Astral Codex Ten

Edmonton

16 min read

Edmonton

Article

Edmonton is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 9 times across 9 issues between April 10, 2022 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “EDMONTON, AB”; “EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA”; “like Calgary and Edmonton in oil-rich Alberta”. It most often appears alongside Atlanta, France, India.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 9
  • Issue count: 9
  • First seen: April 10, 2022
  • Last seen: April 01, 2026

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Spring Meetups In Seventy Cities
April 10, 2022 · Original source
EDMONTON, AB Contact: JS (ta1hynp09@relay.firefox.com) Date: April 28 Time: 6:30 PM Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558GGFM+88 Location: Duggan's Boundary Irish Pub Notes: See the event page for detailed information. Group info: We currently meet on the last Thursday of each month.
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558GGFM+88, event page
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2023
April 10, 2023 · Original source
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA Contact: Joseph Contact Info: ta1hynp09[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Thursday, April 27th, 07:00 PM Location: Underground Tap & Grill. 10004 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 1R3. We will have an ACX sign Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+JP Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/MiZ6vuG8nwwDqPSLo/acx-meetups-everywhere-2
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+JP, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/MiZ6vuG8nwwDqPSLo/acx-meetups-everywhere-2
The Question Of Separatism
May 19, 2023 · Original source
Meanwhile, Montreal never generated a conurbation or significant city region. This is Jacobs’s main hypothesis for why it was overtaken by Toronto, though she doesn’t give a lot of detail on why it happened. In any case, the result was that Montreal lost its status as the economic capital of the country. It became a regional city. The problem is that regional cities tend to do poorly. The nature of nations is to centralize everything in one place (we’ll come back to this). That’s why Paris has a large and rich city region, but Lyon and Marseille don’t. That’s why London looms so large in the UK’s economy while Glasgow or Manchester now contribute very little. There’s nothing wrong per se with being an economically stagnant regional city. Such cities can be fine places. When they’re the center of a supply region, like Calgary and Edmonton in oil-rich Alberta, they can even be wealthy. The complication for Montreal, though, is that its previous status as the main Canadian metropolis made it grow too large for this purpose. Yet, at the same time, Montreal plays an outsized cultural role for French-speaking Canadians — one that Toronto doesn’t even come close to fulfilling. So, Jacobs sees only decline for Montreal. And she thinks this means decline for Quebecois culture generally. Without a strong import-replacing city, Quebec will become a patchwork of supply regions, regions that workers abandon, or transplant economies, like the poverty-stricken Atlantic provinces in eastern Canada already are. Either the Quebecois resign themselves to this fate, she says, or they fight it — and the only true way to fight it is to declare independence. As of the 1980 referendum, she thinks they should go for independence. Generalized Separatism Quebecers did not go for independence, neither then in 1980 nor in 1995 when they voted on the question again. If they had, it would probably have been an example of a peaceful secession. Jacobs points out that there haven’t been many of those, if you exclude the decolonization of overseas imperial possessions (like Canada from Britain). Non-peaceful secessions have been common, but in those cases the destructiveness of war tends to overshadow everything else, economically speaking. In fact that might be the main reason most of us intuitively dislike separatism: we associate it with conflict. But peaceful non-colonial secessions do happen. Since 1980 there have been several more cases, like Czechia and Slovakia. When Jacobs wrote her book, though, the only good example she could think of was the independence of Norway from Sweden in 1905. She tells a great account of the process, noting that the outcome wasn’t predetermined: Sweden didn’t want to lose its western province, and did what it could to contain Norwegian nationalist sentiment. But Norwegian nationalist sentiment won — and importantly, both Norway and Sweden seemingly benefitted. Neither of them was particularly rich in the 19th century, and Norway was in fact dirt poor, which is why so many Norwegians escaped by emigrating to North America. Yet after the dissolution of their union, the two countries developed quickly, and both are now among the wealthiest countries in the