The Cobra Commander Dialogues: III.I.7

Originally posted on Atlas Shrugged: Natural Capital.

John Galt: Why didn’t you want to ride over in the car with us?
Cobra Commander: You see that would involve spending more time with you and Dagny, so I believe you’ve answered your own question.
John Galt: I don’t even know how you found parts out here to modify that tractor into a giant snake head that belches fire.
Cobra Commander: You have your talents, and I have mine. Anyway, who was that woman we passed on the way here?
John Galt: Oh she’s some crazy person who thinks she’s written this whole world we live in, we let her live here kind of as a joke.
Cobra Commander: Wait she thinks she’s the author of the universe? Because, and I hate to admit I was observant enough to notice this, I’m pretty sure she was checking you out.
John Galt: Yes but I’m obviously way out of her league.
Cobra Commander: Because she’s insane?
John Galt: No, because she’s just generally pathetic. I mean she’s a writer! A criminally under-appreciated writer whose keen insight into the human mind is wholly misunderstood by a world that can’t accept her genius truths about the human condition, but a writer none the less.
Cobra Commander: With how hard you’re shilling her I’d half expect she did write you into existence, especially with how poorly conceived and slapdash this world is in general. But I’d figure any god that created a world as hollow and devoid of logic or reason as this one, clearly crafted with very non meticulous hands for the sole purpose of preaching an under-cooked and bizarrely nonsensical ethos would at least be someone so self centered they’d not write themselves in as someone to be pitied.
John Galt: Of course! I mean a person like that would have to have unspeakably gargantuan martyr issues coupled with a massive inferiority superiority complex. Why considering such a creator would be almost completely counter to the ethics espoused in the eat the poor and weak morality we advocate it’d cause someone to completely question her ability to lecture on behalf of such a system. Thankfully for us she’s just some crazy lady!
Cobra Commander: Well it’s not like your idiotic worldview needs any more holes in it anyway. And wait, was she fishing?
John Galt: For the entire community, yes.
Cobra Commander: But she doesn’t have any vehicle.
John Galt: You don’t need a car to fish! She’s got a battery of fishing rods.
Cobra Commander: Yeah but to transport fish so that they remain fresh you keep them in water or on ice. Also ‘battery’ is an odd choice of words there, usually you use ‘battery’ to describe stuff that’s hooked up together.
John Galt: Oh I know, just felt like using it for some reason. But so what? She can just carry them around.
Cobra Commander: De pending on what she’s fishing for those fish could weigh like… one to ten pounds each, and be quite cumbersome.
John Galt: Well maybe she just doesn’t catch that many fish in a day.
Cobra Commander: Well see that’s a problem. Either she catches few fish, and then doesn’t really supply enough for the community. Or she catches a lot of fish, but doesn’t seem to have any way to get them to the market.
John Galt: Well maybe she borrows the tractor.
Cobra Commander: Not anymore she doesn’t! Also what the heck is there a guy out there cutting down trees by himself?
John Galt: Yeah, so? Self sufficient Ted Nielsen, our lumberjack!
Cobra Commander: How in the… Okay forget the fish thing, I mean… that seems like it’s problematic but on the boundary of the believable but this is just insane!
John Galt: Why cutting down a tree is the easiest thing in the world! Just swing an axe and down it goes!
Cobra Commander: How have you idiots not all killed yourselves yet? Logging requires… well a sharp division of labor. You’re capitalists you should know this!
John Galt: Nah, old Ted Nielsen is strong as twenty men, he can handle it himself.
Cobra Commander: It’s not a question of strength! How the heck is Ted getting that tree out of the forest!?
John Galt: Well we used to have a super powerful tractor…
Cobra Commander: This tractor, even with my improvements, isn’t getting that tree out of the forest. It’s in the middle of a heavily wooded area!
John Galt: Right, you find trees in the forest.
Cobra Commander: Lumber crews find trees in the forest, CREWS. They usually set up full logging camps to clear out, with safety lookouts and men who climb trees to cut off their tops so that they can use rigging to ensure that newly culled trees fall in the right direction! And then they load up like dozens of logs into giant wheeled wagons to pull them out on cleared roads! Roads they cleared BEFORE they went in to the middle of the woods.
John Galt: Well… maybe he just… I think they can move trees on water? Maybe there’s a river?
Cobra Commander: Well this Ted has to then somehow get that tree to a river, and then log roll it which is insanely dangerous especially without help or support, to an already built flume and sawmill.
John Galt: Yes I’m just going to say we have that because I don’t think you’re going to care enough to check.
Cobra Commander: Right now you’re lucky that my disdain for you is outweighing my hatred.