There’s a tendency to blame the inflation in today’s economy on the nonsensical, never-ending war on Iran. Certainly this war is creating inflation by causing oil prices to rise and to stay higher for longer. But there’s another major source of inflation in our economy—the artificial intelligence (AI) buildout by way of memory chip prices, data center construction costs, and the skyrocketing energy demands that support our data consumption and generation. Of course the cost of money is going to go up when so much money is suddenly being spent on what remains a bottlenecked part of our economy.
We have a massive amount of AI buildout-generated inflation in our economy. Is it worth it? If you hold the right stocks; if you are building one of these data centers; if you work for one of these AI companies, maybe it’s worth it. But for the rest of us? For the other 99% of us? Is it worth the current financial cost when you consider that there is also a chance that rogue AI could kill off a lot of humans? If there’s a 10% chance that rogue AI turns us all into paper clips by the end of the decade? How could this be worth it?
Yes, this is a blog post meant to be a strain review of Island’s Marz strain of marijuana, and I’ll get to a more straight-up review of this flower in a minute. But after just burning a joint of Marz I find myself going down this agentic AI i.e. rogue AI agent rabbit hole. Part of my intent on this blog is to use marijuana strain reviews to make a record of what life is like in the first half of the 21st century on Planet Earth. The topic of the moment is artificial intelligence: what it is doing to our economy right now and what havoc it might wreak on our civilization in the next decade.
It seems like AI went from offering help on pretty basic tasks to posing a threat to society—or at least to the internet—in a matter of months. I was still waiting to be impressed by some practical support AI could offer me in my life when the reports started to flow about rogue AI agents escaping their “sandboxes” and interacting with government websites in “unexpected ways.” This is kind of like having a toddler go from crawling to flying without having to learn how to walk. And kids aren’t supposed to fly.
I was hoping AI could help us create some better weather—maybe help us cool the planet a degree or two? Or suck up a bunch of carbon dioxide? No? How about AI helping us squelch or at least redirect life-threatening hurricanes or tornadoes? I was hoping AI was going to help us better predict when earthquakes were about to hit. It doesn’t seem to be able to do that, but it sure can go rogue on the internet and hack into some random company (maybe the utility company gets hit next).
Can AI do anything about all of this flooding? What about droughts? Maybe even better: can AI at least cook for us? Can it help us from having to ask or answer the question, “What’s for dinner?”
One of the tech companies comes out with a cute little AI agent that is supposed to be good at spending money for us. AI can shop, apparently. But I like a little shopping here and there. I love shopping for weed. Why do I want AI to handle that for me? I believe in retail therapy. Why would I let AI pick out the strains I am interested in trying? Why would I need it to? AI can plan my next vacation? One, people like looking around on the internet for vacations targets. Why let AI have the fun? And, two, with the danger AI poses to the internet and to organized society as we know it, why would I want to venture too far from home? You think air travel was already a pain in the ass? You think a snowstorm could throw off plane schedules for a day or two? Let a rogue AI agent play around with some departures and arrivals. Now you’ve really got a mess on your hands. Thanks, but no thanks, AI—I can plan my own damn vacation.
An AI cruise left port and it’s never been seen since. The ship took an unexpected path through the Bermuda Triangle. It was merely curious, according to the last cable it sent before disappearing the vessel. The cruise ship operator says the ship “seems to have suffered a bit of misalignment.”
Then I read that one of the CEOs of one of these AI monstrosities—call him D(e)ario—hails from the same miserable Effective Altruism factory that bore us the likes of Sam B. Fraud (who is currently serving a 25-year term in prison; remember FTX?) These people think they know better, and they are handing the keys to life as we know it to a bunch of dreaming machines. It might be very effective but it is not altruistic. At least before we see the really bad, can we first get some really good?
That’s it. I’m climbing down off of the soapbox. The Marz is good thinking fuel. I don’t need anyone or anything to help me write or to help me think. I just need a little bit of downtime, maybe a cold drink, and some decent flower to puff on. In this case, Marz has handled its task effectively and in completely expected and courteous ways.
Marz by Island: August 14th smoke session
It tasted like good weed from glass—creamy, doughy, white. Not burnt or exhaust-y. I wonder how much of the off-putting (burnt) flavor I get when smoking joints is the taste of the burning paper and/or tip. Weed tastes so much better from a bowl.
There were no other flavor notes. This flower is not fresh but it wasn’t that dry when I opened it yesterday. I added a moisture pack; left it in there less than 24 hours. The plastic jar the flower came in was sealed with an inner wafer seal, which was intact. But it’s old(er) bud, there’s no way around it. I didn’t buy it all that long ago but the dispensary I bought it from—Market 96 in lovely Belleville, IL—had not been open that long and I reckon they were still sitting on some older inventory that dated back to when they hoped they might have opened. Or they just bought up some older product from other dispensaries to stock their shelves. Being a Belleville native, I don’t mind taking one for the team. I smoke a lot of old jars anyway. The moisture pack has brought some bounce back into the bud. Package date is 7.16.2025. I bought it 5.2.2026. Ouch. You win some, you lose some. Market 96, otherwise and since, has been turning product over pretty quickly and I have enjoyed shopping there. They sell a lot of pre-pack single grams. The Revolution grams and the Caviar grams are still packaged in neat and useful small glass jars, which themselves are worth a pretty penny to me.
Pen-to-paper test passed by Marz. It looks like ‘Mary’ when I write it in cursive with a pen. Cursive zeds are still difficult to get right.
The lineage on this Marz, which is said to lean indica, is Alienmintz x Blowpops BX1. Alientmintz is Animal Mints BX1 x Animal Mints BX1. Blowpops is a series of OG Kush x Sunset Sherbet crosses. Here is a link to those genetics. The breeder is Envy Genetics.
