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Ch. 3: The Great Panic

#108: July - Sept. 2012 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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Ch. 3: The Great Panic
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johnson1010
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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This is the part i always wish they would show more of in an apocalypse movie. It's got to be by far the most expensive thing to film, so it never gets much air time. What always happens? Somebody the main character knows shows up, but they are acting strange. OH NO! they tried to kill me! escape. see random acts of violence and scary stuff. find someplace to hide stay there until the end of the movie.

Where's all the action? i want to see people trying to put out those fires! i want to see people trying to cope with the dangers! I think WWZ does a good job bringing this struggle to the fore.
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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Here's the part where everyone gets to tell how they think zombies would attack their house, and what they would do to defend or escape.

You have a fire escape plan, right? What about a zombie escape plan?

Sounds unlikely, and it is, but having a general escape plan for intruders in general is not a bad idea.

I'll see if i can find the page, but there is a survivalist group which has a real plan in case of a zombie outbreak. not because they think zombie outbreaks are likely, but to paraphrase, "if you are ready for zombies, then you are ready for anything."
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Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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We live so much in our own little worlds these days. There is the scene where the family is sitting around watching TV, meanwhile up the street zombies are already consuming their neighbors just a few houses up.

They don't figure out anything is up until one crashes through the window!

The panic of people fleeing in random directions, everybody piling into an interstate to go from one heavily infested area to another, road jams so thick people can't open their car doors to escape the oncoming horde... this stuff seems accurate to me.

How about people taking their laptops, dvd's video games and other useless crap, when they should be bringing survival gear?
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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I'm struggling a bit with reading WWZ but plowing along, actually I put it down for a while and read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo instead. I've read some of the commentary here on BT and a couple other places. I want to pose a rather obvious question ... our society and its institutions plan for events or catastrophe or disasters or other emergencies based on probability of occurrence. We then invest in those plans by justifying the investment based on that same perception of likelihood. Of course, this leaves us exposed to unpredictable, low probability events like a zombie attack, but in a world of finite resources, isn't this exposure inevitable? If our leaders removed resources that offer some protection from catastrophe that is likely, say forest fire or earthquake or terrorism, and began spending those resources on preparing for zombie attack, they would lose the next election or be kicked off the board or whatever, would they not?

I realize this means the public/electorate is terribly short sighted on the whole and I think too often we act in a knee-jerk fashion but I also think it is a practical question of allocating resources and the incentives built into our system to tackle clear and present danger before we worry about low probability events.

Having said that, I do think there is lots of idiocy and desperation out there and that's what I read in this chapter. Zombies are a particularly nasty beast because we count on death to put an end to the most unpleasant circumstances of life but, according to the zombie proposition, death can fail us. That's not nice.
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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Hey Giselle,

yes, exposure to risk is something that can't be avoided. One of the things pointed out in WWZ, however, is how thoroughly we hide our heads from real dangers that we know exist, but refuse to aknowledge.

You mentioned terrorism. Terrorism is indeed a real threat and people do occasionally die in terrorist attacks. But now, look at the amazingly huge disproportionate spending that has gone into our "war on terror" and the lives that were lost in 9-11 vs our lack of any traction against heart disease. Heart disease kills more people by far than any number of terrorist attacks combined.

We spend pennies on that threat, even though it is by far the more threatening of the two. People are fighting tooth and nail to play down climate change. They spend millions of dollars on a real threat that has cataclysmic potential. One we can still do something to mitigate.

I wouldn't say we should divert any money to a national plan for the zombie apocalypse right now, no more than we should for the rapture, but that's only because there is no indication zombies are real.

If we start seeing whole swaths of zombie infestation in asia, then yes, we should have a plan and we should spend money to fix it.

The point being, we DO see threats staring us right in the face and instead of doing somethign about them we play political games or make people take off their shoes in the airport under the merest illusion of security.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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giselle wrote: our society and its institutions plan for events or catastrophe or disasters or other emergencies based on probability of occurrence.
Brooks is presenting the zombie plague as a parable. His background argument is that in fact we do not plan based on probability, but on stupidity and denial. As such, we can expect to be totally unprepared when a crisis hits.

This book really is about misallocation of resources, failure of strategic vision and dialogue, and construction of ideas and institutions and systems for national and international security that are not proportionate to risk. The big threats include climate change, epidemics, uncontrolled population movement and military dictatorship.

Something similar to the zombie plague may well be coming if we continue to fail to plan. The pending catastrophe will not contradict the laws of science, but rather show the inevitable and remorseless fulfilment of scientific prophecy.
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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Thanks, these are useful and insightful comments, I will keep reading. I am trying to read WWZ as a parable and I'm gradually seeing it.

My only other comment at this stage, really an observation, is that I think we have failed to develop good leaders and have fallen back on committees and consultation (at least here in Canada) as a stopgap measure. Our lack of confidence in our leaders (well-founded) has forced us to run the country and the economy and everything else by committee. My beef with this situation is basically 'blind leading the blind' - just because you have more people in the room does not mean you get a better decision and it almost certainly means the decision will be lowest common denominator because they'll try to achieve consensus or near-consensus -- I've just seen too many situations where people who don't have a clue about the subject end up influencing the decision.

IMO, there is no chance that group decisions and lowest common denominator will protect us from 'zombie attack'.
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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We've been seeing a lot of danger in today's world - earthquakes, landslides, tornados, etc. Is it moreso than ever, or is it the same frequency as every other year.

What gobsmacked me a couple of weeks ago, was when a newscaster (weather) informed us that we here in Toronto might get treated to viewings of the aurora borealis . . . this is because of sun flares, breaking away from the sun?

The person announced this in a cheerful way, in the same intonation he might deliver news of a free lunch being offered on the steps of city hall. Delightful!

Yet any further elaboration on the sun flares was absent. That's what I was looking for - sun flares?

Is there something we should be doing to protect ourselves from this.

No . . . I, for one, do not take the possibility of Zombie War seriously. But I can see how it is a kind of metaphor - maybe for global warming? Environmental upset?

Mmmm . . . mmm hmmmmm.
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Re: Ch. 3: The Great Panic

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I do not speak English. I use Google. Have not read the book. I watched the movie. The film does not say how the virus emerged. In the book, the matter is disclosed? Constantly confronted with a "zombie" and I fear for my son. I believe that the infection comes through aggression. Children are particularly vulnerable to infection. If they grow up in an evil environment. Habitat build adults. and if they zombie, then the children are doomed. Of them will grow up army of zombies. I've been in some Russian cities, where the cult of violence is particularly strong. Especially dangerous to live there. I believe it is necessary to protect children. You also need to understand that. If you do not stop what is happening now - and it will come to you!

Простите за мой английский.
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