Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;881922I remember reading a book, 'The Jackal', where a number of assassins on motorbikes chase after President de Gaulle's car shooting at it. The author made a lot out of explaining how inaccurate an automatic weapon can be to begin with, how sitting on unstable ground at high speeds affect your aim, and how a trained driver can make skillful use of evasive maneuvers to make the car even harder to hit.

I don't remember this. I'll have to re-read the book.

Quote from: Ravenswing;881905Am I weird for not getting any further than to see the question about shooting tires, and thinking "Dude, shooting out tires is a LOT harder than Hollywood makes it out to be" ... ?

Naw. You're just weird.

Shooting out tires may not be any easier than car pole vaulting, but shooting seems at least marginally safer to the shooter than being a pole-vaulter.

Quote from: Skarg;881997...and especially the "spit more fuel into the engine by crawling out on the hood while flooring it, so we can go faster" thing, were not mainly stupid just because "life is cheap", but stupid because "would not be a practical thing to do".

On the plus side, it is one way so that the passengers can help out in a car chase. A really, really stupid way...but still a way.

It reminded me of the scene in The Road Warrior where the feral child climbs out on the hood to get the shot gun shells that have fallen through the broken windshield. But the writers said,
   Writer 1: Wouldn't it be way better if the good guys and the bad guys each had someone crawl out on the hood while they are racing?!?

Writer 2: But would the audience buy a coincidence like both the hero and the villain dropping their last shotgun shells on their car hood?

Writer 1: Well they could be out on the hood to do something else, maybe to fix the car or something.

Writer 3: They could take a swig of gasoline and spit it into the engine to make it go faster. :rolleyes:

Writer 1: Perfect!!! That's it!

Quote from: Skarg;881997Original question: It depends on specifics. I think we do tend to lean towards making people expendable and willing to sacrifice themselves more than is usually reasonable, because we think we want to play out some action more than we want to take the effort to set up the situation leading to it completely rationally, and we tend to be somewhat lazy about it.

This is true. But as well, there is a thing in the military they call "target fixation", where you can become so focused on striking a particular target that you miss other dangers, for example a fighter pilot chasing one aircraft who ends up getting shot up by another one he didn't see - because he was focused on his target. Too focused.

The same thing can happen strategically, where a leader is focused on destroying a particular enemy or taking a particular place that they sacrifice too much for it. For example, Verdun or Stalingrad.

As well, the nature of dictatorial regimes is that they cannot bear any defeat or dissent whatsoever. In Ignazio's Silone's novels of fascist Italy, there was some guys who went around painting "No!" on walls. Nothing else, just "No!" It drove the authorities crazy trying to find them.

Further on the first is the "sunk cost fallacy." If you've spent enough time and effort on something which is obviously a failure, you continue - because you've spent so much time and effort on it already. This is how we get problem gambling, the Concorde, and the F-35. It's also why countries continue with wars they've obviously lost, and why people stay with spouses who make them miserable.

Combine these three and you can get a situation as depicted in Fury Road: a dictator wasting lots of men chasing a bunch of people who he should have given up on long ago. "Just a bit further... a few more men... and I'll get them! And if I don't get them, will anyone follow me anymore?"

Remember this sort of thing wasn't happening every week with Immortan Joe. Lots of fights and drama, of course, but not bodies flying everywhere. Countries can't afford constant bloody warfare, but they can manage one or two horrific conflicts every generation.

Plus, it's the Rule of Cool. Like the gimp strapped to the front of the vehicle. Or the guy with the flaming guitar. What? Why? Well, it's cool.

Some things that may be helpful...

In some sense, fighting men are more expendable in modern warfare than pre-modern warfare. This is due to the army sizes. Because of this, wars can actually be bloodier in "less harsh settings" where the value of life is higher. Always keep that in mind.

Otherwise, even if we're not talking about highly trained knights or seasoned veterans, even if we're only talking about peasants taking up arms, the lord still at a minimum stands to lose the value of their production. Even in the case of specifically allocated fighting men, the value of what they otherwise would have produced has to be added to the cost of any training investment.

A good quick-and-dirty rule of thumb is to assume an adult's "capital value" is about 10 times their annual production based on the present discounted value of future productivity. For specifically trained fighting men, this figure could be as high as 20x rather than 10x.

It's also worth noting that on the eve of the industrial revolution, still during the pre-modern age but after the invention of life insurance, that a 20 yr old paid the same rate as a 40 yr old. This is because in a "harsh" setting, living to age 40 indicated that individual was especially good at surviving the dangers of the world and thus was expected to live as many additional years as an average 20 yr old.

