A Measured Look at Wisconsin’s VPN Bills: Privacy, Protection, and Political Grandstanding
In recent months, Wisconsin lawmakers introduced two pieces of legislation, Assembly Bill 105 and Senate Bill 130, intended to regulate online content that is considered harmful to minors. At first glance, these proposals appear to address a legitimate public concern. Parents, educators, and policymakers often struggle with the question of how to protect young people on a rapidly shifting internet. The intention behind these bills is to introduce strict age verification requirements for certain websites and to reduce the ability for minors to bypass restrictions through tools such as Virtual Private Networks. This surface level goal is easy to understand. However, as privacy advocates and technical experts began examining the bills, a much larger debate emerged. These proposals do not simply concern the online safety of minors. They raise broader questions about digital privacy, freedom of expression, technological feasibility, and the ways in which political rhetoric can shape public perception.
AB 105 and SB 130 aim to require websites that host content considered harmful to minors to implement some form of age verification. In practice, this usually means submitting a government issued ID, undergoing a biometric scan, or relying on a third party verification service. To prevent users from bypassing these checks, the bills also pressure websites to identify and block access from users who appear to be connecting through a VPN. This means that anyone whose traffic is routed through an encrypted connection could be denied access to websites that fall under the jurisdiction of the law. The justification is simple on paper. If a VPN hides a user’s geographic location and age, then a minor could use one to break through a digital barrier meant to protect them.
The concern arises when the broader implications are considered. VPNs are not niche tools reserved for evading website restrictions. They are widely used in everyday life by remote workers, travelers, journalists, small business owners, and individuals who simply prefer not to broadcast their location to every site they visit. They protect users from data breaches on public WiFi, prevent advertisers from tracking browsing habits, and encrypt communication in ways that shield people from malicious actors. They are also recommended by countless cybersecurity experts and digital rights organizations. For many people, a VPN is as essential as antivirus software.
This leads to one of the central criticisms raised by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The attempt to regulate VPN usage for one narrow purpose can create a ripple effect that impacts everyone. For example, if websites begin to fear legal consequences, they may choose to block all VPN traffic outright, regardless of whether the user lives in Wisconsin or qualifies as a minor. This type of over blocking is common when policies hinge on vague definitions or complicated enforcement requirements. In this case, the definition of “material harmful to minors” is broad and its boundaries are difficult to determine with precision. As a result, websites may react by restricting access in ways that affect adults who are behaving completely within the law.
There are also concerns regarding the privacy risks associated with age verification. Requiring users to submit sensitive identifying information can create new vulnerabilities. Hacks, data breaches, and leaks of personal documents are already common problems across the internet. Introducing mandatory ID checks for a wide range of websites risks increasing the amount of sensitive data stored across multiple platforms. Critics argue that while the goal of protecting minors is understandable, the method may unintentionally expose people to greater identity theft risks.
Still, it is important to acknowledge why lawmakers pursue these bills. There is a genuine desire to address the challenges posed by online content accessible to minors. Many families feel overwhelmed by the speed at which technology evolves, and legislators are pressured to provide solutions. Some supporters of the bills believe that strict age verification is the only way to guarantee that minors cannot access inappropriate sites. Others view VPN blocking as a necessary measure to prevent circumvention. These arguments are not without reason. However, they are complicated by the realities of technology and the ethical questions surrounding privacy.
Beyond the technical debate lies another factor that often influences public policy: political messaging. When legislators frame these bills as moral imperatives, the discussion can shift away from the nuanced balancing act between safety and freedom, and toward emotionally charged rhetoric. This type of moral grandstanding can be persuasive, especially when it centers on protecting children. Even critics acknowledge that such framing is powerful. It creates a dynamic where opposing the bill appears synonymous with failing to protect minors, even if the concerns raised are legitimate and grounded in practical reality.
