Well, King of Ferrets, Inquisitive Raven, and I watched it and we can’t un-watch it. We paused at various spots to comment while I recorded the audio. I’ll eventually get around to editing, including taking out our silences, whether awkward or thoughtful.
One point I raised in the conversation was the stealing of cars, since there were many in the movie with “don’t take” written on them. Given that gas went up to $40 per gallon in the movie, it left me wondering: Who would benefit from auto theft? Where would the black market demand come from? On the other hand, I could understand selling them for scrap metal. Then my brother, who is a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, enlightened me to another theft motive and the flaw in my thinking.
I was thinking of a car as a durable good. I wasn’t thinking like a GTA player. To a GTA player, a car is a disposable good. Or a one-time service. You steal a car, drive it to your destination, hop out, and give precisely zero fucks as it coasts off a cliff. Parking is strictly optional. You’re not responsible for gassing it up, so gas prices don’t affect your decision to steal it. Essentially, you’re stealing the energy stored in the gas tank, not the car itself.
The Bronze Blog 
Of course, this only works if there’s fuel in the tank and the car runs. There’s also something deeply weird about those signs. An awful lot of people would take them as an invitation to steal the vehicle, or if they can’t do that, rob it. I noticed that at least one of those cars was missing its tires.
True. The utility of attempting to hotwire a car for GTA-style transport would decline as they’re restricted to the wealthiest individuals, who can afford to gas them up.
The thing that struck me about the tire removal is, well, where’s the market demand for the tires? Fewer cars on the road means reduced demand for replacement parts. Unless they’re stealing the tires to burn for warmth or making undersized tire swings.
Alternatively, they’re semi-abandoned cars that ran out of gas. The owners presumably want to keep the car and leave the note to let the tow trucks know that one day they swear they’ll come back for it when they scrounge up gas money, rather than simply left them there as mega-litter.
You know, I’m thinking about Road Warrior, now. Post apocalyptic world, and yet everyone can gas up their cars to fight over a tanker truck, if I’m remembering the plot correctly.
I think it was more “we won’t let you sell your gas to anyone but us,” on the part of the bad guys. The long term plan being to force the village to surrender themselves and their well.
Hey BD, making any progress on the post-production? It’s been over a month.
Sorry, I’ve been busy with other things. I’ll try to get it done by this weekend.
So it’s almost two months since we had the Atlas Shrugged Part 2 viewing, and you still don’t have the edited discussion up yet. Am I going to have to keep poking you about that?
Also, if you’re interested, Daylight Atheism is doing an extended review of the book a la the Slacktivist Left Behind reviews. The index can be found here.
Sorry about the delays. I’ve had my mind on a lot of things. I’ll try to get on it this weekend.
That’s what you said the last time.
Yeah, I know. I’ve set aside time today for it.
Well, I managed to go the entire month of October without poking you about that transcript. Please consider this November’s poke. I’d offer to help with it, but with the holiday season coming up, I doubt I’ll have time. If you haven’t got it done by the New Year, I should have time then.
Well, it is now 2014. Are you making any progress on the transcript? Could you use some assistance?
Personally I’m as terrified as ever about starting my own blog. I wonder if there’s something in the water here, because just about everyone I know seems to lack the ability to go from “I want to do this” to “I’m actually doing this right now”, including me.
I’ve felt the same thing, Jaguar. My WordPress account keeps urging me to start my own blog, but I don’t know.
Since I began haunting a number of sceptical blogs (most gained from the Skeptic’s Dictionary ‘Skeptical Sites’ section but many I picked up, recommended by such blogs), I’ve found a good vent for my thoughts, whatever they may be, especially after reading a great post from a host that I am a fan of.
Earlier today I thought again of creating my own blog, which led to more thought about the kind of style and writing I might use to create the kind of blog that I want to, also the kind of people that may one day want to comment on.
It’s a roll of the dice, i’ll no doubt get a satisfaction from venting my views on my own blog. I’m not sure how long before I do it, we’ll see.