several companies now offer them, including Above Phone.
•Avoid websites that use Google Analytics — To do that, you’ll need to check the website’s privacy policy and search for “Google.” Websites are required to disclose if they use a third-party surveillance tool. If they use Google Analytics, ask them to switch!
•Use a secure messaging system — To keep your private communications private, use a messaging tool that provides end-to-end encryption, such as Signal.
•Use a virtual private network (VPN) such as NordVPN or Strong VPN — This is a must if you seek to preserve your online privacy.
•Don’t use Google Home devices in your house or apartment — These devices record everything that occurs in your home, both speech and sounds such as brushing your teeth and boiling water, even when they appear to be inactive, and send that information back to Google. The same goes for Google’s home thermostat Nest and Amazon’s Alexa.
•Don’t use an Android cellphone, as it’s owned by Google.
•Ditch Siri, which draws all its answers from Google.
•Don’t use Fitbit — It was recently purchased by Google and will provide them with all your physiological information and activity levels, in addition to everything else that Google already has on you.
There is a growing trend for private equity firms to buy companies and then bankrupt them to enrich their investors. A formula used by private equity involves buying hospitals, loading them up with debt by taking out loans that obligate the hospitals, paying off investors, and then selling the facilities and leasing the real estate back to them, resulting in the closure of hospitals. The people in the community pay the price. In addition, private equity owned physician staffing groups operate nearly one-third of all emergency departments across the country.
Emergency departments are the last resort for low income and uninsured and low income people who wait for an emergency to get care. Private equity is attractive to investors because it has an average return on investment rate of 13%, compared to 8.6% in the stock market. Patients are a captive market in emergency situations. Private equity cuts costs by requiring doctors to see more patients, reducing time spent with each patient that reduces quality of care. Private equity often reduces staff and hospitals are short handed, resulting ibn long wait times. Private equity often increases billing and price gouging is the “secret” for increased profits.
Private equity acquired companies have had a 25% rise of patient adverse events that include bloodstream infections, falls, and a doubling of surgical infections.
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An example is the Crozer-Chester Medical Center, located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania that was the busiest ER in the area, that treated tens of thousands of patients per year. Crozer Health system was in financial trouble because it was a safety-net hospital that cared for patients covered by Medicaid or uninsured people. In 2016, the non-profit hospital was sold to a for-profit California company called Prospect Medical Holdings, with Leonard Green & Partners, a private equity firm, as its principal owner.
In 2018, just two years after buying Crozer Health, Prospect took out a $1.1 billion loan and then sent nearly half of it straight to their investors while Crozer continued to suffer. The private equity firm is not on the hook for any of that debt. Leonard Green sold Prospect in 2019, but Prospect and its hospitals were still on the hook for the debt. In order to pay down that debt, Prospect sold the real estate of its hospitals, including Crozer, to an Alabama company called Medical Properties Trust, or MPT. These deals are known as sale-leaseback transactions. What MPT does is it partners with health systems like Prospect to buy up their real estate and then rent it back. A critic called it a ‘hospital landlord’. Most of the time the revenue that’s generated from these one-time sales of the real estate doesn’t go back into the hospital. It’s being pocketed by investors. And like a tenant, Crozer had to start paying rent— $35 million a year. Last year, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office sued Prospect and Leonard Green for mismanagement and breach of contract. This January, Prospect filed for bankruptcy and within months it closed its last hospitals in Delaware County.
Research led by Dr. Marcel Binz and Dr. Eric Schulz, Institute for Human-Centered AI at Helmholtz Munich
Jul 02, 202
FACT CHECKEDVERIFIED
(Image by metamorworks on Shutterstock)
In a nutshell
Scientists created an AI called Centaur that can predict human behavior across any psychological experiment with unprecedented accuracy
The AI outperformed decades-old specialized models and successfully predicted behavior in completely new scenarios it had never seen before
Centaur’s internal workings became more aligned with human brain activity just by learning to predict our choices, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of cognition
MUNICH — An artificial intelligence system can now predict your next move before you make it. We’re not just talking about whether you’ll click “buy now” on that Amazon cart, but rather how you’ll navigate complex decisions, learn new skills, or explore uncharted territory.
Researchers have developed an AI called Centaur that accurately predicts human behavior across virtually any psychological experiment. It even outperforms the specialized computer models scientists have been using for decades. Trained on data from more than 60,000 people making over 10 million decisions, Centaur captures the underlying patterns of how we think, learn, and make choices.
“The human mind is remarkably general,” the researchers write in their paper, published in Nature. “Not only do we routinely make mundane decisions, such as choosing a breakfast cereal or selecting an outfit, but we also tackle complex challenges, such as figuring out how to cure cancer or explore outer space.”
An AI that truly understands human cognition could revolutionize marketing, education, mental health treatment, and product design. But it also raises uncomfortable questions about privacy and manipulation when our digital footprints reveal more about us than ever before.