world. They certainly didn’t disintegrate. (Of course, in Norway the wealth is due in large part to the oil that they discovered in the late 1960s. But they were pretty advanced by that point already — advanced enough that they could use the oil to develop their own industry, rather than get rich quick by exporting it raw, which is what keeps many countries trapped as supply regions.) When people argue against separatism, they often tout the benefits of being large. A Canada that would be split in two would mean smaller markets, and a weaker political counterweight to the United States. (Not to be mean to Canadian readers, but this argument seems delusional to me — I don’t think Americans currently see Canada as a political counterweight of any significance.) It would certainly be less prestigious. Large size, Jacobs says, is associated with power, and we admire power. We love slogans like “unity makes strength.” But after the medium-sized country of Sweden-Norway became the two smaller countries of Sweden and Norway, they both did well. Small size is less powerful, but it has its own advantages, such as nimbleness and ability to fail non-catastrophically. Small size also allows more diversity in cultural and economic matters, and here Jacobs waxes philosophical, pointing out that favoring diversity over uniformity is a recent, post-Enlightenment idea that has not yet been fully embraced in politics. We can see analogs everywhere. Europe, split into numerous small countries from the Middle Ages onward, became far more advanced than China, which has been unified more often than not. The city-states of ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy are seen as golden ages of Western civilization, even if they weren’t part of larger political units and therefore constantly went to war with one another. In business, large companies are impressive and powerful, but people always complain that Google or Microsoft have become stagnant and that the best place to work is tiny startups of about 2 cofounders and 4 employees. In biology, humans are more successful than numerous larger animals, and in terms of raw numbers, small animals like rats or insects are the most successful of all. Jacobs’s point isn’t that smaller is always better. Her point is that the converse statement, “bigger is always better,” is false — despite how intuitive it feels for political entities. Just like we don’t view a small nation like Switzerland or Singapore as a failure of unity, we (and in particular, Canadians) shouldn’t see the secession of a place like Quebec, if it’s done peacefully and democratically, as a failure either. Still, some people in online reviews of the book complain that this argument is a bit thin, especially considering that it serves as the foundation for the later chapters (which are more directly about late 1970s Quebec politics). Sure, small is beautiful, but large states are great for stability, peace, markets, whatever. If the potential benefits of small national size are Jacobs’s strongest argument, then we can breathe a sigh of relief and go back to agreeing that separatism is bad. Pointing out the widespread bias in favor of unified political entities does seem valuable to me, but okay, fair enough. Does Jacobs have deeper reasons why separatism might be a good idea in general? Yes, and for this we go back to the second half of Cities and the Wealth of Nations. Why Nations and Empires Fail Our breathing rate is regulated through a feedback mechanism. Too much carbon dioxide in the blood, or too little oxygen, and the brain stem commands the diaphragm to accelerate breathing. Once the levels are back to normal, the brain stem receives this feedback and slows breathing down again. Now, Jacobs asks, imagine an impossible creature: ten people, all doing their own thing, but whose breathing is somehow regulated by a single brain stem. The feedback the brain stem receives is a consolidated average of everyone’s carbon dioxide and oxygen levels, and the breathing rate the stem decides on is applied to all ten people, regardless of whether they’re sleeping or playing tennis. This, to put it mildly, wouldn’t work. This creature is an analogy, representing a nation. The ten people are its individual cities, and the breathing rate is the cities’ economies. If it sounds like a stupid analogy, that’s because it is: “I have had to propose a preposterous situation,” writes Jacobs, “because systems as structurally flawed as this don’t exist in nature; they wouldn’t last.” Nor do they exist in machines we design; they wouldn’t work. But “nations, from this point of view, don’t work either, yet do exist.” The feedback mechanism that fails to work properly in a nation is currency. A currency always fluctuates according to the exports and imports of the area where it circulates. Let me use the Republic of Venice and its ducat as a toy example, because the coins look nice: Whenever Venice produces something (like salt) and sells it