AI Will Save Us
I grew up in the late 90s and was obsessed with computers. A basic PC, a dial-up internet connection, and a complete disregard for copyright laws gave me God-like powers. The internet was painfully slow, and Windows 98 constantly crashed, but with a little perseverance I could create and acquire things that otherwise would have been impossible.
I burned mix CDs and sold them to my friends, I downloaded movies that hadn’t even hit Blockbuster yet, I pirated the entire Adobe Creative Suite. I shot and edited skate videos with Adobe Premiere, and in high school I used Photoshop, an inkjet printer, and a laminator from Office Depot to make legit fake IDs that actually worked.
Fast forward 25 years and here I am, still banging away at a keyboard making things. I have more respect for copyright laws, and the law in general now (Chill Country gummies are 100% legal!), and I’ve ended up paying Adobe tens of thousands of dollars for software subscriptions over my 16+ year career. Turns out Limewire was an amazing customer acquisition strategy.
I started @thcprovisions and @chillcountryatx in early 2020 with a computer and an idea. In 6 years, with a tiny team, we’ve built a multi-million dollar business that serves thousands of loyal customers. As technology continues to advance, my power to create gets stronger. The latest advancements in AI are like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Some say I’m too optimistic, but I see a very bright future and believe AI is driving us towards the light. The gap between my ideas and bringing them into existence has never been smaller. I’ve been using Claude Code and it is quite simply mindblowing. I believe we are rapidly approaching a world where everyone will be able to create and acquire almost anything nearly instantly. I know that sounds like science fiction, but so does your iPhone and the Internet 100 years ago.
Contemplate this as a thought experiment: What does it mean when everyone has the ability to instantly get almost anything they desire?
It’s a tale as old as time. Successful entrepreneurs, celebrities, professional athletes, and lotto winners achieve their wildest fantasies of material success and status, only to crash hard when they realize these things don’t provide lasting peace and contentment. In a world where anything you want is yours at the snap of your fingers, that reckoning comes for all of us.
Every wisdom tradition that has ever tried to describe what we’re actually here for has come back with some version of the same answer.
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” –The Buddha
“The kingdom of God is within you.” –Jesus, Luke 17:21
“I am the Self seated in the hearts of all beings. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that lives.” –Krishna, Bhagavad Gita 10.20
Technology is closing the distance between desire and fulfillment so fast that we won’t be able to pretend the next thing will be the thing. When everything we want is within reach, the illusion that “something out there” will complete us finally collapses. And when we can create anything, the real opportunity isn’t to make more things, it’s to finally ask why we wanted them in the first place.
Have A Chill Day 🤙
“The less you need, the more you have.”
— Ram Dass
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