How well would you cope in the Zombie Apocalypse?

[CavLancer]

From my understanding based on somewhat limited research on Saturday night TV with a few beers and some chips... oh hell where was I going with this?

Oh yes, zombies eventually decompose. (Yuck)

 

[Omega124]

From my understanding based on somewhat limited research on Saturday night TV with a few beers and some chips... oh hell where was I going with this?

Oh yes, zombies eventually decompose. (Yuck)

Hence waiting it out seems the best result. The only problem is finding a secure enough location and getting enough food and weapons to defend your position (Also probably some entertainment now that I think of it; don't want to get bored to death). After that just wait for the undead bodies to drop and you win.

 

[Mad Man]

In my best Morgan Freeman voice: I wish I could tell you that Mad Man fought the good fight, and the Zombies let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but the zombie apocalypse is no fairy-tale world. Things went on like that for awhile - zombie life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Mad Man would show up with fresh scratches and bites. The Zombies kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Mad Man - that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, the penguins would have got the best of him.

 

[Wondering Kid]

If I am in Lima when the whole thing happens, then I'll be royally screwed. Only in Lima there are 8.5-9 million inhabitants. And I live at the center of the city, which by day is one of the most crowded places in the whole country. Not like the peripheral districts of the capital are better places to be, those have the largest concentrations of inhabitants.

Only way to survive is by going solo, which means leaving everyone behind. Tough decision.

 

[CavLancer]

Once you get that first bite Mad, its over, you turn. Sorry, just the facts. A zombie bites you and you become their ilk, you are among them, you are zombified. At that point your days of thoughtful reflection are over, dreams and aspirations the toll of the turning. All you are is in need, the need to feed on the living. You are part of the problem pal, sorry. I'd drop your mindless undead infection infested hulk like a self destroying bad habit, nothing personal. Or faster, some bad habits aren't so easy to drop. Anyway you get the point, don't get bit. If you do get bit try to avoid getting shot in the head. Its really pretty simple.

Wondering, why would you abandon others of the really living, alive, non zombie undead sort? You do have to sleep. Nothing like having an amigo or three or a dozen that you can trust to watch your back while you are in dreamland being entertained by your sensuous dream senorita. If you are hunkered down waiting out the great zombie decomposition as Omega and I have determined will occur then one gun spitting out crucial head shots cannot compare to 5 or 10. Give me enough guys with enough guns and ammo and clear fields of fire and we'll become the worst nightmare the nightmarish zombies ever had. You think the zombies are a nightmare, you haven't seen this buckaroo with some steadfast amigos on a roll. Having a few hundred pounds of lead, a fuel source like a forest or a disused coal cellar still full of discarded dust and pieces, and a stack of boxes of dynamite from a quarry or mine and one guy could be making live rounds with spent brass while the others practice their marksmanship on the unliving brains of the undead. Problem solved.

I could sell tickets to this scenario.

 

[Tsoate]

In my best Morgan Freeman voice: I wish I could tell you that Mad Man fought the good fight, and the Zombies let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but the zombie apocalypse is no fairy-tale world. Things went on like that for awhile - zombie life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Mad Man would show up with fresh scratches and bites. The Zombies kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Mad Man - that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, the penguins would have got the best of him.

Haha, awesome!

 

[Borachio]

[Bold text added by me.]

Silly me.
I looked at the last sentence of the original post and figured that if you were one of the zombies, the author wouldn’t ask the question.

It's not an unreasonable thing for you to do, I'll admit.

However, given that there's something allegorical about zombies, and given the tendency of US citizens to reach for a gun as a solution to all threats, real or merely perceived, I find it quite interesting to consider how the 99% of the population who could manage to live peacefully in an urban environment, without suddenly going on a shooting rampage as these - what shall I call them - survivalists tend to imagine themselves doing.

Maybe I've not expressed this right. But hopefully you can follow my drift.

These ideas of zombies, vampires, etc don't just exist in a vacuum, I think. Maybe they represent something significant in the collective human psyche?

 

[CavLancer]

Survivalists, preppers and all that don't go on shooting rampages. In the event of a scenario where there are major shortages they arm themselves with the intent to defend their families and what supplies they've stored. Really those two are the same since without the supplies their families can't eat, in one of the many situations where the store shelves are emptied. To go on a "shooting rampage" is not only immoral but it defeats the purpose of looking after ones family.

One could carry this a bit further. Say that 99% who have done nothing to prepare all of a sudden find themselves and their families with nothing to eat. Do they just tell their wives, "sorry, looks like we're all going to starve", or do they go out hunting people who have prepared? How does a prepper manage this situation? A "shooting rampage"? No, by hiding, protecting their families by concealing themselves and their supplies. The 99% are the ones on the shooting rampage because they are the ones who want. The survivalists are hiding because they are the ones who have.

I hope to become a prepper someday. I understand the reasoning, just need to get it done.

Zombies exist out of sheer boredom and want of entertainment. One can't attach some high greater meaning here, or on most of what people do. Just something to do on a Saturday night in front of the tube.

 

[Omega124]

These ideas of zombies, vampires, etc don't just exist in a vacuum, I think. Maybe they represent something significant in the collective human psyche?

I feel that zombies can mean a lot of various things on the human psyche. I've heard various awnsers , but my favorite was a cracked article where they concluded that zombies were like how Democrats view Republicans. Dumb, mindless, gather in large hordes, destroy everything in their path, etc, etc. On the inverse, vampires were how Republicans viewed Democrats. Mooching off of other people's blood to live, preying on innocent women, using a beautiful image to hide a sinister motive, etc, etc. They also found that zombie movies tend to be more popular with a Republican in the White House, and vampire moves more popular with a Democrat. Since this a politcal article on Cracked, I feel this was trolling more than anything else, but I can see why they would say that.

