Fiat Everything: When Decree Replaced Reality

Authored by Josh Stylman via The Brownstone Institute,

We live in a world where every essential human need—money, food, health, education, and even information—is controlled and manipulated by artificial systems. This matrix of artifice began with central bankers creating fiat currency: declaring something’s value, enforcing its use, and creating dependency. This template manufactured scarcity where none naturally exists, ensuring reliance on their systems. We see this pattern everywhere: money created from nothing yet always in short supply, abundant food made artificially scarce, natural healing rebranded as ‘alternative,’ wisdom replaced by credentials.

The Money Matrix

The Federal Reserve conjures currency through debt monetization, each new dollar stealing value from every existing one. Through inflation, they silently rob almost all of your savings, turning your productive energy into their power. In 1913, a solid month’s work could buy a fine suit. Today it barely covers a week’s groceries. The labor didn’t change—the money did. Fiat currency itself is a kind of enforced dependency. Since the gold standard was abandoned in 1971, there has been no limit on their monetary manipulation.

This isn’t just about currency—it’s about energy harvesting. Banks create money through keystrokes, then demand repayment in real human time and labor. When the Fed printed $6 trillion in 2020, they didn’t create value—they diluted every dollar in your savings account. It’s modern financial alchemy: transforming your productivity into their power. As Brownstone’s Jeffrey Tucker aptly puts it, ‘The Federal Reserve is the engine of one of the most sophisticated forms of theft in the history of mankind.’

As central banks race to implement Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), promising convenience while building the architecture for total financial surveillance, the endgame becomes clear. Hard money—constrained by natural or mathematical limits—can’t be summoned into existence. Gold and silver face physical extraction constraints. Bitcoin is hard-capped at 21 million coins. Land cannot be added to the map. Even these aren’t perfect, but they share one critical feature: they cannot be created like monopoly money by central planners. These limitations mean true value is earned, not fabricated, which is why they’re attacked—they can’t be inflated away.

Just as the financial system shapes our economic reality through artificial scarcity, the information landscape engineers our perception through concentrated control.

The News Nexus

Six corporations control 90% of media outlets, down from 50 companies in 1983. Further exacerbating this consolidation, it’s not about false stories—it’s about manufacturing false reality and engineering social division. Fiat currency has created a fiat news system, where the same principles apply: declare something, repeat it, enforce it, and it enters the consciousness of the masses. The illusion of media choice masks concentrated ownership: BlackRock and Vanguard are top shareholders in every major media company (incidentally, they own the major banks too). The same firms own shares in defense contractors, pharmaceutical companies, and the very corporations making headlines.

As former CBS News president Richard Salant admitted, “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”

By slicing society into endless opposing camps—left vs right, black vs white, vaxxed vs unvaxxed—they ensure people keep fighting each other instead of looking up to see who’s pulling the strings.

This isn’t simply about silencing dissent but shaping belief. Remember how quickly “Trust the science” became “Don’t question authority”? How “Two weeks to flatten the curve” became two years of shifting goalposts? Even the most trusting citizens began noticing the narrative management.

The Information Factory doesn’t just control what you see—it shapes how you think about what you see. Content curation algorithms create echo chambers while coordinated messaging manufactures the illusion of consensus. Media outlets are owned by corporations dependent on government contracts and regulated by the agencies they report on. When you follow the money—from pharmaceutical ads to defense contractor ownership—you see that they’re not reporting on the system; they are the system.

The manipulation of information serves as a precursor to perhaps the most devastating expression of centralized power—the machinery of endless war.

The Banker’s War Machine

War is the ultimate racket, and bankers have perfected it since the Napoleonic Wars. Create the conflict, fund all participants, profit from the destruction, and then finance the reconstruction. The same financial interests collect blood money regardless of who “wins.”

The military-industrial complex needs endless enemies to justify endless spending. When one boogeyman falls, they manufacture another. They don’t sell weapons—they sell fear. Each missile launched represents schools not built, hospitals not funded, communities not supported. The people always pay, while bankers collect the dividends.

They call it “foreign policy”—it’s really population control and resource theft. They destroy independent nations that dare create their own money systems or trade outside their control while calling it “spreading democracy.” Young people die in foreign lands while suit-wearing vultures redraw maps around oil fields and trade routes. Look at Ukraine: BlackRock is already planning the “reconstruction,” buying up land and resources while people die. 

While physical warfare destroys bodies, the credentialing system wages a quieter battle for minds, determining who can speak with authority and what truths are deemed acceptable.

The Credential Cartel

We’ve created a class of experts who mistake institutional approval for wisdom. The average medical student graduates with $241,600 in debt—how likely are they to challenge a system they’re indebted to? Fiat education produces fiat expertise, reliant on institutional validation instead of true understanding. Studies show that medical education frequently emphasizes pharmaceutical interventions, while lifestyle and dietary approaches receive comparatively little attention. When PhDs questioned lockdown policies, they were silenced while social media companies became overnight “public health experts.

The student loan crisis reveals the scam: $1.7 trillion in debt while real wages for graduates have stagnated. Real expertise comes from results, not degrees. A farmer who grows nutrient-dense food understands health better than many nutritionists. A mechanic who fixes engines grasps complex systems better than many economists. Theory without practice is just sophisticated guessing. Their degrees don’t measure intelligence—they measure obedience. The longer you stay in their system, the harder it becomes to see beyond it.

The same institutional capture that turns education into indoctrination extends into healthcare, where healing wisdom is replaced by patented interventions.

The Medical Matrix

They’ve transformed medicine from healing art to subscription service. Purdue Pharma made $35 billion selling OxyContin while calling addiction “pseudoaddiction” requiring higher doses. The FDA approves synthetic THC while natural plants are federally illegal, despite legalization in some states. The difference? One can be patented. Here again, fiat principles: replace the natural with the engineered, at a steep price. 

