3 ms·

Same with all those zombie scenarios. Quite conveniently, each and every film or series starts with patient zero, skips the part where the whole world order, so

by hef19898 3y ago

Same with all those zombie scenarios. Quite conveniently, each and every film or series starts with patient zero, skips the part where the whole world order, society and whatnot collapses, and starts with our heros trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. World War Z, the book that is, is the only instance that tried to explain how the collapse occured. I'd expect it to take a lot more than 5 minutes, a lot of my optimism around pandemic control died during Covid, but the full collapse that always happens as soon as zombies show up just won't happen.

interludead 3y ago
Yeah, agree.. I think medical advances and public health measures would likely be able to contain and control most infectious diseases
pavel_lishin 3y ago
My favorite take on zombie fiction was a short story that posited that nearly everyone is globally infected, but infection can take one of two forms: form A is the regular "undead"-style zombies, but form B merely makes humans stupid. This explains the foolish choices movie protagonists must make for the sake of plot.
strken 3y ago
The thing I find unconvincing about zombie movies is that the zombies are running around powered by human physiology for weeks in the middle of winter and yet their numbers are inexhaustible and they can get through security doors. It seems like a far more realistic scenario would be a fortnight of chaos where everyone locks themselves inside, possibly enforced by 24/7 shoot on sight curfews, followed by the death of all the zombies and a partial and limited social collapse. Maybe sporadic continuing outbreaks, radically different border policies, and limitations on movement within countries after that.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Or zombies ripping humans litterally apart. No idea where a dead body would take the strength from for that. Take the living dead for example: From what I understood, it is the Wildfire virus that causes it, with everyone (I assume everyone who contracted it) turning upon death. As soon as people figure that out, every dead person is getting his brain stem severed. And there are not that many people dying, outside of war zones and such, for that to be a world ending problem. 28 days later, 28 weeks later is just bad, does mention that: when the rogue army officer states that the indected to build or tend fields, he rightly concludes that one can just wait until they starve or die of dehydration. Zombies should, unless one assumes some magic virus as in World War Z (the book, again), just rot away. Which posses another problem: how to deal with millions of contagious corpses lying around. Using the Black Death as a basis for how such things did play out in real life, would make for a really grim story. Of course, armed survivors scavanging the world has some more fun angles.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    this is all true and it's fun to deconstruct these things. But it's also fun to just roll with it :)
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Aren't our muscles mostly limited by the brain deciding that we should definitely not apply enough strength to rip our own tendons off our bones? An infected "zombie" may not have such limiters. And a human being can survive for weeks without food, days without water.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Simple bio mechanics so: the leverage and overall force are the same in zombie body (ignoring voodoo magic) as they are in human one, intentional injuries and hoing beyond the pain limit nonwithstanding. And zombies are, again ignoring voodoo, well, rotting. That means less tensile strength of muscles and such. And even without all that, a himan cannot use his fingers and teeth to tear another human, well, we know the films. The human body simply lacks the necessary tools: claws and fangs. As the sibling pointed out, just rolling with all of that is also fun!

interludead 3y ago

Yeah, agree.. I think medical advances and public health measures would likely be able to contain and control most infectious diseases

pavel_lishin 3y ago

My favorite take on zombie fiction was a short story that posited that nearly everyone is globally infected, but infection can take one of two forms: form A is the regular "undead"-style zombies, but form B merely makes humans stupid. This explains the foolish choices movie protagonists must make for the sake of plot.

strken 3y ago

The thing I find unconvincing about zombie movies is that the zombies are running around powered by human physiology for weeks in the middle of winter and yet their numbers are inexhaustible and they can get through security doors. It seems like a far more realistic scenario would be a fortnight of chaos where everyone locks themselves inside, possibly enforced by 24/7 shoot on sight curfews, followed by the death of all the zombies and a partial and limited social collapse. Maybe sporadic continuing outbreaks, radically different border policies, and limitations on movement within countries after that.

hef19898 3y ago
Or zombies ripping humans litterally apart. No idea where a dead body would take the strength from for that. Take the living dead for example: From what I understood, it is the Wildfire virus that causes it, with everyone (I assume everyone who contracted it) turning upon death. As soon as people figure that out, every dead person is getting his brain stem severed. And there are not that many people dying, outside of war zones and such, for that to be a world ending problem. 28 days later, 28 weeks later is just bad, does mention that: when the rogue army officer states that the indected to build or tend fields, he rightly concludes that one can just wait until they starve or die of dehydration. Zombies should, unless one assumes some magic virus as in World War Z (the book, again), just rot away. Which posses another problem: how to deal with millions of contagious corpses lying around. Using the Black Death as a basis for how such things did play out in real life, would make for a really grim story. Of course, armed survivors scavanging the world has some more fun angles.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  this is all true and it's fun to deconstruct these things. But it's also fun to just roll with it :)
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  Aren't our muscles mostly limited by the brain deciding that we should definitely not apply enough strength to rip our own tendons off our bones? An infected "zombie" may not have such limiters. And a human being can survive for weeks without food, days without water.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Simple bio mechanics so: the leverage and overall force are the same in zombie body (ignoring voodoo magic) as they are in human one, intentional injuries and hoing beyond the pain limit nonwithstanding. And zombies are, again ignoring voodoo, well, rotting. That means less tensile strength of muscles and such. And even without all that, a himan cannot use his fingers and teeth to tear another human, well, we know the films. The human body simply lacks the necessary tools: claws and fangs. As the sibling pointed out, just rolling with all of that is also fun!