This tactic often relies on what some observers describe as societal confusion around whataboutism. When presented with a moral dilemma, people tend to focus on the immediate emotional appeal rather than the wider consequences. Politicians who employ moral grandstanding sometimes rely on this confusion. They present the issue as a binary choice: either support the bill to protect children, or oppose it and risk appearing morally negligent. In this environment, concerns about privacy, cybersecurity, constitutional rights, or unintended consequences can be dismissed as secondary. This tactic can be manipulative because it pressures individuals to support legislation even if it contradicts their values or personal beliefs about privacy and freedom.
A neutral examination reveals that the intentions behind AB 105 and SB 130 are not inherently malicious, but the execution raises genuine concerns. The desire to shield minors from harmful content is understandable and widely shared. However, the tools chosen to reach that goal carry significant consequences for adults, businesses, and the general public. Over blocking VPNs could disrupt the workflow of remote employees. Mandatory ID verification could expose personal data to new threats. Websites may face costly technical requirements that are difficult to implement accurately. These outcomes are not hypothetical. They are documented consequences of similar laws in other regions of the world.
Ultimately, the question becomes one of balance. Can society protect minors online without weakening privacy rights for everyone else? Critics urge that solutions should be targeted, technologically informed, and respectful of constitutional boundaries. Supporters counter that without strong measures, young people remain vulnerable in an unregulated digital environment. Both viewpoints hold some truth.
What remains essential is the ability to discuss these issues without falling into the trap of moral grandstanding. A healthy democracy depends on public debate that is honest and informed, not shaped by fear or rhetorical manipulation. If lawmakers approach this subject with transparency and respect for both child safety and civil liberties, then a more effective and equitable solution may be possible. If not, the risk is that policy shaped by emotional pressure rather than practical understanding will create more harm than the problems it attempts to solve.
The Paradox of Nothingness - Consciousness, Death, and the Law of Conservation
There’s a certain irony in how atheists describe death. They often say that when you die, “everything goes black.” That’s it. The end. No consciousness, no awareness—just an infinite void of nothing. The problem is that this description, for all its simplicity, doesn’t hold up well under closer scrutiny. It sounds clean and final, but it clashes with one of the most fundamental principles of physics: the conservation of mass and energy. Nothing is ever destroyed. It only changes form.
So what happens to consciousness, then? If energy cannot be destroyed, and consciousness depends on energy—specifically, the bioelectrical and chemical processes of the brain—can it truly “go black,” as if it simply ceases to exist? Or are we confusing the absence of measurable activity with the annihilation of something we don’t fully understand?
To even start answering that, we have to ask the bigger question that philosophy and science keep dancing around: what is consciousness?
I. Consciousness as an Emergent Process
The most common answer, at least in modern scientific circles, is that consciousness is an emergent property of biological complexity. The neurons in our brains fire in patterns so intricate that awareness simply “emerges.” According to materialism, the mind is what the brain does.
It’s a convenient explanation. It aligns with everything we can observe: damage the brain and consciousness fades; stimulate it, and thoughts or sensations appear. The problem is that this model doesn’t actually explain why any of it feels like anything. If the brain is just a machine moving electrons and chemicals, why should there be a subjective experience of pain, joy, fear, or color? How does a network of atoms produce the feeling of being alive?
This is the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness. Materialism can describe the machinery perfectly but cannot account for the presence of experience itself—the inner movie of life. It’s like knowing every pixel and code line of a video game but not being able to explain how it feels to play it.
Under this view, sentience evolved as an adaptive advantage. The ability to reflect, to predict, to imagine outcomes, and to empathize helped us survive. Consciousness became a biological feedback system—a mirror through which life could evaluate itself. And yet, for all the progress neuroscience has made, it has not uncovered the moment where matter suddenly becomes mind.
II. Panpsychism: The Universe That Feels
Then there’s panpsychism: the idea that consciousness isn’t something that emerges, but something that’s always been there. Every particle in existence, from electrons to quarks, contains a tiny seed of experience. Not human awareness, of course, but some primordial trace of “feeling.”
In this framework, when enough matter organizes in a certain way—like in a human brain—those countless micro-experiences integrate into a unified field of awareness. The mind, then, isn’t created; it’s synthesized. Consciousness is the fundamental texture of the universe, and complex life forms are the instruments that bring it into harmony.