How Scientists Built a Digital Mind Reader AI
The research team started with an ambitious goal: create a single AI model that could predict human behavior in any psychological experiment. Their approach was surprisingly straightforward but required massive scale.
Scientists assembled a dataset called Psych-101 containing 160 experiments covering memory tests, learning games, risk-taking scenarios, and moral dilemmas. Each experiment was converted into plain English descriptions that an AI could understand.
Rather than building from scratch, researchers took Meta’s Llama 3.1 language model (the same type powering ChatGPT) and gave it specialized training on human behavior. They used a technique that allows them to modify only a tiny fraction of the AI’s programming while keeping most of it unchanged. The entire training process took only five days on a high-end computer processor.
Centaur could mark a new turning point in AI in its unprecedented ability to understand the human mind. (Image by Shutterstock AI Generator)
Centaur Dominates Traditional Cognitive Models
When tested, Centaur completely crushed the competition. In head-to-head comparisons with specialized cognitive models that scientists spent decades perfecting, Centaur won in almost every single experiment.
The real breakthrough came when researchers tested Centaur on completely new scenarios. The AI successfully predicted human behavior even when the experiment’s story changed (turning a space treasure hunt into a magic carpet adventure), when the structure was modified (adding a third option to a two-choice task), and when entirely new domains were introduced (logical reasoning tests that weren’t in its training data).
Centaur could also generate realistic human-like behavior when running simulations. In one test involving exploration strategies, the AI achieved performance comparable to actual human participants and showed the same type of uncertainty-guided decision-making that characterizes how people behave.
Neural Alignment: Centaur Mimics Human Brain Activity
In a surprising discovery, Centaur’s internal workings had become more aligned with human brain activity, even though it was never explicitly trained to match neural data. When researchers compared the AI’s internal states to brain scans of people performing the same tasks, they found stronger correlations than with the original, untrained model.
Learning to predict human behavior apparently forced the AI to develop internal representations that mirror how our brains actually process information. The AI essentially reverse-engineered aspects of human cognition just by studying our choices.
The team also demonstrated how Centaur could accelerate scientific discovery. They used the AI to analyze human behavior patterns, leading to the discovery of a new decision-making strategy that outperformed existing psychological theories.
“We’ve created a tool that allows us to predict human behavior in any situation described in natural language – like a virtual laboratory,” says lead author Marcel Binz in a statement.
What’s Next for Human Behavior AI?
While impressive, this research represents just the beginning. The current version focuses primarily on learning and decision-making, with limited coverage of areas like social psychology or cross-cultural differences. The dataset also skews toward Western, educated populations, a common limitation in psychological research.
The team plans to expand their dataset to include more diverse domains and populations, envisioning a comprehensive model that could serve as a unified theory of human cognition. They’ve made both their dataset and AI model publicly available for other researchers to build upon.
“We combine AI research with psychological theory – and with a clear ethical commitment,” adds Binz. “In a public research environment, we have the freedom to pursue fundamental cognitive questions that are often not the focus in industry.”
For the first time, we have an artificial system that can predict human behavior across the full spectrum of psychological research with unprecedented accuracy. Whether that development excites or concerns you may depend on how confidently we can ensure such tools are used responsibly.
Back to the Future came out 40 years ago last week. While the original took us back to 1955, the end of the movie and the sequels imagined 2015 with flying cars and hoverboards. What they missed was the real transformation: how eagerly we’d hand over our most intimate biological data to corporations and governments.
Yesterday, someone sent me a document. I can’t verify its authenticity or origin, but they claimed it was leaked from a government archive dated 2065. Given what we already know about the current surveillance infrastructure—and the economic incentives driving the “Internet of Bodies”—it feels disturbingly plausible.
Sometimes, the best way to understand the present is to imagine how future historians might view our choices.
1985 BASELINE ASSESSMENT
Citizens showed dangerous levels of independence. Key problems:
Made Their Own Choices: 97% decided what to eat without consulting optimization algorithms
No Biometric Monitoring: 0% shared heartbeat, sleep, or activities with approved wellness partners
Relied on Primitive Instincts: Used outdated “gut feelings” to make decisions
Untracked Movement: Moved freely without carbon calculations or behavioral analysis
Suboptimal Decision-Making: Made incorrect choices 73% of the time when left unguided
Research Note: Citizens were obsessed with antiquated concepts like “privacy” and “personal autonomy.” Substantial cultural engineering would be required.
2025 MIDDLE PHASE
After making monitoring trendy and incentivized, citizens began voluntary participation:
Economic Compliance: 89% modified behavior when insurance adjusted rates in real-time
Algorithm Consultation: 45% check apps before making health decisions
Privacy Redefinition: Successfully rebranded “privacy” as “missing out on personalized optimization”
Identity Integration: 34% voluntarily linked biometric data to government systems for “seamless experience”
Social Media Conditioning: Platforms provided crucial behavioral modification infrastructure. Citizens voluntarily documented their lives for algorithmic analysis while competing for validation metrics. Personas replaced personhood with minimal resistance
Security Convenience Celebration (2025): TSA elimination of shoe removal requirements was celebrated by the public, including freedom advocates who failed to recognize the requirement was removed only because comprehensive body scanning infrastructure was now operational
Implementation Note: “Health freedom” extremists were neutralized by recruiting trusted celebrities. The “Make America Healthy Again” campaign proved highly effective, ironically accelerating acceptance of monitoring systems among traditionally skeptical populations.