abroad, foreigners need ducats to buy the exports, so the demand for ducats increases. When Venice buys something from abroad, it needs to use foreign currencies, so the demand for ducats decreases. Add up everything that Venice exports and imports, and you get either a trade surplus (more exports than imports) or a trade deficit (more imports than exports), which determines the value of the ducat relative to other currencies. In both cases, a negative feedback loop restores balance over time, just like our brain stem does with carbon dioxide levels. A trade surplus, and therefore a strong ducat, means that when foreigners want Venetian salt, it’s expensive. So Venice’s exports decrease, while imports increase, since Venetians can use their valuable ducats to buy stuff cheaply from abroad. Conversely, a trade deficit makes exports a bargain for foreigners and imports expensive for Venetians. This feedback loop is great. It’s exactly what a city needs to trigger the crucial import replacement process. When exports decrease and a trade deficit begins (maybe because Constantinople found a cheaper source of salt somewhere else), the weak ducat means that Venice is less able to afford the resources and manufactured goods it used to import. The people of Venice don’t want to have less of those goods, though, so they figure out ways to produce some themselves — that is, they do import replacement. Later they will be able to export the output of the newly expanding industries too, strengthening the ducat and continuing the cycle. Currencies, Jacobs explains, function as automatic tariffs (to protect local industry from foreign imports) and automatic export subsidies (to encourage local industry to export). They are “automatic” because of the feedback mechanism. Just like an accelerated breathing rate, they take effect exactly when they are needed — and no longer. … Or so they should, except that import replacement, as we discussed, is a city process. Whereas most currencies are national or supranational. National currencies work well for city-states, like the Republic of Venice or today’s Singapore. But in large nations, which, remember, are not the fundamental unit of economic life, they mess everything up. Take a city like Detroit. When Detroit’s exports (primarily cars) decrease, Detroit gets no feedback about this, because its currency is the United States dollar, and the United States dollar’s value depends on much more than Detroit. It depends on other cities whose foreign exports might be increasing at the moment. And on rural regions that are selling resources like oil abroad. Also, trade between Detroit and other cities that use the United States dollar — i.e., American cities — is structurally unable to provide any feedback whatsoever. So Detroit doesn’t get the signal that it should buy less stuff from other cities and replace the missing imports with local production. Instead, it just declines. Jacobs hypothesizes that this issue of national currencies is at the root of every large country’s economic troubles. It is why nations and empires always centralize everything into one large city, whether that’s Paris, London, Tokyo, or Toronto, or ancient Rome: that city, being the largest, is simply the only one for which national-level currency feedback works fine. The rest of the nation or empire, then, declines. But of course, nations and empires don’t accept this. They care about the economic well-being of their peripheral regions, sometimes out of genuine concern for the people there, sometimes out of fear that they rebel or hold independence referendums. So nations and empires will embark on every possible solution to reverse the decline. All of their solutions will look like good ideas at first, and yet fail at helping the peripheral regions. Worse, these solutions will weaken the cities, thereby destroying the only real wealth of the country and bringing untold hardship for everyone. Eventually the nation or empire will disintegrate, as nations and empires always do, and always will. Jacobs calls these false solutions transactions of decline. She identifies three types, and, content warning, you might not like some of them depending on your political sensibilities. Sustained military production is a transaction of decline. Permanent military bases and garrison towns are a special kind of settlement: they import a lot and export nothing. Superficially, producing weapons and supplies for the military seems like a good deal for some cities — Jacobs gives the example of Seattle, which, before Microsoft and Amazon were a thing, depended mostly on making military aircraft. But because nobody in a military base ever tries to replace those weapons and supplies with their own production, the trade is sterile in terms of economic development. In a sense, the wealth is slowly “drained” from cities. Large empires are especially prone to this: eventually all of their wealth is destined to the military just to keep the empire together.
