“You can’t track panic with metrics. But you can feel it in the pattern.”
— Notes from my D&D confiscation, 1983
We’ve entered the signal saturation phase of the AI moral panic.
It’s no longer a matter of if panic is forming, it's a matter of where, how fast, and who’s coordinating it.
What used to be fringe noise has become structured propaganda:
Spiritual soundbites
Viral sermon clips
Statehouse bills
AI bans disguised as “safety measures”
Activist playbooks crossing borders and domains
So let’s make the implicit explicit.
🧭 Pattern: Signal Stacking + Narrative Accretion
Panic becomes policy when signals align into a storyline.
A stray tweet or pulpit outburst might go viral.
But when five signals repeat across different sectors, church, school, labor, politics, parenting—it becomes a narrative shell.
What happens next?
Lawmakers reference the narrative, not the facts.
And if no one maps the build-up, it’s treated as “common sense” by the time it hits committee.
That’s why this post exists:
To begin mapping the pattern, in public.
🔎 Real Signals This Week (Sept 2025 Radar Sample)
🎥 TikTok preacher calls AI “a mimic demon” and urges churches to preach against it → 3.1M views
📜 Arkansas bill proposes AI use disclosures in all school assignments; moral reasoning cited in preamble
📣 PragerU Kids launches new video: “Why AI is Dangerous for Your Soul”
🎙️ Podcast clip goes viral: “ChatGPT doesn’t just answer questions. It erases the image of God.”
🧾 Church coalition in Tennessee publishes whitepaper: The Synthetic Conscience: AI as Spiritual Threat
These aren’t isolated.
They’re part of a rapidly evolving cognitive landscape.
🛡️ Counterframe Strategy
Reframe:
“What’s happening isn’t public concern—it’s public theater guided by engineered amplification.”Tactic:
Track panic across sectors, not just platforms
Create visual dashboards or radar wheels to reveal signal patterns
Share examples of non-panicked AI use in education, spiritual practice, and civic work
Pressure platforms to label ideologically manufactured virality
If you don’t map it, someone else will mythologize it.
📡 Panic Radar Heuristic (Coming Soon)
I propose building a tool to track the cultural panic footprint across:
AxisDescriptionSymbolic PotencyHow easily the narrative evokes spiritual/moral concernSpiritual ActivationUse of God-talk, demonology, prophetic languageInstitutional AnchoringNumber of schools, churches, agencies repeating itLegislative TractionBills introduced, votes taken, language usedMemetic ViralityReach + repetition in shortform & alt-media loops
Early access or beta invites will be available.
🧾 Closing Pulse
We don’t need to speculate anymore.
The panic isn’t forming, it’s spreading.
And if we don’t track it, codify it, and neutralize it, we’ll be left reacting to laws written by ghosts and ghosts-of-fear.
If you don’t build your own radar,
you’ll always be flying into someone else’s storm.
—
MushiZero
Panic cartographer. Narrative decompiler. Cultural firewall.
📌 Resources
Panic Radar Tracker (Open Notion board) → [Insert link]
Weekly Signal Digest Opt-In → [Link to mailing list]
Submit a signal: sermon, video, quote, bill → [Insert form]
🧠 This is Post #6 in the “Panic Protocols” series.
Next up: “The Future Needs Defenders, Not Cheerleaders.”