Now if you assume a boy labors as a man starting at the age of 10, that means a 40 year old has 30 years of experience while a 20 yr old has only 10. If the nature of his work is such that strength of body is more relevant than experience, the two men are about equally productive. The 20 yr old has a slight advantage in terms of physique but the 40 yr old has a slight advantage in terms of experience. However, if the nature of work is more experience-sensitive, the life of a 40 yr old could be worth three times that of a 20 yr old.

So you might say an irregular is worth 10x regardless of age, a soldier is worth 15-20x based on age (maybe 0.25 x Age +10), and an officer worth 20x-60x (2 x Age -20). These figures are relative to one year's production of an average common laborer.

The next thing would be to consider the value of what it's being compared to--like a tire. In a post-apocalyptic setting where tires are common enough that people depend on their use but society lacks the capital to produce them in a man's entire lifetime worth of work, then, yeah, it might make sense for tires to be worth more than a man. IF there are no suitable alternatives that can be produced with the available technology, skill, and tools.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;881787would combat-ready adults really be as expendable in harsh settings as we often treat them? Does that make sense sociologically and in terms of maintaining stuff like territory and a power base?

Why not? It works for orcs and goblins, and the only thing that separates us from them are a few days of hunger.

For all its worth, I think that in case of post-apocalyptic scenarios/settings the only reasonable way for any community/tribe is to treat its people as "assets". The more they are useful and harder to replace, the less expandable they are.

Immortal Joe from Fury Road probably went exactly this way. He recognized all those albino guys as expandable, created some ragtag philosophy for them, fed them bullshit and the result was an army of expandable berserkers that weren't only willing, but also eager to die.

btw: I fully believe that instead of diCaprio it was Tom Hardy that should get Oscar for his role in The Revenant & that there's no reason to call Fury Road "another installment of Mad Max". Witness me. :cool:

Quote from: nDervish;881928Cancers generally don't affect young children, so I don't see how "high rate of cancer-related mortality" implies "infant mortality is over the top".  I assume that "women are dying even more" is meant to refer to deaths in childbirth, which, again, would not be directly increased by cancer rates.

It means that your living conditions are abysmal, though. Which, to me, correlatespretty well with high infant mortality. Also, note that I didn't say there's a direct link, but a strong likelihood is good enough for me.

BX, and to an extent AD&D and probably OD&D, have systems laid down for both NPCs baulking at being used as cannon fodder. And for your rep and chance of hiring anyone else dropping because of it.

How expendable is anyone in a campaign? As expendable as the DM and PCs allow. Some will treat them as meat shields and expendable resources. Others treat them as people they do not want to lose.

Ive had players who treated NPCs as just numbers on a sheet of paper. Utterly expendable. And I've had players in tears at the loss of NPCs. As usual. Yep. Varies wildly like everything else.

Personally as a player I do not enjoy at all sending NPCs to their very possible doom. (Unless I dont like them.:enworld:) Kefra and Daern are about the polar opposites. Kefra is though more pragmatic about it. This has to be done and losses are likely to occur. At other times she is not. Life is cheap, especially someone elses. Jan, in true orc fashion, will connect with some and totally not with others.

How the DM presents the NPCs too is a big factor. Its harder to connect with "Human Fighter level 2. Armed with short sword."

Quote from: JesterRaiin;882230Immortal Joe

Given how careful you seem to have been with HTML tags, I can only assume the 'l' is bolded on purpose. In which case, I must point out: it's totally Immortan as evidenced by the credits.

As stupid as that may or may not be.

Ya, again, I don't have a big problem with dying brainwashed berzerker minions, but the way they were used is portrayed as just cool and effective, when it seems to me they are flashy but highly impractical:

* A guy on a tall bendy pole seems unlikely to do much but fall off and die, especially if you have to turn your card while you're going fast and he's up there. It would mess with the car's balance and reduce it's maneuverability at speed. If an opponent is actually worried someone in the bendy pole corps might actually do something dangerous, they're a complete sitting duck.

* If I had people willing to join the bendy-pole korps, I would rather train them to act from passenger seat, sideboards, rear-end or roof positions, using guns, pole weapons, thrown weapons, and/or grappling hooks or ice axes and jumping from the car, or maybe at most pole-vaulting from the car on a shorter pole, but not hanging out dwanging back and forth way up in the air.

