“We’re not banning AI. We’re protecting our values.”
— State Senator, floor speech introducing AI restrictions, June 2025
That’s the tell.
By the time a moral panic enters the policy pipeline, it no longer speaks in fear.
It speaks in principle.
The fear is implied, but the law is real.
If you’re waiting for regulatory moves to make sense technically, you’ve misunderstood the mechanism.
Panic doesn’t need a working definition of AI.
It just needs a working majority.
Pattern: Codifying the Crusade
The panic always starts with vibes.
But it escalates into votes.
Once spiritual or symbolic threats become politically useful, legislation becomes inevitable. And the policies that follow don’t target the real risks of technology. They target the most memetically useful features of the panic.
Think:
Bans on tools rather than behaviors
Morality clauses with no technical basis
Age restrictions based on ideology, not impact
And once passed, these laws can outlive the moment.
Policy has long memory, even when panic has none.
Signal Examples
📜 Missouri HB 2045 bans public library access to any “unverified AI content,” citing “moral degradation risk.”
🧾 Louisiana bill proposes labeling AI-generated art with a “synthetic content” warning for minors.
📕 Texas Board of Education restricts AI use in classrooms under new "digital literacy morality" provision.
🛑 Federal amendment floated requiring AI tools to comply with “faith-aligned content guidelines” in public institutions.
📣 Model legislation from a conservative think tank suggests “AI abstinence” policies in K–12 settings.
These are not ethics debates.
These are spiritual laws wrapped in policy language.
Counterframe Strategy
Reframe:
“Regulation is vital, but fear is a terrible architect.”
To regulate AI responsibly:
– Define harms, not vibes
– Protect agency, not dogma
– Separate governance from belief systems
Tactic:
– Pre-empt panic with smart, ethical policy proposals
– Build strange-bedfellow coalitions (technologists + educators + moderate faith leaders)
– Track and decode spiritual framing in state-level bills
Don’t wait to be summoned for testimony.
Start writing the first drafts before the panic does.
Closing Pulse
The road from pulpit to policy is short—and paved with vague language.
“Synthetic soul.”
“Unnatural intelligence.”
“Content without conscience.”
They sound dramatic.
But they become real once printed in statute.
In the D&D panic, books were banned.
In this one, it may be entire classes of computation.
AI doesn’t need to be worshipped.
But it does need to be protected, from the kinds of laws that enshrine fear instead of ethics.
If you care about the future of this technology, get serious about policy.
Not just your code.
Your code of law.
—
MushiZero
Pattern tracker. Systems thinker. Legislative firewall tester.