This perspective avoids the hard problem entirely because it doesn’t treat consciousness as something foreign to matter. It’s built in. The difficulty, however, lies in explaining how countless individual micro-consciousnesses combine into one coherent experience—the “combination problem.” How do trillions of tiny awarenesses unify into you?
Still, panpsychism aligns neatly with the law of conservation. If consciousness is intrinsic to energy and matter, then it cannot be destroyed—only rearranged. When we die, our consciousness doesn’t vanish; it simply disbands. The energy that once organized it disperses, and the pattern that defined our individuality fades, like ripples dissolving back into water.
III. Idealism: The Dreaming Cosmos
A third perspective goes even deeper: idealism, which claims that consciousness isn’t just fundamental—it’s the only thing that truly exists. The physical universe, under this interpretation, is an expression of mind. Matter is a phenomenon within consciousness, not the other way around.
Think of it as a shared dream. Each person is a localized expression of a universal awareness. The laws of physics, including conservation, operate within the parameters of that greater mind. Death, then, is not the extinction of consciousness but the end of one localized perspective. The wave falls back into the ocean.
Idealism is elegant because it erases the paradox between physics and experience. Conservation isn’t violated because consciousness doesn’t disappear—it simply shifts its mode of existence. The flaw, of course, is that idealism can’t easily be tested. It demands a level of metaphysical trust that science can’t comfortably entertain.
Yet, when you step back, it’s worth noting that science itself assumes consciousness implicitly. Every experiment, every equation, every theory presupposes an observer capable of observation. Consciousness is the one thing we know exists directly, yet it’s the only thing modern science refuses to take seriously.
IV. Death and the Illusion of Blackness
Returning to that common phrase—“everything goes black”—we find it lacking not just philosophically, but physically. Blackness itself is still something; it is still an experience. If true nothingness followed death, there would be no perception of black, no memory, no awareness at all. It would be beyond even the concept of absence.
People use “black” as a metaphor because they can’t conceive of true nothingness. The human brain can’t imagine the absence of self; it can only imagine darkness or sleep, both of which are still states of consciousness. So when someone says death is like turning off a light switch, they’re using an analogy that doesn’t really hold. Lights can be switched off, but the energy that powered them remains.
If consciousness is tied to energy—even in the most abstract sense—then it must, in some way, persist. Whether that persistence takes the form of universal integration (panpsychism), re-assimilation into a cosmic mind (idealism), or simply redistribution of bioelectrical charge (materialism), the underlying law stands: nothing truly disappears.
V. The Conserved Mystery
The law of conservation doesn’t just apply to matter and energy. It applies, metaphorically, to meaning as well. Existence seems to recycle experience the same way it recycles stardust. Every death, every collapse, every entropy leads to reformation. Stars die so others may form. Forests burn so seeds may sprout. Perhaps consciousness obeys a similar rhythm.
If that’s true, the atheistic “everything goes black” isn’t a statement of truth—it’s a statement of limitation. It describes what we can no longer observe, not what actually happens. To claim absolute nothingness after death requires more faith than to believe in continuity, because it assumes the complete annihilation of something that cannot yet be measured, defined, or replicated.
Whether one calls it energy, awareness, or the field of consciousness, the fact remains: the universe does not waste anything. Every atom that has ever been part of you will go on existing. Every synapse that once fired will release its energy back into the system. The structure may dissolve, but the essence—the motion, the vibration, the spark—persists.
So maybe death isn’t the great blackout people think it is. Maybe it’s a transformation—one that moves consciousness from one form of coherence to another. From pattern to potential. From the self to the cosmos.
We don’t yet understand what consciousness is, or how sentience truly develops. But the deeper we look, the more it seems that awareness isn’t an exception to the laws of physics—it’s their most mysterious expression. The universe, after all, doesn’t just exist; it knows that it exists. And whatever that knowing is, it cannot simply vanish into nothing.
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The Paradox of Nothingness: Consciousness, Death, and the Law of Conservation