Inline links: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zETj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3e99b106-d34e-4a49-93a8-553a8f57952a_1600x1130.png, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YeXj!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6fe681e6-b571-4f4c-aa90-313f77fc1dbb_750x359.png
Meetups Everywhere 2023: Times & Places
August 25, 2023 · Original source
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA Contact: Joseph Contact Info: ta1hynp09[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 21st, 7:00 PM Location: Underground Tap & Grill, 10004 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 1R3. We will have an ACX sign - it usually isn't too busy, so we should be easy to find. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+JP Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+JP, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024
March 30, 2024 · Original source
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA Contact: Joseph Contact Info: ta1hynp09[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Thursday, April 18th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing Company, 10643 124 St #109, Edmonton, AB T5N 1S5. We will have an ACX sign! More information at https://www.lesswrong.com/events/Fez72WdfeyDZAM796/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-1 Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Event Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/Fez72WdfeyDZAM796/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-1 Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: Please do your best to RSVP on LessWrong so we know how much food to get
Meetups Everywhere 2024: Times & Places
August 29, 2024 · Original source
Contact: David P Contact Info: qwertie256[at]gmail[dot]com Time: Saturday, September 07th, 02:00 PM Location: First Street Market, 1327 1st Street SW, Calgary. Look for a red ACX sign. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95372WRM+2F Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27 EDMONTON, CANADA Contact: Joseph Shapkin Contact Info: ta1hynp09[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 19th, 07:00 PM Location: Underground Tap and Grill, 10004 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 1R3, Canada. We will have an ACX sign so you can easily find our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+GP Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/kBCpoouwrn4GoAZyr/acx-meetups-everywhere-5
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95372WRM+2F, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27, https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+GP, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/kBCpoouwrn4GoAZyr/acx-meetups-everywhere-5
Contact: Joseph Shapkin Contact Info: ta1hynp09[at]relay[dot]firefox[dot]com Time: Thursday, September 19th, 07:00 PM Location: Underground Tap and Grill, 10004 Jasper Ave, Edmonton, AB T5J 1R3, Canada. We will have an ACX sign so you can easily find our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+GP Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/kBCpoouwrn4GoAZyr/acx-meetups-everywhere-5
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558GGR5+GP, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/kBCpoouwrn4GoAZyr/acx-meetups-everywhere-5
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places
March 25, 2025 · Original source
Contact: Megh Contact Info: meghss[a t]proton[period]me Time: Saturday, May 3rd, 2:00 PM Location: We will meet at the Bono Coffee Roasters, close to Murdoch park in Bridgeland. I will have ACX meetup sign Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95373X33+7H Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27 EDMONTON Contact: Joseph Shapkin Contact Info: ta1hynp09[a t]relay[period]firefox[period]com Time: Thursday, April 17th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing 10643 124 St #109. We will have an ACX sign Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95373X33+7H, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/LZQ6HBAd8afoqPP27, https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG
Meetups Everywhere 2025: Times and Places
August 29, 2025 · Original source
Contact: Megh Contact Info: meghss[a t]proton[period]me Time: Saturday, October 4th, 11:00 AM Location: At Bono Coffee Roasters, I will have ACX meetup sign Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95373X33+6HW EDMONTON Contact: Joseph Shapkin Contact Info: ta1hynp09[a t]relay[period]firefox[period]com Time: Thursday, September 18th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing Company, 124 Street, Edmonton, AB, Canada. We will have an ACX sign at our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/NQ7HDPkEMjmm4mdTq/acx-fall-meetups-everywhere
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95373X33+6HW, https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/NQ7HDPkEMjmm4mdTq/acx-fall-meetups-everywhere
Contact: Joseph Shapkin Contact Info: ta1hynp09[a t]relay[period]firefox[period]com Time: Thursday, September 18th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing Company, 124 Street, Edmonton, AB, Canada. We will have an ACX sign at our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/NQ7HDPkEMjmm4mdTq/acx-fall-meetups-everywhere
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/NQ7HDPkEMjmm4mdTq/acx-fall-meetups-everywhere
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places
April 01, 2026 · Original source
Contact: LN Contact Info: laibanas20[@]gmail[.]com Time: Saturday, May 16th, 10:30 AM Location: Calgary West Farmers Market- Near the west entrance Coordinates: https://plus.codes/95373QQG+6W Notes: Please RSVP to laibanas20@gmail.com EDMONTON Contact: Joseph Contact Info: ta1hynp09[@]relay[.]firefox[.]com Time: Thursday, April 16th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing 10643 124 St #109, Edmonton, AB T5N 1S5, Canada We will have an ACX sign at our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: Event Page: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/czvNZKJPeF3tx3cbt/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-3
Inline links: https://plus.codes/95373QQG+6W, https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/czvNZKJPeF3tx3cbt/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-3
Contact: Joseph Contact Info: ta1hynp09[@]relay[.]firefox[.]com Time: Thursday, April 16th, 7:00 PM Location: Irrational Brewing 10643 124 St #109, Edmonton, AB T5N 1S5, Canada We will have an ACX sign at our table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG Notes: Event Page: https://www.lesswrong.com/events/czvNZKJPeF3tx3cbt/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-3
Inline links: https://plus.codes/9558HF27+7Q, https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/hNzrLboTGkRFraHWG, https://www.lesswrong.com/events/czvNZKJPeF3tx3cbt/acx-spring-meetups-everywhere-3