Have We Finally Reached the Peak of Zombie Fatigue?

[BoogieManFL]

I think it has more to do with it simply being a bit of a slow episode in general.

 

[Sarge034]

I hope it's pretty obvious what I'm trying to say here. Speaking of 'Africa' like that is plain silly.

When half the country is to some varying degree an example of what I'm saying I think I'm allowed to round up.

Secondly, society often doesn't 'break down' in certain African nations in the same way as it does in zombie fiction. What happens is worse; there's wonky dictatorial regimes that get opposed and/or preyed upon by ideological factions all on a bed of terribly managed post-WW2 decolonization.

How does this relate to zombie fiction? Not much, as in zombie fiction we're presented with completely emptied countries, in terms of society. The US in The Walking Dead isn't governed by a dictatorial regime, there's no civil wars. The land has been turned in a nasty kind of 'terra novum' in which, in the course of the story, we see small things getting built up again. That's absolutely not the case in countries like Southern Sudan. There's no clean slate.

That's the point, I didn't say to look at Africa as an example of society collapsing. I said to look at it for an example of post society. With no single fair governmental body to keep the peace warlords and tribes have risen up violently to seize power. That directly refuted the other poster's point as if it were true, all those people would have joined forces to create a happy society. So look at the similarities to TWD and African conflict. Rick would be more of a tribal leader just looking to settle his tribe and live safely (at the prison) while the governor is a warlord. Everything will be his or be dead. If the governor's campaign against the prison wasn't "civil war" I don't know what would be in that universe and it most certainly was going to be an "ethnic cleansing" situation as he wasn't going to take any prisoners. Fast forward to the most current season and you can see Rick turning into a warlord himself. Now this begs the truly horrifying question of in a post society situation, can you survive without embracing that side of humanity? There will be those who revel in the violence, can you survive if you don't meet them with the same level of aggression? I say you can't. You can't lose yourself to mindless violence but you need to be able to do things you would find truly horrifying today, in polite society. Your life may very well depend on you being able to "rick" someone's throat out one day...

The Stanford Prison Experiment is also a bad example in this case. In that, if anything, a dictatorial regime was simulated. Neither was the goal of the experiment to research lawlessness or anything of that sort. No, the goal was simply to research the psychological effects of imprisonment on both prisoners and guards. It has little to nothing to do with the disappearance of society.

Again, it's just another piece of the puzzle. The guards were put there with no oversight, no restraint on their power, and told to keep order. Would that be any different from a group that got it's hands on military grade gear? They might have been cool before but after they get the biggest sticks, the most power, and have no oversight because no one can stand against them is it possible we might see the same trends? Demanding tribute of some sort (subjugation, supplies, sex, ect) from other groups to reinforce them as being the dominant group?

Are any of these things direct examples? No, of course not, we haven't had a zombie apocalypse. I'm just looking at the nature of humanity and how humanity has reacted to the next closest analog and drawing conclusions.

 

[Cowabungaa]

When half the country is to some varying degree an example of what I'm saying I think I'm allowed to round up.

That's the point, I didn't say to look at Africa as an example of society collapsing. I said to look at it for an example of post society. With no single fair governmental body to keep the peace warlords and tribes have risen up violently to seize power. That directly refuted the other poster's point as if it were true, all those people would have joined forces to create a happy society.

snip for the rest

No, you're not allowed to round up, as that's a woefully ignorant sweeping comment about an incredibly vast, complex and diverse continent. As is the rest of this quote. Post-society? That's absolutely not even remotely how the situation is in most of the continent, and even in the worse parts the term post-society does not reflect what's going on.

What is the case however is that many countries are recovering from decades of strife, which by itself is not even remotely like the complete disappearance of any kind of society and the situation thereafter. And that's just it, they're recovering. Ask any aid worker, modern aid work is aimed to insert itself into local social infrastructures the locals already set up. To foster, help develop and 'feed' local initiatives with equipment, knowledge and funding where they can't get it themselves. Because that's the thing; on a local level, the inhabitants of said recovering countries are banding together to make life manageable wherever they can.