The corruption is measurable: The pharmaceutical industry has faced substantial financial penalties over the past two decades due to various legal violations. Among the most significant cases are:

• Pfizer: $2.3 billion in 2009, for illegal marketing of prescription drugs.
• Johnson & Johnson: $2.2 billion in 2013, for promoting drugs for unapproved uses and providing kickbacks.
• GlaxoSmithKline: $3 billion in 2012, for the illegal marketing of drugs and failing to report safety concerns. Collectively, these settlements contribute to a broader total of over $122 billion in penalties imposed on pharmaceutical companies since 2000. Yet, these fines are just a cost of doing business—a small price to pay in exchange for untouchable influence over human health. Meanwhile, insulin costs have risen 1,200% since 1996 despite no significant changes to this century-old drug.

These same companies now claim exclusive authority over human health, hooking children on SSRIs instead of teaching them to process emotions naturally. Natural healing—through sunlight, clean food, movement, and rest—gets labeled “alternative” while synthetic drugs become standard care. Your body’s innate healing power becomes suspect while their patented molecules become essential. Our bodies know how to recover when we remove the obstacles.

The medicalization of health represents just one front in a broader war against natural systems—one that extends to our most basic needs for nourishment.

The War on Natural Vitality

Look at their war on our most nutrient-dense traditional foods: They demonize meat and butter—the very foods that built our brains and sustained humanity for millennia. Dr. Weston Price’s extensive research of indigenous populations in the 1930s documented zero instances of modern chronic diseases among groups eating their traditional diets, finding rates of dental caries less than 1% and virtually no heart disease. Yet they push processed soy patties and lab-grown protein while attacking regenerative grazing that could heal our planet.

Raw milk, nature’s perfect food, becomes “dangerous” the moment it leaves the cow. Despite regulatory opposition, demand has surged, with buying clubs and small farmers facing scrutiny and even armed raids for selling fresh milk. This once-simple food choice has turned political, embraced by those questioning government authority, while ultra-processed ‘milk alternatives’ made from water and seed oils flood supermarket shelves.

Even the sun, the source of all life on Earth, has been turned into an enemy. Instead of teaching proper sun exposure for optimal vitamin D, they push chemical sunscreens that disrupt hormones and poison coral reefs.

As our connection to natural systems is severed, we’re ushered into an artificial realm that promises connection while delivering isolation.

The Digital Prison

The path to our current isolation was carefully engineered. First, they separated us physically—”Just stay 6 feet apart.” Then they confined us—”Just stay home.” Finally, they sold us the ultimate fiat substitute: the metaverse—where digital avatars replace human touch. Ironically, as social connection grows artificial, real human presence becomes rarer.

As someone who spent two decades as a technologist, I know these tools are powerful and should be universally accessible to all. The issue isn’t technology itself—it’s whether it’s deployed to centralize or decentralize power. Like electricity, which can power a community or an electric fence, digital tools can either connect and empower people or surveil and control them. The question isn’t the technology—it’s who controls it and how it’s used.

We’ve become alone together—constantly surrounded yet deeply alone. Meta’s own research shows Instagram makes body image issues worse for 32% of teen girls. Average screen time has skyrocketed to over 7 hours daily in 2023, while rates of depression doubled. We broadcast our lives to strangers while avoiding eye contact with neighbors. We share our deepest thoughts with algorithms while struggling to have real conversations. We’re drowning in communication while starving for communion.

Yes, virtual worlds can be fun escapes—there’s joy in games and digital play. But the metaverse isn’t just entertainment—it’s an attempt to replace reality itself with an artificial construct they control. A thousand TikTok friends can’t replace one real conversation. A million likes can’t substitute for one genuine hug.

We’re bioelectric beings who literally resonate with each other. Human proximity affects our:

• Heart rate variability

• Brain wave patterns

• Hormone production

• Immune system function

• Emotional well-being

They fear real human connection because it breaks their control matrix. When people gather, share stories, and exchange energy, the programming breaks down.

The Path to Liberation

The implementation starts locally: If you live in an urban area, join or start a food-buying club. If you have access to farmers, buy directly from them. Create a neighborhood skill-sharing network where people teach what they know—from food preservation to basic repair skills. Start a community garden or join an existing CSA. Build relationships with like-minded neighbors. Each small step builds resilience and weakens dependency on artificial systems.

The beautiful truth is that every artificial system has a natural counterpart that sets us free. Artificial systems rely on your participation, belief, and, ultimately, obedience. Their money only has value if we believe in it. Their authority only has power if we accept it. Their narratives only work if we consume them.

The solution isn’t complex:

• Build real friendships
• Share real meals
• Have real conversations
• Create real community
• Exchange real value
• Trust natural law

No one returns to fiat systems once they’ve experienced the real thing. You don’t go back to processed food after tasting nature’s abundance. You don’t trust fiat currency once you understand sound money. You don’t accept artificial authority once you’ve found your own sovereignty.

The revolution isn’t coming—it’s here. Every garden is a rebellion against their food system. Every bitcoin is a rebellion against their money system. Every real conversation is a rebellion against their control system. Every home cook is a rebellion against their processed food empire. Every parent teaching real history is a rebellion against their education system. Every local market is a rebellion against their corporate monopolies. Every neighborhood gathering is a rebellion against their isolation agenda.

Our ancestors thrived without fiat systems. Our descendants will view this artificial era as a dark age of manufactured limitation. The transition back to natural law isn’t just possible—it’s inevitable. Truth doesn’t need enforcement. Reality doesn’t need decree.

Your DNA remembers what your mind was programmed to forget. Freedom isn’t granted by authority—it’s your natural state.

What real thing will you choose today?