2029-2037: TOTAL SYSTEM INTEGRATION
Key discovery: Citizens who embraced biometric monitoring were 340% more likely to accept additional systems when marketed as “feature upgrades.”
Integration Milestones:
Climate Fear Acceleration (2025-2027): Increased atmospheric modification programs generated optimal citizen anxiety levels about “climate crisis.” Geoengineering operations, previously denied, rebranded as “emergency planetary cooling” with 94% public acceptance
Conspiracy Theorist Classification (2025): Citizens investigating HAARP and atmospheric programs successfully marginalized as “climate deniers”
Atmospheric Wellness Enhancement (2027): Aluminum and barium particulate distribution normalized citizens to environmental chemical modifications. Transition from “chemtrail conspiracy” to “necessary climate intervention” achieved seamlessly
Medical Compliance Acceleration (2020-2023): Global health emergency provided unprecedented opportunity to test population-wide acceptance of experimental interventions. Citizens initially questioning protocols were successfully re-educated through social pressure
Frictionless Verification (2029): Biometric data auto-populates all government interactions
Movement Optimization Zones (2031): 15-minute wellness districts eliminate suboptimal route planning
Carbon-Biometric Fusion (2032): Personal carbon allowances calibrated to real-time health metrics
Social Compatibility Scoring (2033): Employment, housing, and dating filtered by wellness compliance
Public-Private Wellness Partnership (2034): Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir integrated seamless citizen engagement across all life domains. Alexa wellness coaching achieved 87% compliance with daily optimization directives
Universal Wellness Grid (2035): All systems merged. Citizens compete for monitoring privileges
Breakthrough: Each system enhanced perceived value of previous adoptions. The transition from “posting for likes” to “living for optimization scores” required minimal cultural adjustment. Citizens never recognized they were constructing their own containment infrastructure.
2038-2050: VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION
Revolutionary discovery: Citizens who chose optimization voluntarily showed 3500% higher compliance than those subjected to mandates. They became enthusiastic evangelists, shaming non-participants as “selfish.”
Resistance Elimination:
Non-participants excluded from financial services and employment
Social ostracism as monitored citizens avoided “optimization resisters”
Citizens who refused experimental medical interventions during 2020-2023 compliance testing pre-classified as “wellness non-compliant” and systematically excluded from society
Montana Privacy Commune Incident (2043): Final holdouts surrendered after their children were classified as “educationally at-risk.” Exit interviews showed 94% satisfaction with transition to monitored living
Critical Learning: Children proved optimal leverage points for behavioral modification of non-compliant adults.
2051-2065: PERFECT HARMONY
Consciousness Integration (2051): Direct neural interfaces eliminated the inefficiency of manual device checking. Thoughts now require pre-approval through the Wellness Grid.
Current Success Metrics (99.7% voluntary participation):
Complete Monitoring: 98.9% connected to behavioral prediction systems 24/7
Cognitive Pre-approval: Protocols automatically accepted before conscious processing
Thought Optimization: 87% reduction in “counter-wellness ideation”
Identity Dissolution: Citizens cannot distinguish personal desires from system recommendations
Decision Elimination: Zero unauthorized movements, purchases, or social connections
Recent Citizen Testimonial: “I wake up knowing exactly what to think, feel, eat, and believe. My carbon allowance perfectly matches my health goals. I am grateful the burden of choice has been eliminated. There is no confusion about what it means to be human—the system tells me.”
(Administrative Note: This citizen was processed 11 hours later for expressing individual gratitude, indicating dangerous residual self-awareness.)
ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS
Language Optimization: Terms like “freedom,” “gut instinct,” and “individual” reclassified as “wellness-negative vocabulary”
Generational Success: Citizens born post-2040 cannot differentiate between self and monitoring systems; personal identity successfully converted to subscription service
Economic Optimization: Wellness Grid generates $4.7 trillion annually through behavioral data monetization
NEXT PHASE OBJECTIVES
Neural infrastructure completion in remaining rural zones (Montana, Wyoming, Northern Idaho)
Deploy genetic optimization ensuring future generations born pre-compliant
Phase out museums containing pre-optimization historical materials (citizens request removal of “depressing old human content”)
If this document seems impossible, remember: 40 years ago, no one imagined we’d voluntarily carry tracking devices everywhere, share our private thoughts on corporate platforms, or ask machines what to think, feel, eat, and believe.
The future isn’t inevitable. But it is predictable—if we refuse to change course.
The first act of resistance is remembering: You don’t need a machine to tell you how you feel.
