• Saapas@piefed.zip
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      4 days ago

      That book had some good stuff but also some hilarious shit like how the military failed or the blind anime samurai part.

  • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    I used to think zombies were a ridiculous concept. Like just walk away briskly and youll be fine.

    Then when coronavirus happened and we were being told to stay inside and keep away from eachother because everybody’s dying we saw people going out of their way to lick things in supermarkets.

    Granted it wasnt as catastrophically bad as we were led to believe, but we saw how people reacted when we thought it was.

    • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Over 7 million deaths confirmed to be directly caused by covid. And that’s with states and entire countries lying about the number of covid deaths. It’s actually between 19 and 36 million if we analyze the actual total number of excess deaths.
      And that was with most countries attempting to minimize people’s exposure.
      I don’t really want to know what you would call a catastrophe if somewhere between 7,000,000 and 36,000,000 dead humans doesn’t qualify.

      • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Im not saying it wasnt bad, just in the very early days they were telling us it was going to be armageddon bad. The dead outnumbering the survivors and shit like that.

        • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          There was absolutely no point where anyone was claiming the death rate was over 50% based on actual data.

          Early estimates were 10% (based on symptomatic cases) but with better testing proved to be closer to 2%. This is similar to the Spanish flu’s mortality rate.

          It mutated to be less deathly from there, down to less than 0.5% for the unvaccinated. About as deadly as common flu strains.

          If we had allowed it to spread in freely that could have been 350 million dead. That’s a large pile of dead people to deal with. That was the concern. It would have overwhelmed everything.

        • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I remember back in school how they told us that jumping from the Golden Gate bridge would definitely kill you. In all that time since, I have not died from jumping off the bridge. I have never jumped off the bridge, but I have also never died from jumping off the bridge. So, now I think I was being lied to.

      • yermaw@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Almost definitely. Im not in here trying to say its a mad hoax from China to install the NWO and cripple our economy while injecting us with the 5G or whatever the hell the conspiracy nuts were saying. I was saying we saw people deliberately going out of their way to do some stupid shit while we were at the height of the fear.

        If zombies happen we’ll see the “hug a Z challenge” or people taking it in turns to stick a rotted finger down their throat or something.

  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    This is why there always has to be a virus or something, zombies are just humans minus the most important human survival trait and you’d never have an apocalypse without some kind of handwave for nearly everyone getting turned at once.

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    4 days ago

    The way zombies are portrayed in many movies, they shouldn’t really stand a chance. Maybe evil magic zomies (as described in CONOP 8888) could be a problem.

    All the other zombies would still have to follow the rules of physics, chemistry and biology, so they would just stop functioning after a while. Rigor mortis, sepsis and microbial decay should take care of the problem in a day or two.

    • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Hmm. If we look at fungi zombies from “the last of us”, people don’t really need to die, they just need to be infected through a bite or even breathing spores.

      No death = no rigor mortis, also the fungi have antibacterial properties, so no sepsis or any infections. Fungi just takes control of the brain. The only issue is that they still need to get energy/food somehow to keep going.

        • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org
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          4 days ago

          The fungal zombies seem to operate at an instinctual level, so I’d argue that yes, they are able to stay hydrated. They also seem to have some sort of hive mind going on to a degree.

        • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          They could be in another movie. Seeking food and water is kinda hardcoded in our brains. That’s why babies are always putting everything in their mouths.

          Also, similarly in older movies, zombies are seeking out brains to eat. Why couldn’t they be seeking food and water instead? And biting people simply to infect them, not to eat them.

    • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      relevant XKCD.

      That aside, I think the book I am Legend handled the initial outbreak in one of the best ways to actually make it stick. There was a worldwide dust storm which infected everyone. A large fraction of the population succumbed to the infection and died or became “zombies” (more vampires really, they retained a lot of intelligence. The Will Smith movie really fucked the plot.). It’s one of the few ways to get past the problem of the various world militaries just curb stomping the initial zombie outbreak. Sure, there would be some confusion and some losses while people figured out the various rules for the zombies, but WWI is kinda instructive here. Massed charges into machine gun fire didn’t go well for the soldiers in the charge. As another historic example, the Banzai Charge employed by Imperial Japanese soldiers during WWII was not only suicidal by nature, it was worthless against a well armed, organized line. Yes, zombies might be more resilient and less prone to morale breaking, but they’d still be mowed down en masse. And that’s before we consider air strikes, artillery and napalm. A combined arms assault against a mass of zombies wouldn’t be pretty. Especially considering that zombies wouldn’t have the strategic thinking to attack supply lines and depots.

      Zombie outbreaks are fun in media. I’m currently playing 7 Days to Die, again. And I’m having lots of fun. I also don’t spend too much time thinking about what the backstory might be. There’s zombies, and it’s my job to survive. That’s all the setup I need to enjoy the catharsis of zombie heads exploding in gore.

      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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        4 days ago

        Oh you’re absolutely right. These are just monsters that serve a purpose for the plot. Nothing more. You shouldn’t overthink it.

        Although… Overthinking it is kinda fun too, but the people who wrote the script were kinda hoping you wouldn’t do that. The whole plot suddenly falls apart if you think about it more than 5 seconds. Well, at least that’s on-brand.

          • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            I thought that the origin of the whole concept is rooted in Haitian magic and folk lore. These modern iterations deviate from the “evil magic zombie” origins and end up with all sorts of problems. The story has to rely on various silly contrivances because of it.

            Just go with magic, go old-school. May not sound modern enough, but it totally works. There’s no need to worry about the laws of physics when black magic is used to reanimate the corpse. The only way to deal with them is to break the spell. Who cares how dead and decaying the corpses are. They don’t need water, energy or even muscles to move. It’s pure magic. It just works.

  • Macaroni_ninja@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    So basically people pushing you around and disrespecting your personal space.

    I was trained for that while commuting to work.

  • TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today
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    4 days ago

    Yeah but so would a lot of predators anyway. A tiger probably wouldn’t do much damage if it could just slap or gum you

  • [deleted]@piefed.world
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    4 days ago

    Well yes, if you remove the two things humans have that will cause the most damage they would be pretty ineffective unless a large group can crush you in an alley or something.

    One character from the Walking Dead had a couple of zombies with no teeth or hands, they really couldn’t do anything.

  • Battle_Masker@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 days ago

    I mean, they could still grab you, suckerpunch you, fall on you and weigh you down, fall in front of you and trip you, knock stuff over that’ll hurt you, catch fire and spread it elsewhere, hit you with the stuff sticking out of them, in some cases carry stuff to hit you with, spread god knows what germs to other people/places…

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Depends on the zombie. But most zombies as portrayed in popular media are not capable of punching you, hitting you, or even using objects in any meaningful way. A zombie trapped in a locked car will stay there indefinitely, unless they just happen to hit the unlock button through their random flailing.

      Zombies themselves are never capable. It’s their durability, relentlessness, and numbers that make them a terrifying threat.

      • village604@adultswim.fan
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        4 days ago

        Dude there are tons of popular zombie movies where they’d be more than capable of hitting and punching.

  • kbal@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    What’s a media zombie? Someone who watches 7 hours of tiktok every day?