OnlyFans. Ozempic. The cannabis industry. End-of-life care. OpenAI.

What do these all have in common?

They're "taboo' topics.

And what tends to happen with such topics? The public discourse around them takes on a predictable pattern. It begins with concern around how safe the thing is. Next comes skepticism about its effectiveness. And then, of course, morality.

Let's look at Ozempic, for example.

When it first started becoming popular, the public discourse around semaglutide followed the aforementioned pattern. And it ended in the exacerbation of the question of its morality. Was it immoral for obese people to 'cheat' using Ozempic to shed extra weight?

And it is always the same whenever new technologies, inventions, or ideas force us to face our deeply held (and sometimes false) biases.

When those biases come to the surface in the face of these new technologies and ideas, we resort to an argument of morality.

Think about the Sisyphean cycle of technology panics. This phenomenon describes the widespread concerns about new technologies-whether they be novels, radios, or smartphones-that we see throughout history.

In the 1700s, new cotton spinning technologies were met with literal violent uproar.

'When innovations threaten peoples' identities, they cling to one-size-fits-all arguments, and instead of producing a clear conversation about how we can update our models of what is right and wrong, these categories produce static.'

One category we see this being quite pronounced is food and diet.

It's not uncommon for us to tie our moral compass to the kind of diet we subscribe to, whether that be whole foods, vegetarianism, veganism, or carnivorous.

So, of course, food brands see their fair share of moral static.

Oatly, a brand of oat milk, is an example of this. The brand is facing pushback upon its launch by the very country it's manufactured in. Many in Sweden are arguing the milk is nutritionally inferior to cows' milk. Critics are also proclaiming the company's sustainability promises were falsified.

Obviously, these claims are easy to dismiss and disprove.

So, as the pattern goes, people began pointing fingers at Oatly's slogan, 'Flush the Milk,' calling it an attack on a Swedish way of life for dairy farmers and consumers. And just like that, the brand's narrative became riddled with moral static.

Not questioning things can lead to some pretty complicated places, as we've seen in the past. But moral static goes beyond looking at new technology or products with a critical eye.