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[NRDL]

People do a lot of stupid things, but I'd think that failing to recognize an undead threat before it causes a global catastrophe is a bit too stupid.

Did the people have zombie movies?  We've seen that trope in dozens of other zombie movies, the people in those movies did not know what zombies existed, just because George Romero didn't exist.

On a more serious note, the issue of zombies being an actual threat despite having a strong military is plausible, even in real life.  The zombies, despite their several flaws, have one advantage: they're not human.  Think about it.  Every single zombie on the planet is united by one goal, to kill every human on the planet.  The human race isn't capable of that level of unity, even if the zombies are unintentionally united.  The zombies themselves aren't strong, especially if they are alone.  But given enough numbers ( and since, from what I've seen you guys post, their infection of China definitely gave them numbers ), they can overwhelm humanity by exploiting humanity's mistakes.

Take for example, Night of the Living Dead, the good remake.  The zombies were slow, clumsy, and not strong enough to break down a door.  However, they outnumbered the humans, and more importantly, the humans in the cabin were not cooperating. They argued, disagreed, etc.  If they cooperated completely, they would have easily survived.  However, it's human nature.  We, as a species, are not easily capable of cooperating with other people, besides close friends and family, and even these relationships can be strained with the stress surrounding a zombie outbreak.

Remember, I never actually read this, so correct me if I got something wrong. 

[ChairmanPoo]

If they cooperated completely, they would have easily survived.  However, it's human nature.  We, as a species, are not easily capable of cooperating with other people, besides close friends and family, and even these relationships can be strained with the stress surrounding a zombie outbreak.

http://mindhacks.com/2011/08/10/riot-psychology/

... this is known as the Elaborated Social Identity Model of crowd behaviour – a well-supported theory with an overly complicated name but which is surprisingly easy to understand.

Imagine you’ve just got on a bus. It’s full of people and you have to jam into an uncomfortable seat at the back. There are people going to work, some vacant students heading home after a night on the beers, some annoying teenagers playing dance music through their tinny mobile phone speakers and some old folks heading off to buy their groceries.

You’re late and you missed your train. You feel nothing in common with anyone on the bus and, to be honest, those teenagers are really pissing you off.

Suddenly, two of the windows smash and you realise that a group of people are attacking the bus and trying to steal bags through the broken windows.

Equally as quickly, you begin to feel like one of a group. A make-shift social identity is formed (‘the passengers’) and you all begin to work together to fend off the thieves and keep each other safe.

You didn’t lose your identity, you gained a new one in reaction to a threat.

[redacted123]

Did the people have zombie movies?  We've seen that trope in dozens of other zombie movies, the people in those movies did not know what zombies existed, just because George Romero didn't exist.

Reminds me of Shaun of the Dead where Shaun insists that they don't use the "Z word" because it feels wrong but they're all clearly very aware of what's going on. Of course in that the entire situation is resolved in the course of a day and afterwards is seen as something more on the scale of 9/11 rather than the end of the world with the TV showing game shows featuring zombies.

[RedKing]

In a lot of ways, zombie movies are just the "new" disaster films. Back in the 1970's, there was a whole slew of movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno where you had a cast of random people thrown together by circumstances to survive against some catastrophe like a sinking cruise liner, a burning skyscraper, an earthquake, a volcano, killer bees, etc. Some made it, some died horribly. And a lot of the story had more to do with the way the cast related to each other (or didn't) than it did with the actual threat itself.

Odd tangent: It just dawned on me that the Saw films are more or less the same formula.

[Acanthus117]

I read it, but I have to disagree with some of Max Brook's philosophy on anti zombie tactics... especially where firearms are involved, but that's for another time

WWZ was great, and I loved it to bits, but I'm crying inside when I read about the movie ;-;

[Nadaka]

I liked most of the book, but Russia becoming a theocratic empire seems....significantly off

Curiosity: why?

It seems silly, especially since it implies that the whole thing was started by an orthodox priest executing some infected soldiers. I could see this happening in a place where religious fervor is extremely high, but Russia was part of a communist state that persecuted religious beliefs for almost 80 years, and it only ended a couple of decades ago even if policies lightened after Stalin died. Russia's democratic status collapsing back into authoritarianism is more than plausible even without zombies, but a theocracy? There's no basis for that! At least there are still a significant number of communists in Russia, but as far as I know theocrats are quite limited even if there are plenty of religious people.


I could see a theocratic revolution happen in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, or even Italy if the world really got shook up, but just not in Russia.

There are a number of powerful Orthodox Christian organizations with deep ties to the top politicians in Russia, including many nationalistic orthodox youth education programs that are actively supported by people like Putin. So it really isn't that far outside the realm of possibility.

