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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2012-10-10, 14:59

I may be on a panel to discuss zombies later this month.

The thing is: I don't LIKE zombie movies so I don't watch a lot of zombie movies.

Why do you like zombies?

I'm trying to understand the attraction.

Several friends have "a plan" for the "zombie apocalypse".

Do any of YOU have one of these "plans"?

Why? (not just "because it's fun")

Where's the thrill?

I've read that it's an amygdala-driven response in our brains; a direct connection to primal emotions and responses.

I think that's in there, but that it's a higher-order reaction - a fear of the perversion of peace and order - an inbuilt memory of the horror of war and conflict and all the terrible things that people do to each other in great numbers.

Like what happened in Rwanda.

Genocide.

Being hunted by human-shaped creatures that do not behave in socially acceptable ways.

--

Put me hip to the facts, jack.



...

Steve Jobs ate my cat's watermelon.
Captain Drew on Twitter
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Kraetos
Lovable Bastard
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Boston-ish
 
2012-10-10, 15:47

I have a zombie apocalypse plan. My roommates like weapons so we have several swords and knives. We use the swords to make our way to the police station down the road, which is also across from the fallout shelter.

Yes, I live in an area with ideal defenses against a zombiepocalypse. The rest of you probably won't be so lucky

But yeah, we play zombie games and make up zombie escape plans because it's fun. Rest assured, if it actually happened, I'm sure the novelty would wear off quite rapidly.

Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end.
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Yontsey
*AD SPACE FOR SALE*
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Cleveland-ish, OH
 
2012-10-10, 15:56

I recently quit smoking and started running again encase this scenario happens.
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2012-10-10, 16:06

My special interest housing floor asks for your plan to survive the zombie apocalypse as one of our membership questions.
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chucker
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: near Bremen, Germany
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2012-10-10, 16:57

Zombie is a decent song. Zombies as a meme are kinda dumb.
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Chinney
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
 
2012-10-10, 18:20

I think that some thought should be given to reorienting our thinking and recognizing a 'zombpocalypse' for what it is, as a commercial opportunity. Basically, you would have a whole swath of the population with brand new priorities and entirely different needs from those being met right now . Who will be serving the zombie market when it becomes a reality? Get in on the ground floor and the possibilities for growth could be considerable. A 'zombpocalypse' should not in any way be seen as a barrier to Getting America Working Again.

When there's an eel in the lake that's as long as a snake that's a moray.
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Wrao
Yarp
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
 
2012-10-10, 18:53

Survivalist fantasies are always fun I think because anyone who has them takes the basic assumption that they _will_ survive as a given and can then create fanciful scenarios about why they will to flesh that out, tweaking them as necessary for when holes or weaknesses are pointed out. You don't really need zombies, but I think zombies work pretty well for people because of all of the various apocalyptic/survival scenarios one can dream up, it is one that is perhaps the easiest to grasp. Nuclear apocalypse(or natural disaster apocalypses for that matter), for instance, involves scary concepts like radiation, fallout, mutation, cancer and a feeling of even if you survive, you're just walking dead. Alien invasion apocalypse tends to require a sufficiently advanced alien race that one-on-one can and will obliterate you more effectively than you can obliterate it. Robot apocalypse is I think the closest to zombie apocalypse but is also more challenging if you're talking about Terminator-style ultimate death machines. Meanwhile, things like peak oil or global economic collapse apocalypses aren't really any fun because there is far too much ambiguity about who the 'enemy' is.

Zombies, against all of those, give you a singular 'bad guy' that everyone can and will fight against, that isn't too fast, too smart or too well resourced. That you have a reasonable chance at defeating on your own with minimal(and often specifically primitive) armaments. Their primary strength is resilience and overwhelming quantity, both of which are 'manageable' on a smaller scale. That they are humanoid probably doesn't hurt, that 'zombie' can be sort of a stand-in/metaphor for 'stupid people' probably doesn't hurt either. But mostly, it provides a nearly perfect platform for wanton and excessive ultraviolence, provisioning, outfitting, logistics with fewer of the 'harsh realities' that the aforementioned apocalyptic scenarios carry.

The biggest thing, I think, that people neglect when they are planning their Zombie apocalypse scenarios are things like what happens when you make it to mom's house and she's already turned, or what happens when your best friend gets your girlfriend bitten, and basically every other scenario involving the hard choices you'd have to make when the zombies are actually people you know. But as an autonomous and faceless mass of 'enemy' they otherwise are pretty much ideal.

(Well, I guess no one really thinks about the smell either, or the disgusting fleshy corpse-y aspects either)


Disclaimer: I don't really care too much for Zombies or watch zombie movies, but it's become such a pop culture beacon/meme/thing that you kind of can't avoid it.

