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In the decade before pot was legalized in New York, if you wanted edibles, it came in the form of a homemade brownie, and it’s unbelievable to think the dosages of those might have been 100-300 mg per brownie. For context, the legal limit now is 5-10 mg per gummy. Here’s what GPT has to say on the level required for edibles to turn psychedelic:

“Edibles become distinctly psychedelic—with altered time perception, visual distortions, auditory hallucinations, ego dissolution, and intense introspection—typically around 50–100mg of THC, especially for those with low tolerance. For some sensitive users, 30–50mg can already induce quasi-psychedelic effects. Beyond 150–200mg, even experienced users can experience full-on tripping: melting visuals, looping thoughts, loss of body awareness, and encounters with archetypal or “divine” mental imagery.

There was zero issue in bringing edibles into the Sphere, and maybe that’s obvious, but I can only compare it to the paranoia of trying to bring brownies into MSG a decade ago (which really was more like eating the whole thing outside—50-100 mg?—before, for fear of getting caught, and then peaking right when the opener is done, to a 45 minutes experience of the chatter of 19,500 people turning into a terrifying white noise). Now it’s legal and destigmatized, and you can take small doses every 45 minutes to space out and control the high. They should probably have an edible stand directly inside the venue. Why not? Is an alcohol overdose not way more troublesome and messy than a weed overdose? Even though it’s all legal now, it will probably take another generation for it to be as casual as alcohol or coffee. Each has their function. Marijuana brings heightened introspection and perception, which is an obvious choice for any concert or aesthetic experience.

Talks about BCIs (brain computer interfaces) naturally skeeve us out because we imagine a doctor drilling a hole in our skull and inserting a silicon chip. What if it weren’t silicon?

I was reading about how AGI would design new kinds of hardware to evolve itself into ASI, and not only does it find the limits of silicon (via. cubic liquid-cooled chips), but it pioneers other forms of computing. Not just quantum computing, but photon-based motherboards and “neuro-morphic chips” (wetware). I need to wrap my head around this more, but imagine biological neurons that are able to store, send, and receive information, reliably and efficiently.

In the future, you might be able to have a BCI without having any metal in your head. It could be something like a small piece of tissue (which interfaces with your own brain matter), and maybe it includes a single qubit chip, which serves as a “quantum wifi” connection to a remote super-intelligence, giving you instant access to alien processing.

I have no expertise here, so this is basically all a hallucination, but I just imagine that maybe BCIs won’t involve that much-feared surgery. Maybe you take a pill that enables a neuro-morphic chip to situate itself in your brain, and the only side effect is you piss silver once (with no side effects).

The point of this thought experiment is to remove the installation process from your calculation on if you’d get a BCI. It changes the question: Would you use technology to permanently alter your consciousness in an extreme way? Would you install an on/off switch that gives you on-demand access to the infinity-brain effect of an LSD trip?