* One mouthful of gasoline spat into an air intake seems likely to just throw the engine off, and not accomplish much if any positive effect. People on the hood also  block driver visibility. The only good thing I can think of about this tactic, is that if the enemy shoots at you, the guy's body may act as cover for the driver, though if he bleeds on the windshield, that's not good.

* The motorcyle-jump molotov cocktail korps is similarly spectacular but silly. They're mainly risking crashing, limiting where they attack to a prepared position, and making their aim more difficult. They would probably be more effective just driving near and tossing their fire bombs. If they have that much skill, the flying tactic would at least have the benefit of making it harder to just shoot them, but for some reason the supposedly-brilliant leader of the truck doesn't have anyone use the gun stockpile until much later.

* The flamethrower guitar guy... ok he's a nice spectacular standard-bearer / band type. But portraying him as a serious combat weapon, held in reserve till the end ... does that make any sense?

* The pursuit has guns and vehicles that can catch the truck, and the Bullet King (?) has ranged explosive weapons, but they don't use effective weapons until much later, for no apparent good reason. How about driving up to get line of fire on the truck cab, and shooting it, early on?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;881787Now of course Fury Road is over the top, and this exchange was humorous, but it did make me wonder: would combat-ready adults really be as expendable in harsh settings as we often treat them? Does that make sense sociologically and in terms of maintaining stuff like territory and a power base?

If you shoot the tyres out then the vehicle could crash, losing the tyres, vehicles and its contents, all valuable resources.

You've got plenty of mad polevaulters, it's a status thing and there is a queue of people wanting to become mad polevaulters. They can also  take the vehicle without crashing it, which is a big bonus.

Generally, where people are an expendable resource, they will be expended without much thought. The scene in Blackadder Goes Forth where the generals brush aside the soldier miniatures as part of the battle is probably not so far from the truth. The higher up you get the less involved you are with actual people and the more removed you get, so the more you concentrate on tactics and the more expendable the soldiers.

Quote from: Lunamancer;882150In some sense, fighting men are more expendable in modern warfare than pre-modern warfare. This is due to the army sizes. Because of this, wars can actually be bloodier in "less harsh settings" where the value of life is higher. Always keep that in mind.

It isn't the size of the army. It is that the king isn't paying for war out of his own pocket. The aristocracy and liquid funds were more of a limit on the power of kings than mass media suggests. Since governments now run on Other People's Money, there's no economic incentive not to treat troops as disposable. (Same cite.)

Quote from: Skarg;882290* The motorcyle-jump molotov cocktail korps is similarly spectacular but silly. They're mainly risking crashing, limiting where they attack to a prepared position, and making their aim more difficult. They would probably be more effective just driving near and tossing their fire bombs.

Or just stopping their motorcycle at one of those prepared positions so they could just throw their Molotov cocktails without having to drive or jump their motorcycle.

This movie sounds like an extended monster truck ralley commercial.

I thought it hard to emotionally sustain entertainment from such for 30 seconds. But to do so for an entire feature film sounds exhausting — or comical.

Quote from: Tod13;882310It isn't the size of the army. It is that the king isn't paying for war out of his own pocket. The aristocracy and liquid funds were more of a limit on the power of kings than mass media suggests. Since governments now run on Other People's Money, there's no economic incentive not to treat troops as disposable. (Same cite.)

The source you cite is one I'm familiar with and believe it whole-heartedly. I didn't feel the need to go into details, but surely you are aware that forced conscription doesn't work as well without democracy. That leads to the larger army sizes. I don't disagree with what you say, except that it is the army size (which, yeah, is more affordable on other peoples money) is the more proximate cause. Hans Hoppe himself would certainly not deny the diminishing marginal utility of each soldier as you expand the army.

Quote from: Opaopajr;882373This movie sounds like an extended monster truck ralley commercial.

I thought it hard to emotionally sustain entertainment from such for 30 seconds. But to do so for an entire feature film sounds exhausting — or comical.

That wouldn't do it justice. It's an action film with all what that entails of over the top stunts and violence, and it is also a very well done and different take on the genre. It has more heart and more to say than many B-movies, and frankly that makes it better than most.

Quote from: Sytthas;882282it's totally Immortan as evidenced by the credits.

That's vile, loathsome, feminist propaganda. There's only one Joe, and he is Immortal! Until the end of the movie, that is.

Just joking. I'm aware about "Immortanity". I simply prefer it the correct way.