Quote from: Lunamancer;882381The 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.

I guess when I trace things back to their root, to me, the root is primarily the use of other people's money (that is, democracy) to pay for wars, combined with secondarily, the cheapness of soldiers due to advances in technology (you now hand an AK to a 12 year old instead of train a knight for 10 years).

I'm willing to call it a chicken-and-egg discussion and just move on though.

Quote from: Bren;882362Or 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.

Well yes, exactly. Or just having some rocks or a few logs or something that they can drop in place that would stop anything including a large truck.

Similarly, the pursuit could have had a spike strip or any other obstacle that could be strung between two cars, or dragged behind one. Drive ahead of the truck and get it to drive through the entanglement. Very simple, low-tech, requiring only mundane resources, effective.

Quote from: Skarg;882556Well yes, exactly. Or just having some rocks or a few logs or something that they can drop in place that would stop anything including a large truck.

Similarly, the pursuit could have had a spike strip or any other obstacle that could be strung between two cars, or dragged behind one. Drive ahead of the truck and get it to drive through the entanglement. Very simple, low-tech, requiring only mundane resources, effective.

But not SPECTACULAR!!!!

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.

Pretty much.

The ancestor film, The Road Warrior, has a spectacular monster truck chase scene, in which the tactics and effects make a fair amount of sense. About 100-1000 times as much sense as Fury Road, to me. So I was hoping for something sort of like that (and also like the earlier car-only action, which Fury Road's version ends frustratingly in like 15 seconds). So that's also why I balked so much, since I'd rather just re-watch The Road Warrior.

Quote from: Bren;882561But not SPECTACULAR!!!!

Hehe, that does seem to be the driving logic...

But what bugs me is that even practical and realistic tactics can also be spectacular. The Road Warrior's truck battle was pretty spectacular... moreso, to me, because I was able to keep believing in it, since my experience wasn't reduced to "ok, what's the next bit of spectacular nonsense?"

Like, they could have carried great big empty metal balls with spikes at the end of ropes, driven ahead of the trucks and then released them and then veered side to side to have the balls flying into the truck. That could have both looked awesome, savage, and extreme, and been a reasonable tactic. The balls could even have a bunch of gasoline in them and so be flaming.

Quote from: Skarg;882568Like, they could have carried great big empty metal balls with spikes at the end of ropes, driven ahead of the trucks and then released them and then veered side to side to have the balls flying into the truck. That could have both looked awesome, savage, and extreme, and been a reasonable tactic. The balls could even have a bunch of gasoline in them and so be flaming.

Flaming spiked balls sounds great!. But for it to be Spectacular! it needs to have at least one guy with a Mohawk and multiple piercings riding on the ball to steer it.

Quote from: Bren;882597Flaming spiked balls sounds great!..

Last time somebody said that to me we ended up married...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;882601Last time somebody said that to me we ended up married...

 Sorry big boy, I don't have piercings, I don't wear a Mohawk, and I'm already spoken for.

Soo... if Zoolander and original Mad Max had a baby, and it was written by Hallmark (or whoever wrote the Notebook)?

Are there any silk trapeze Wuxia combats on the flaming vehicles? That too would look Spectacular!

(If it's that camp, I might just have to watch it. That and it just won several Oscars, so you know it'll be required viewing to maintain Western cultural literacy, like anything Spielberg. But I'm so lazy and there's so many surrealist art house flicks to catch up on...)

Quote from: Skarg;882290Ya, 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:

....

* 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?

First of all the movie wasn't supposed to make sense.  It was supposed to be beautiful.  And it was. You all know that though.

 Consider a different idea.  Imortaium Joe isn't stupid.  He wants to stay inpower.  He has enough power.  He has all the power he can handle.  He also has teanaged male terminal berserkers.   Lots of them.  If he doesn't find something to do with them, they are going to steal his whiskey and women.  His berserkers aren't a resource to be sheepherded they are a threat to be carefully blead off.  

If he wins battles. He will gain more power more territory which upsets the status quo.   Again not good.  More effective battle tactics are not in his interest.  But he has to do something or his berserkers will think they can run
His battles better than him.  So pole vaulters (they are also for stealing valuable women with out hurting them) and gas spitters.  

The rock wagon is for moral.  It makes long chases fun and exciting.  

Basically imortium joe had to provide his teenaged male terminal berserkers with the same feeling we had when we walked out of the theatre, or they get bored of him and kill him/take his stuff.

Marginal societies don't tend to consciously think too much about logistics.   They do tend to think an awful lot about resources.  And of course their leaders think about retaining power; kill too many of your people and you're likely to be ousted.   So the whole formula becomes a balance of trying to obtain the most resources while killing the least people.  It's why so many marginal societies don't engage in warfare as much as banditry.

Quote from: Opaopajr;882668... it just won several Oscars, so you know it'll be required viewing to maintain Western cultural literacy...

I don't think the Oscars have meant that much in a long time. Just look through the list of recipients and count how many of them never come up in conversations or get referenced anymore.

They're probably going to mean even less now that quotas are going to be implemented (and I say that as someone who thinks Spike Lee was robbed more than once).

Remember that the Academy members are not obliged to watch the films they're voting about.

Just let that sink in. It explains a lot.

... but the office cooler. And human resources!...

I'm gonna have to bring my own bottled water. No reindeer games for me.

Quote from: Headless;882670First of all the movie wasn't supposed to make sense.  It was supposed to be beautiful.  And it was. You all know that though.

Things can be beautiful AND make sense, though. Seems like far too much modern media is senseless and/or anti-making-sense.

I start feeling a social duty to point out that pointlessly stupid stuff is pointlessly stupid, all the time, because there is so much that is pointlessly stupid, and so little noticing that it is pointlessly stupid.

QuoteConsider a different idea.  Imortaium Joe isn't stupid.  He wants to stay inpower.  He has enough power.  He has all the power he can handle.  He also has teanaged male terminal berserkers.   Lots of them.  If he doesn't find something to do with them, they are going to steal his whiskey and women.  His berserkers aren't a resource to be sheepherded they are a threat to be carefully blead off.  

If he wins battles. He will gain more power more territory which upsets the status quo.   Again not good.  More effective battle tactics are not in his interest.  But he has to do something or his berserkers will think they can run
His battles better than him.  So pole vaulters (they are also for stealing valuable women with out hurting them) and gas spitters.  

The rock wagon is for moral.  It makes long chases fun and exciting.  

Basically imortium joe had to provide his teenaged male terminal berserkers with the same feeling we had when we walked out of the theatre, or they get bored of him and kill him/take his stuff.

Yes, that could be an interesting perverted way to make sense of that. Can't really interpret it that way since Imortan Joe instead commits himself to the death, too, and the bike bandits don't have much reason to do what they do, and the Bullet King's actions also make little/no apparent sense.