Hell, the same thing can be seen in, say, Cuba. When government induced rationing was starting to take its toll and personal gardens where destroyed, people banded together to form small, underground markets to smuggle and trade food stuffs. Small markets that became so widespread that the communist government had no choice but to tolerate them eventually. It's a fantastic example of people banding together to increase their quality of life in a difficult situation, that's how humans survive.

I'm sorry, but all that you prove in your post is that you have little idea of how the situation actually is in vast parts of the African continent.

Again, it's just another piece of the puzzle. The guards were put there with no oversight, no restraint on their power, and told to keep order. Would that be any different from a group that got it's hands on military grade gear? They might have been cool before but after they get the biggest sticks, the most power, and have no oversight because no one can stand against them is it possible we might see the same trends? Demanding tribute of some sort (subjugation, supplies, sex, ect) from other groups to reinforce them as being the dominant group?

Are any of these things direct examples? No, of course not, we haven't had a zombie apocalypse. I'm just looking at the nature of humanity and how humanity has reacted to the next closest analog and drawing conclusions.

Except that you can't just pick a piece of a completely different puzzle and put it into your own, that's not how science works. The SPE specifically set up a guard-prisoner system, vastly different from a situation in which all laws are gone. A prison guard gets it power from law and order, that's the entire deal.

I know one has to look for analogues in this thought experiment, that's very true indeed, but the SPE is a thoroughly bad one. It derives its entire power and meaning from being set in a context in which law and order exists as it set one group on one side of that line and the other group on the other side. It's specifically an experiment about authority and what it does to people. If anything, the results of such experiments and the terrible things we saw coming out of Abu Graib are examples of what can go wrong in a formal prison system. That's why we can't use it as an analogue situation, it's too far removed from the other situation.

If human nature would be as you think it'd be, we'd probably be extinct by now or at least unable to set up the advanced societies that we did. Cooperation so we can both survive and thrive is in our blood. It has to be, that's how we became so successful.

 

[Sarge034]

No, you're not allowed to round up, as that's a woefully ignorant sweeping comment about an incredibly vast, complex and diverse continent. As is the rest of this quote. Post-society? That's absolutely not even remotely how the situation is in most of the continent, and even in the worse parts the term post-society does not reflect what's going on.

We'll then I guess I'll continue to say Africa to your disapproval then. Yes, post society. You said it yourself, the current situation is a result of defunct WW2 society. The order keepers pulled out, society failed, and violent groups rose up to fill the power void. I'm not seeing where this doesn't support my theory.

What is the case however is that many countries are recovering from decades of strife, which by itself is not even remotely like the complete disappearance of any kind of society and the situation thereafter. And that's just it, they're recovering. Ask any aid worker, modern aid work is aimed to insert itself into local social infrastructures the locals already set up. To foster, help develop and 'feed' local initiatives with equipment, knowledge and funding where they can't get it themselves. Because that's the thing; on a local level, the inhabitants of said recovering countries are banding together to make life manageable wherever they can.

From all the reports of warlords commandeering and destroying aid shipments I can't really follow that. But let's take a closer look. Do you know why the US went into Somalia in the early 90s? The reigning warlord was taking control of the un aid and only giving it to his followers. Effectively starving anyone who wouldn't follow him. If these countries are "recovering" then why is Somalia still a shit hole that has un aid not finding the people who need it? If I can't say "Africa" as a broad term, you can't say the countries are recovering.

Except that you can't just pick a piece of a completely different puzzle and put it into your own, that's not how science works. The SPE specifically set up a guard-prisoner system, vastly different from a situation in which all laws are gone. A prison guard gets it power from law and order, that's the entire deal.

Except this isn't completely different, it's all the human psyche. The SPE gave the prison guards power through power. So long as the prisoners didn't escape they were given free reign to do what they will. That was the entire point of the experiment, to see how far they would take their power in the absence of oversight.

If human nature would be as you think it'd be, we'd probably be extinct by now or at least unable to set up the advanced societies that we did. Cooperation so we can both survive and thrive is in our blood. It has to be, that's how we became so successful.

Do you know anything about the dark ages? Power achieved through brutality and expansionism. The only ones who survived were the ones strong enough to defend, those strong enough to conquer, and those who accepted subjugation by their conquers. Or is that example of human nature just a fluke too. Humans are a martial species, that's the fact of it.