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Dilbert cartoon on fuel efficient cars

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by jkash, Feb 19, 2006.

  1. jkash

    jkash Member

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    Is this pro or against fuel efficient cars?

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  2. jbarnhart

    jbarnhart New Member

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    Against. He argues that lowering our imports of oil will make it easier for third-world countries to expand their economies, thus funding more terrorism. I think Dogbert is over-thinking this. Less oil consumption is good for the U.S. IMHO.
     
  3. JackDodge

    JackDodge Gold Member

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    Neither, exactly. It's a Dilbert answer to the idea that reducing our usage of oil would actually put the terrorists out of business. Oil being a fungible, or interchangeable, commodity. That if the U.S. bought less oil then, say, China would buy it instead of us. That's true. Until China started buying hybrids en masse. Then someone else would buy it and yada yada yada and the terrorists would still have lots of money to buy bomb making materials and con their young people to blow themselves up. It's just one issue of the myriad sideshows that make up the hybrid phenomenon. Of course, when the middle east undergoes its next instability and the price of oil shoots up to ridiculous levels, it'll cost hybrid owners less to fill up than it will for guzzlers and China will have to pay the same high prices but that's a different sideshow. I would expect nothing less of Scott Adams, actually. :)
     
  4. joelparks

    joelparks New Member

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    Heh. Scott Adams is a genius.

    I think he's trying to say, buy the most fuel-efficient car you can and then ride your bike everywhere possible.
     
  5. Sufferin' Prius Envy

    Sufferin' Prius Envy Platinum Member

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    Oil is fungible, but cars are definitely not fungible.
    I'll keep my Prius, Thank-You. :p
     
  6. Spunky

    Spunky New Member

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    If America reduced it's gas consumption by 10% and kept going, we could thumb our noses at oil producers and earn another negociating chip.

    Besides, lower emissions are lower emissions.
     
  7. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    It's almost the same arguement made by my Suburban-driving coworker who thanked me for lowering the demand for - and therefore the price of - his gasoline.
     
  8. daniel

    daniel Cat Lovers Against the Bomb

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    I don't think it's a statement at all. I think it's just a cartoon, and a very funny one at that. I like Dilbert.

    However, Dogbert is wrong this time. Dilbert's "statement" in buying a more fuel-efficient car is not that he fails to understand the meaning of "fungible," it's that he wants to spend less on gas, thereby having more money available for something else. But he lets Dogbert draw him into an argument on Dogbert's terms. Dogbert is smarter than Dilbert. But again, not smart enough, because Dogbert does not seem to understand the elasticity of demand. All of which contributes to the humor of the cartoon. Neither Dilbert nor Dogbert is a genius, but Scott Adams is.
     
  9. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    My wife caught me offguard as I came down the steps heading straight for the coffee pot.

    "Hey, what's 'fungible' mean?"
    When no context came to mind I said, "I don't know."
    To which she exclaimed, "Exactly!"

    I had to read the cartoon to know what the heck she was talking about. Now that I think about it, without the underlying context of the cartoon to frame our initial three-line interaction, that exchange makes no sense whatsoever. An interestingly large number of our conversations go that way.
     
  10. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    Dogbert overlooks that buying Saudi oil and keeping troops in Saudi Arabia to protect access to that oil attracts the atttention of Shiite fundamentalists.
     
  11. JackDodge

    JackDodge Gold Member

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    Try working the word 'fungible' in to a sentence. It's one of those words that has little real-world application anyway so what good is it? One word that I really like is 'verisimilitude' and I very seldom have cause to use it in normal conversation. Fungible sounds like a disease.
     
  12. Jonnycat26

    Jonnycat26 New Member

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    Haven't american troops been withdrawn from Saudi Arabia?