Disclaimer 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q76UngzHX5Y
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Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2012-10-10, 19:58

My ex used to make his own bullets as a survivalist strategy. Could be a good thing to learn for all manner of future scenarios. The atl-atl might be useful as well. I mean, the home-made bullets and atl-atl for real, not for zombie possibilities.
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gsxrboy
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
 
2012-10-10, 23:03

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
Put me hip to the facts, jack.

Straight from your own government

http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmat...ie-apocalypse/
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El Gallo
Formerly “MumboJumbo”
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
 
2012-10-11, 05:49

Zombies are popular because they are cheap and easy to do in terms of story telling, filming, etc. However much like bacon as a meme, they've become overdone. They are supposed to be a rare treat, not a condiment you sprinkle over everything all day.
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turbulentfurball
Right Honourable Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Québec
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2012-10-11, 09:21

I've been thinking about a Zombie Steve Jobs Halloween costume. Too soon?
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murbot
Hoonigan
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Canada
 
2012-10-11, 10:46

Quote:
Originally Posted by El Gallo View Post
However much like bacon as a meme, they've become overdone. They are supposed to be a rare treat, not a condiment you sprinkle over everything all day.
Blasphemy!!

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FFL
Fishhead Family Reunited
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Slightly Off Center
 
2012-10-11, 12:39

Quote:
Originally Posted by murbot View Post
Blasphemy!!

You know you need this:




http://www.zazzle.com/zombies_bacon_...70331124478302
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turbulentfurball
Right Honourable Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Québec
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2012-10-11, 14:06

In honour of this thread I am watching Zombieland on Netflix.
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-10-11, 14:20

My theory:

1) The Zombie Apocalypse planning must be real because Ted Nugent and his M4-toting hottie of a wife were talking about it on their show. If Ted is preparing for zombies, they must be a threat as perceived by the assault rifle owning masses in northern Michigan and other areas cut off from the rest of humanity.

2) There's this AMC show on about a bunch of people who survive the zombi-lypse; it's very popular. Life imitating art.

2a) We're a few weeks from Halloween when more people are prone to thinking and talking about the finer points of zombieism.

3) Preparing an escape plan, bunkers, etc to survive a zombie attack makes you at least 67% more idiotic than people making plans and bunkers to escape real live (disgruntled, greedy, hungry) humans when the world economy goes in the toilet.

In summation, zombies are people too and deserve the same rights and privileges as the rest of us, short of eating and/or infecting other people (which is a rights infringement). Further, zombies are lousy at parties. (It's the smell... believe me, if there were a real zombie uprising, they would have a hard time sneaking up on people, as the stench would peel the paint off your walls -- and that's when they're still a block away.)


...into the light of a dark black night.

Last edited by Moogs : 2012-10-11 at 14:33.
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2012-10-11, 14:41

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
3) Preparing an escape plan, bunkers, etc to survive a zombie attack makes you at least 67% more idiotic than people making plans and bunkers to escape real live (disgruntled, greedy, hungry) humans when the world economy goes in the toilet.[/IMG]
Wait... there's a difference? One may look scarier than the other (I'll leave it to others to decide which is which ), but the brain capacity is about the same imo.

So it goes.
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2012-10-11, 14:44

Not really a huge zombie fan, myself. I loved 28 Days Later and like enough of the early stuff (Romero) to appreciate it, but it's definitely not my go-to choice for a nice sit-down w/popcorn genre.

So it goes.
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FFL
Fishhead Family Reunited
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Slightly Off Center
 
2012-10-11, 14:49



http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...-zombies-ahead
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2012-10-11, 14:59



The zombehpocolypse is upon us, and we give it its own show.

This is the way the world ends.

So it goes.

Last edited by 709 : 2012-10-11 at 18:38.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2012-10-11, 16:12

Not with a bang but a boo boo?


...
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2012-10-11, 18:44

Exactly.

Although, she'd feed a family of four for a month or so I reckon. So there's that. So after shit goes down... yay for fat rednecks? I knew there was a reason they existed.

So it goes.
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2012-10-11, 22:33

Quote:
Originally Posted by 709 View Post
Wait... there's a difference? One may look scarier than the other (I'll leave it to others to decide which is which ), but the brain capacity is about the same imo.
My favorite is the guy who is barely hacking a middle income, has a small home, wife, couple kids... goes and drops $50K on a plot of land and shipping-container-turned-underground bunker... complete with access roads and electric off the main highway. Because no one will ever find that bulldozed dirt road to your bunker!

Somehow the concept of "we'll wait you out" never enters the mind of these people. You'd be better off staying in your house, barring the windows and doors and having a gun fight out the upstairs windows / roof. At least then you have a 15, 20% chance of surviving. Stow yourself away in a bunker and you've basically cornered yourself and your whole family with only one way out. And if they can figure out a way to shut your vents / air flow system, you're hosed.

"Oh I got that covered Moogs... see we got this security camera outside, so we'll know their every move."


...into the light of a dark black night.
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