7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail 320
Whether they spoil in the heat, freeze in the winter, or get taken out by a human-friendly venue of vultures, a zombie outbreak is unlikely to succeed. Here's 7 reasons why we should stop worrying about the shambling dead and start concentrating on a real threat: sparkly vampires.
This! (Score:2, Informative)
This article is the reason why idle.slashdot.org exists.
Re:This! (Score:4, Informative)
also, please link to the first page of the story:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly.html [cracked.com]
So tired (Score:3, Informative)
So, so tired of zombies, pirates, ninjas, and robots. Jesus, Internet, can you please latch on to something else? Anything? I know whatever it is you latch on to will still get annoying, with 18 year old girls running around pretending to be cute and funny, but just being fucking annoying, but for the love of god, let the Zombie bullshit die.
Page 1 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Reason #0 (Score:5, Informative)
There are no zombies?
Constructing the Haitian Zombie: An Anthropological Study Beyond Madness [uci.edu]
Persons identified as zombies are to be found among the inhabitants of Haiti, an impoverished and politically unstable Caribbean country with unique cultural characteristics. Using the lens of the anthropologist, an investigation into Haitian zombiism reveals not only a basis for the bizarre phenomenon of zombiism itself, but also the underlying characteristics of Haitian society that have fostered and it. While zombiism may be fundamentally understood in terms of mental illness, particular theories related to madness are useful in further illuminating the subject, including Sigmund Freud’s signature theses on melancholia, Frantz Fanon’s views on the psychological effects of colonialism, and Emily Martin’s ideas about the performance of mental disorders. The resulting analysis will demonstrate that Haitian zombiism constitutes a cultural construct of madness that thoroughly fits within its post-colonial population, where a bereft people have transformed zombiism into a reality.
PASSAGE OF DARKNESS: THE ETHNOBIOLOGY OF THE HAITIAN ZOMBIE [webster.edu]
Are there really zombies in Haiti? Wade Davis devotes two long sections to this question. He first looks at the popular views and then explores cases where there have been some attempts to carefully and more scientifically determine the status of suspected cases. His key candidate for zombiehood is Clairvius Narcisse. In spring, 1962 Narcisse "died" at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti. His death was verified by the hospital staff. 18 years later Narcisse turned up alive and well, and claimed to be an escaped zombie.
No, I did not read through those articles. I just remember watching an interview with some scientist that researched out the sposid myth. So I knew therw was legitimate research into it.
Re:Stephenie Meyer is a talentless hack (Score:4, Informative)
They made a comedy like that, back in the 90's: My Boyfriend's Back [imdb.com] A couple other low-budget ones I can't remember from the 80's, too.
Can't remember any serious/emo ones, though.
Re:Reason #0 (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimboe [wikipedia.org]
Real-life zombies are probably more subtle
In fact most all of the world has been replaced with Zimboes, and there are very few of us real people left, examples being myself, and Cory Doctorow.
Re:First Page Link (Score:3, Informative)
You're really going to tell someone with a UID only 530,295 higher than yours that they're "new here"? Your UID is hardly lower than mine either. Also, do you know what the current UIDs being handed out are? I doubt it.
I now bow out for someone with a 5 digit UID to come in and smack you around, to be followed by someone with a 4 digit, then finally a 3-digit. (Much lower than that is an extreme rarity... I mean, there ARE in theory only 90 2-digit UIDs...)
Re:zombies exist and they won (Score:2, Informative)
"Ancient" as in... 19'th century? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, while humanity had a ton of imagination when it comes to fearing death, nothing even came close to the modern idea of vampire.
What Europe believed in is better described as "revenants", or what we nowadays think of as "zombies." They weren't supposed to be some clever and scheming count, but mindless bloated corpses of some peasants.
Oh, and generally they'd transmit disease generally by just being there not by bit. Remember it was an era where even an educated medicus knew that diseases are transmitted by smells (no, really, the miasma theory of disease) and everyone else knew that corpses cause disease. A corpse walking around was a health hazard by itself.
And just to drive the "zombie" aspect home, most of these were supposed to be literally brain dead. E.g., the ones from an outbreak in Venice could be prevented from biting anything ever again by just shoving a brick in the corpse's mouth. Your average Dracula or White Wolf kinda vampire would be sentient enough to basically go "oh, i have a brick in my mouth" and spit it out. Heck, even the dumbest animal would. But the version those people believed in would be forever thwarted by that brick because they weren't even able to figure that out.
Other forms of thwarting an undead included the equivalent of the frat prank of tying someone's shoelaces together, except it was more like tying the ends a piece of string to the big toe on each foot. Yep, that would thwart them.
Even when myths gave them a couple of neurons still working, then they'd be riddled with a crippling OCD, so they'd irresistably stop and count the grains in a pile of rice or whatever.
Basically they're not quite the smart and scheming baron kind, nor the kind who'd blend in and maintain a Masquerade. They were mindless rotting corpses.
The modern idea of a Vampire was pretty much used invented by Polidori in "The Vampyre", sort of reused in "Carmilla" (where it got some sexual part added too), but only really became mass known via "Dracula". It's really not about any single "ancient" myth, but a mix of several of those. Including a lot of the witchcraft beliefs, incubus beliefs, and various assorted other bits and ends. And yes, some stuff taken from fairies too.
Basically what Polidori, Le Fanu and Stoker did there was already inventing a new kind of vampire and romanticizing it to appeal to their target audience. That was it, really. And each of them felt free to add a few personal touches and mix some even more unrelated mythical monsters to the definition of a Vampire, to make it even more mass-appeal. Which is basically why you've heard of Dracula over and over again, but most people never even heard of Carmilla or The Vampyre.
Complaining that someone else did the same thing is a bit silly. Yes, Twilight included some stuff from an unrelated mythical beastie. What, unlike Stoker, Anne Rice, White Wolf and everyone else... who added bits from unrelated mythical beasties too?