[nenjin]

My pet theory on the zombie craze is....

It's actually a slightly dishonest expression of our loathing for our fellow human beings. I mean, as a species, we like to kill. Either for fun, profit or survival. Yet we have a loose prohibition against killing each other. It's generally not acceptable for most individuals to do (governments, nations, other organizations are different.)

So zombies present us with a unique opportunity as a violence-loving species who aren't generally allowed by society to prey on each other: mass amounts of targets of vaguely human origin that, individually, are weaker than us, slower than us, stupider than us and that lack all the traits that make killing a sentient being wrong.

Zombie movies play off this all the time. The horror at killing a zombie you once knew as a living person (the prevailing morality in zombie movies is that you're stupid if you don't kill them), juxtaposed next to the joy and liberation of killing a vaguely human thing in self-defense. (See: Shaun of the Dead, ect...) The common morality is that it's empowering the characters and we cheer for the ones who not only kill zombies well, but relish their job. After all, it's still survival whether they're zombies or actual people. But it's the joy and acceptance people have of the Zombie Apocalypse that I think is telling.

Our love of zombies is really just our love of violence against each other expressed in morally safe form, because zombies have lost all the things that make them human while still giving us the buzz of genocide by proxy. Our love of the zombie apocalypse is, to me, at least in some way an expression of our fear and loathing of our own race.

[RedKing]

I think I made more or less the same argument in a thread in Other Games -- zombies give us a chance to kill human-ish things (that aren't Nazis), with little to no troubled conscience.

[Nadaka]

I think I made more or less the same argument in a thread in Other Games -- zombies give us a chance to kill human-ish things (that aren't Nazis), with little to no troubled conscience.

That is why we need more zombie nazi's. That removes what little moral ambiguity is left.

[alway]

But zombie nazis aren't nearly as evil as nazis. Zombie nazis don't create elaborately planned death-camps, and if they are still racist as zombies, they will only attack nazis in order to spread zombie nazis as the master race. Which on the D&D scale would put them somewhere around chaotic neutral.

[Jimlad11]

I enjoyed the book, but one thing that irritated me is the stereotyping.

Being British myself, I found the image that we all live within 10ft of a functioning castle stocked with battle-ready medieval weaponry a little strange. Add to that the fact that we all seem to be unwaveringly loyal to our Queen...

There were some other stereotype-ish characters that popped up, making reading some parts almost laughable.

But the book is a great read, and I would recommend it to anyone who has not read it yet.

[nenjin]

Being British myself, I found the image that we all live within 10ft of a functioning castle stocked with battle-ready medieval weaponry a little strange. Add to that the fact that we all seem to be unwaveringly loyal to our Queen...

This is a pretty American stereotype. Maybe not so much the castles and the medieval weaponry (although I easily saw where the creative inspiration came from), but the unswerving loyalty to Queen and Country.....that we tend to assume about Brits.

[mainiac]

Take for example, Night of the Living Dead, the good remake.  The zombies were slow, clumsy, and not strong enough to break down a door.  However, they outnumbered the humans, and more importantly, the humans in the cabin were not cooperating. They argued, disagreed, etc.  If they cooperated completely, they would have easily survived.  However, it's human nature.  We, as a species, are not easily capable of cooperating with other people, besides close friends and family, and even these relationships can be strained with the stress surrounding a zombie outbreak.

Think about the situation leading to this though.  In Night of the Living dead, people are attacked suddenly by a large influx of zombies from the cemetery.  That's what leads to everybody panicking, a sudden, unexpected attack in large numbers.  But that's only going to affect a few, isolated people who happened to be in remote locations where a lot of zombies show up in the early days.  How often do you expect that situation?  Once people get organized however, they tend to be capable of cooperating to suicidal extents.

Yes, a horde of zombies is a danger.  But where does a horde of zombies come from?  You can't have a horde unless you are in a city that is already overrun.  But you can't have a city that is already overrun unless there is a horde.  It just doesn't add up.  Even if a few cities are lost in the early days, once news get out, population immunity kicks in and there are no more hordes.

[sluissa]

Being British myself, I found the image that we all live within 10ft of a functioning castle stocked with battle-ready medieval weaponry a little strange. Add to that the fact that we all seem to be unwaveringly loyal to our Queen...

This is a pretty American stereotype. Maybe not so much the castles and the medieval weaponry (although I easily saw where the creative inspiration came from), but the unswerving loyalty to Queen and Country.....that we tend to assume about Brits.

You have to remember, Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks. I'm not going to say it was intended as comedy, but sometimes you just can't escape filial influence.

[blackmagechill]

I can imagine the phone call now:
"No dad, nazi zombies has been done."
"Alright, just a suggestion."