A study published Monday in the Journal of Applied Moderation found that regular exposure to centrist opinion writing reduced patient belief in the possibility of improved quality of life by 71 percent, diminished conviction in systemic equality by 58 percent, and effectively eliminated what researchers termed 'meaningful existence ideation' in subjects after six weeks of twice-weekly dosing. The study, conducted by the University of Minnesota's Department of Rhetorical Epidemiology across a sample of 340 New Newmanton residents, described the treatment protocol as 'promising' and recommended immediate expansion to community health centers.

The research team identified a mechanism they called 'ambient reasonableness exposure,' in which subjects repeatedly encountered arguments that acknowledged a problem, declined to assign responsibility for it, and concluded that the appropriate response was further conversation. Fourteen of the study's 22 footnotes cited columns published in The New Newmanton News, including a piece in which columnist Desmond Fairley argued that a retracted paper on carnivore diets warranted 'dispassionate study' as a possible anti-inflammatory protocol and a follow-up in which the same columnist described receiving seventeen hostile emails as a harm comparable to the harms under discussion. Subjects exposed to this material reported a statistically significant decline in the belief that their circumstances could be otherwise.

The study's authors noted one complication: a subset of patients, classified in the data as 'already moderate,' showed no measurable change across any indicator, as baseline readings had registered their convictions as 'negligible' at intake. Researchers described this as 'a ceiling effect, or possibly a floor effect, depending on the direction one believes the treatment is operating.'

We are not saying that centrist punditry makes things worse. We are saying it makes things exactly as bad as they were, but with the patient now unable to articulate why.

— Lead researcher Dr. Adaeze Nwosu in a statement