Also from Cracked is a much more serious discussion of various modern monsters and what they represent in the human psyche. I love their dissection of the alien invasion trope in particular in the second one, but they spend time discussing zombies in both. Also, there's a screamer in the first one in the introduction, just a warning.


Link to video.

Link to video.

 

[Antilogic]

Zombie stories might have their origins in fears of densely packed urban spaces and alienation from a conformist society, but zombie survival fantasies have their origins in the racial holy war.

This is an interesting idea. And it's from a zombie thread, no less.

 

[IglooDame]

It's because losers fantasise about slaughtering minorities and urban types without any guilt.

I must not be a loser then, because I'm just as fine with slaughtering majorities and rural types. Really, static paper targets just aren't as much fun or adrenalin-pumping as ambulatory and vaguely threatening ones.

 

[Tsoate]

I was in a crash today, the adrenaline wasn't worth it trust me.

 

[CavLancer]

You okay?

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Survivalists, preppers and all that don't go on shooting rampages. In the event of a scenario where there are major shortages they arm themselves with the intent to defend their families and what supplies they've stored. Really those two are the same since without the supplies their families can't eat, in one of the many situations where the store shelves are emptied. To go on a "shooting rampage" is not only immoral but it defeats the purpose of looking after ones family.

You have to remember that all these violent fantasies are in self defence. Prepping is about hiding and guarding a slowly dwindling cache of supplies from mindless hordes, with the goal of surviving and outlasting at the expense of everyone else. When if you really want to actually survive (and have a world worth surviving in), you need an actual community of individuals to work together and link up with the rest of the world.

It's no coincidence that every single person gunned down by will be justified in the prepper's mind.

This is an interesting idea. And it's from a zombie thread, no less.

The earliest modern zombie stories were about a group of strangers pushed and forced to work together to survive a castastrophe that sought to pervert and subsume their individuality. It might be futile and tragic, but at their heart they are humanist stories: people are worth preserving no matter what terrible cost. And it's hardly a lost art, there are still plenty of stories with this theme.

However, some people fixate on one part of the zombie mythology: the survivalism and the desire to ascend to King of the Wasteland. Read this thread and it's about how best to slaughter as many humanoids as possible. It's is no longer about restoring a comfortable status quo, but gaining absolute power over life and death of others. It is a white middle class power fantasy, where the apocalypse will finally let one resolve the meaninglessness and emasculation of their day-to-day lives.

And unlike the older stories, these new ones are highly exclusive: only the in-group deserves to survive, everyone else either belong to the insatiable hordes, or are competition for scarce resources. No banding together with strangers and neighbours, only pre-apocalypse social bonds will survive.

 

[CavLancer]

Unless the prepper also happens to be a redneck I'd say there are no "violent fantasies". Instead the goal a prepper in a violent scn would be to prevent getting involved in the violence. Kind of like living in downtown Detroit. Just because you live there doesn't mean you get off on the violence. You might be scared ****less just trying to look after your family. A prepper in that situation would likely have several locks on the door and a weapon in case violent people break in. The prepper would not w a n t the gangs to break in but instead would be prepared if they should.

Another analogy. I was in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment when it was stationed in West Germany on the border with East Germany. Our unit patch said "Toujour Pret" in French, if I recall the spelling. It means "Always Ready", and we did our best. We trained or were on patrol on the border 10 months out of every year. Cavalry regiment border guards were the only 'regular army' units to wear a beret. We were very heavily armed to deal with the threat of Soviet invasion. It was expected that within the first 24 hours of an invasion our unit would take 80% casualties, or so we were told. In those 24 hours the main line divisions would be coming on line, Reforger units meeting up with prepositioned heavy weapons, and preparing themselves. We needed to give them those 24 hours.

Essentially we were preppers. We were armed, we were ready to meet any threat, we had something we were willing to fight for, but not one of us wanted that violence on our watch. The point is we were ready in case it happened, we were...prepared. The opposite of a prepper is someone who is not ready when things go wrong, they are unprepared. Psychologically there is no difference between a prepper and someone who is unprepared.

Man, writing this makes me want to be more prepared.

 

[Borachio]

All this prepper talk verges on paranoia, imo.

Just how likely do you consider a zombie apocalypse to be?

And in any case I think Nick has it right: The only true security is having good relations with one's neighbours. And even then...

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

JFK

 

[Lord Baal]

All this prepper talk verges on paranoia, imo.

Just how likely do you consider a zombie apocalypse to be?

And in any case I think Nick has it right: The only true security is having good relations with one's neighbours. And even then...


JFK

How likely was WWI? Just because something is unlikely does not mean one should not prepare for it.

 

[Borachio]

What's that you say?

I'd have said WW1 was very likely indeed. Given the events that led up to it.

I'm just not seeing any sign of an apocalypse (zombie or not), looming on the horizon. At least not in my lifetime.

Doesn't it come down to a personal judgement in the end? And the balance of probabilities?

And, in any case, if there were to be an apocalypse, my guess is that preppers are as doomed as anyone.

 

[Kyriakos]

:/

Who invented the zombie trope? Romero? I never cared for those movies. I saw one which was funny (a remake of dawn of the dead i think, or something like that) but that was all there was to it, some joke.
I guess zombies could be a metaphor for the mass of people who do not think in very delicate ways and end up destroying everything they go near to, but by now it is just a trope and pretty much empty in my view.

 

[Borachio]

It's an ancient idea, I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

Though the '68 film certainly popularized its modern form.