[HN Gopher] The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland
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The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland
Author : ecliptik
Score : 22 points
Date : 2025-05-24 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (acoup.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (acoup.blog)
| johnea wrote:
| As the article's first comment states, and what was my first
| criticism after seeing Madd Max years ago: Who's refining the
| gas?
|
| Let's just call it what it is: The whole premise is stupid, and
| was the biggest detractor from "suspension of disbelief" while
| watching the movie.
|
| This is the same stupidity that's causing rural residents to
| shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to adopt
| electrification.
|
| There is NO other technology that allows the level of technical
| autonomy, post-apocalyptic or otherwise, that is afforded by
| electricity.
|
| People with rural acres could be supporting ALL of their own
| residential and agricultural energy consumption with onsite
| electrical generation. Instead, due to culture war side taking,
| they hobble themselves to be ever dependent on the petro-
| extraction and refinement industries.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Water world at least had some tanker to explain where all the
| gasoline were coming from.
|
| Mad Max was a dystopian movie in a dysfunctional state. I don't
| know how the exaggerated view of it became the franchise.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Because it looks cool.
|
| There's a scene in Fury Road where a muscle car type vehicle
| blows up in such a way that it's propelled high up into the
| air, and then _blows up again_ in mid-air. The physics to
| make this possible exist only in Hollywood, but hey, this way
| you get two pretty explosions.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| I go to the movies for physics-defying aesthetically
| overwhelming explosions. For all-too-physics bound and far
| scarier crashes, I drive the Garden State Parkway.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Shits so fun is why
| lurk2 wrote:
| > Instead, due to culture war side taking, they hobble
| themselves to be ever dependent on the petro-extraction and
| refinement industries.
|
| The majority of the content I see in this space is
| overwhelmingly supportive of rolling your own grid. The point
| isn't to reject electrification as a technology, but to reduce
| or eliminate reliance upon the electrical grid. A lot of
| homesteaders operate wood boilers for heat simply because it's
| cheaper, but the truck-driving redneck you're envisioning lost
| faith in industrial society a long time ago.
| nine_k wrote:
| It's a funny position to have lost faith in the industrial
| society and drive a truck that depends on it heavily for
| spare parts and daily fuel. I bet they also watch TV a lot.
|
| A horse-drawn buggy would be a consistent (and sustainable)
| choice, instead of a truck. Preppers and rednecks are quite
| distinct though.
| awnird wrote:
| The gas was being refined from crude oil in Gas Town. This was
| explained explicitly in both modern Mad Max movies, but in
| fairness I haven't seen the old ones.
| ivape wrote:
| You can't believe they just had a large amount of oil left over
| from the apocalypse that could sustain a few hundred thousand
| people? It's just a matter of cartelling it and controlling the
| supply.
|
| If an apocalypse happened, believe it or not, the few remnants
| of Earth would have all the world's knowledge via an LLM. How
| could that be? Wasn't everything destroyed? Nope.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The Miocene Arrow is an interesting post apocalyptic novel that
| takes this problem seriously. In it a neofeudal society is
| oriented around producing surplus grain and processing it into
| alcohol for small diesel-powered airplanes, maintained in small
| numbers at vast expense by an aristocratic class as both symbol
| and means of enforcing their dominance. Entire hereditary craft
| guilds for all the support and subskills necessary to keep them
| running etc. Sort of analogous to warhorses in premodern europe
| I guess. Solid book, the first one in the series is interesting
| too but based in a different setting.
| Animats wrote:
| If you like this sort of analysis, read The Angry Staff
| Officer.[1] That blog is written by a serving Army officer. He
| and his buddies analyze Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and even
| Barbie from the perspective of people who do this as their day
| job.
|
| [1] https://angrystaffofficer.com/
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