Very nice. I think #1 is the most important point in here. I read some time ago an excellent article (forgot where, unfortunately) about the significance of vampires, how they actually mean that someone who sacrifices other humans, looking at them as prey, will also lose their humanity and become more like a beast, being confined to the night where other beasts go bump. And how the vampire crazy brought about by Twilight et al is just a fascet of the fact that to be selfish, to think only of oneself, is becoming more and more acceptable, if not the outright norm.
I think we can learn a lot about a culture by looking at what monsters they create. Vampires as we know them today come from the Victorian ages and represent a demonization of personal impetus and sexual drive. As those things become normal in our eyes, so do vampires slowly become the good guys. Meanwhile, the main problem of our age is that we are surrounded by people, all the time, and yet so few of them we can call friends. We literally do not care if they live or die. These creatures we see on the street - that look exactly like humans but do not register as so to us - are the zombies. Being surrounded by a group of strange creatures that look like us but as far as we know are nothing but empty husks who want to eat our souls is the very definition of life in a modern metropolis.
A final point, there's a fallacy in your article. Of course that 100% of the people who predicted the total destruction of the human race are wrong, because if at any point any of them are right, there won't be anyone left to count how many are right. There have been plenty of apocalypses in the past, we just look past them because in movies an apocalypse will happen overnight and usually with very pretty CGI, but in real life it's a small change that will happen over many years. Look at the end of the Roman Empire and compare it with a post-apoc setting. Technology flung back for centuries? Check. Democratic processes replaced by small absloutist sovereignities? Check. Infrastructure completely destroyed, causing poverty and famine? Check. Remains of old world's building still remain, now useless? Check (some of those aqueducts are still around).
I think we can learn a lot about a culture by looking at what monsters they create. Vampires as we know them today come from the Victorian ages and represent a demonization of personal impetus and sexual drive. As those things become normal in our eyes, so do vampires slowly become the good guys. Meanwhile, the main problem of our age is that we are surrounded by people, all the time, and yet so few of them we can call friends. We literally do not care if they live or die. These creatures we see on the street - that look exactly like humans but do not register as so to us - are the zombies. Being surrounded by a group of strange creatures that look like us but as far as we know are nothing but empty husks who want to eat our souls is the very definition of life in a modern metropolis.
A final point, there's a fallacy in your article. Of course that 100% of the people who predicted the total destruction of the human race are wrong, because if at any point any of them are right, there won't be anyone left to count how many are right. There have been plenty of apocalypses in the past, we just look past them because in movies an apocalypse will happen overnight and usually with very pretty CGI, but in real life it's a small change that will happen over many years. Look at the end of the Roman Empire and compare it with a post-apoc setting. Technology flung back for centuries? Check. Democratic processes replaced by small absloutist sovereignities? Check. Infrastructure completely destroyed, causing poverty and famine? Check. Remains of old world's building still remain, now useless? Check (some of those aqueducts are still around).
