Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Alberta is Doomed

 Reference


This is just an excuse to dump my Alberta stories.  First, I've had the highest hope for Alberta.  My most favourite geophysics professor moved there, but then he just got sucked into oil exploration.  Too bad.

Just as oil crashed a long time ago, I went to Calgary one summer to do geophysics.  That picture is the liveliest place at 5:01 pm.  All us young people went out in the evening and the only places were stadium-like bars, where the draft glasses were 25 cents.  Afterwards, I would jump on moving cars and get thrown off - ouch!

The only salvation was to camp in the mountains on weekends.  

All the media lives on doom-scrolling group-think.  Natpost just goes with grouchy old men like rexxy.  It doesn't make things better for bright people.  If the place had somebody with two sticks to rub together, they could shed the group-think, and go for 'Pure Scientific Method Rationality'.  


But they are doomed to follow this crap.  Just think that one million dollars in 'anti-nasa physics' could save them.  And then they could research disk-polymer greenhouses, and push an 'all drugs' policy.  Calgary would be the king of plant drugs.  Then young people would stay, and maybe, even more move in, but that's a bit much.

ps.  I call this the 'old grouch death spiral'.  It's happened in one of the southern states.  Once a big telecom research place, it had great vitality.  Then the bust, and everyone left, but it went super-trumpy.  Now, all the young people can't stand it, and leave.  No people of colour coming in, no immigration, just old grouches, male and female.  


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