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The chances of "global nuclear war" have diminished greatly since the Soviet Union was confined to its rightful place on history's trash heap (with the so-called "Peace Movement" fighting everyone from Reagan and Thatcher to Solzhenitsyn and the Pope every step of the way). If a nuclear weapon is ever again used in anger, it will likely come from some looney in either the Middle East, North Korea, or the Indian subcontinent.
The threat of nuclear war between USA and USSR was far less then the threat today. Todays threat just doesnt play out well as a story of us vs them. The enemy is not easily defined but the threat is more real then ever before.
Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, I am legend which was made into a movie three times was the first to depict the combination of a apocalyptic scenario coupled with a traditional monster. In this case it was vampires.
In 1968 George Romero recast zombie's (or living dead) into a mass invasion.
The term has been extended to cover any massive loss of normal society. You might say that I keep 72 hours of food, a gun, and bottled oxygen in a room in my basement just in case there is a "zombie apocalypse". It provides you can easy out from any uncomfortable conversations about what you are really afraid of. Undoubtedly some people are afraid of race riots, but they feel uncomfortable telling people that kind of statement. No one can call you a bigot if you are afraid of a "zombie apocalypse".
Did anybody see those 2 weird looking guys who came in the pawn shop on Hardcore Pawn and mentioned the ..........zombie apocalypse?
Les sold them 2 chainsaws, 2 nail guns, a bag of golf clubs and a crowbar .
They said they now were prepared to hit the zombies over the head with the golf clubs or crow bar............cut their heads off with the 2 chainsaws..........nail the heads to the floor with the nail guns.
If you don't think there really are Zombies in this world, just go to your nearest Super Walmart, pick a bench up front, then just sit and "observe" for awhile. Or, with the advent of the holiday season fast approaching, choose a Wal-mart, Target, or Best Buy near you, and go observe what happens on Black Friday, from the night before to the time the doors open at 4:00 AM or whatever other ungodly time the "festivities" begin.
Oh yes, there really are Zombies out there...
Well, yes, there is that variety of zombie as well.
Leave politics out of it. What if we had a major solar magnetic pulse and we lost all electronic devices? Sleep well, folks. There is a very good book that came out of one of those table top exercises. It is "One Second After". It's worth a read.
I agree. That book is thought provoking, even life changing. I have heard the author speak in person before. Amazing how such an unassuming, soft spoken man wrote such a powerful, gut-wrenching book of fiction but one that seems so real, especially in it's observences of likely human nature in a crisis like that.
It is one of a handful that have changed my way of thinking and my lens through which I view things these days.
If you don't think there really are Zombies in this world, just go to your nearest Super Walmart, pick a bench up front, then just sit and "observe" for awhile. Or, with the advent of the holiday season fast approaching, choose a Wal-mart, Target, or Best Buy near you, and go observe what happens on Black Friday, from the night before to the time the doors open at 4:00 AM or whatever other ungodly time the "festivities" begin.
Oh yes, there really are Zombies out there...
It's funny you compare the people in Wally World to zombies. When I think of zombies, I think of people with who yell out, "braaaaaaains", and shuffle towards you, slowly.
When I go to Wally World, the few times that I've been there, I see people acting like crazed animals, climbing shelves, (yes, I've witnessed that, it stopped me dead in my tracks on my very first visit to Wally World, I was still at the front, scanning, to see where everything was located, and I saw people with overflowing carts, and yes, people climbing shelves....I was so disgusted, I wanted to flee from the sheer gluttony I witnessed).
I understand, to a point, why people say the zombie apocalypse, but it never made sense to me. If shtf, I think people would be acting insane, flinging themselves all over the place like lunatics, not shuffling zombies.
Whenever anyone uses the term "zombie apocalypse" in reference to a serious discussion they want to have about a public emergency scenario, I know that I'm talking to an extremely immature person who has lost his or her grip on reality.
I also think that some people who consider themselves well prepared refer to the general public that they consider "zombies". It's mildly concerning, since a "zombie" is a being that you don't have to feel bad about if you have to shoot them. I could see this being a method that some people could use to dehumanize other people and therefore justify some pretty awful treatment--at least in their fantasies.
In most zombie fiction, zombies don't come up out of the ground. You watch too many 1970s 'zombie' flicks which are about supernaturally reanimated corpses, not 'real' zombies.
Traditional (real) zombies are living people who are essentially lobotomized by a toxic herbal preparation. Although the victim goes through a comatose period, they never actually die prior to their 'zombification'.
In most fictional works, zombies are victims of a viral or bacterial infection which takes over the motor function of the host organism after the host dies. A zombie apocalypse is the result of these infected host bodies fulfilling the biological imperative of the 'zombifying' parasite to replicate its DNA by creating more 'zombies'. It's like the flu except instead of the guy next to you on the bus coughing and sneezing, he bites your face.
This is an important distinction come the apocalypse, but I would focus on a plan for sustainable water and food collection first.
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