Zombification

[AliasTheory]

You may find this amusing, I sure as hell did, just mind yourself, this site can be the wild west. http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/954191/Why+the+Zombie+Apocalypse+D+nt+Work/

I think I've read something like this before. Interesting. Reminds me of the whole "what of the zombie apocalypse happened today?" IMO, if it happened, it would depend on the type of zombies we're talking about.

 

Left 4 Dead zombies: Humans win. These guys just talk about brains and stuff all day, and can't distinguish between a tree branch and a chainsaw.

 

Resident Evil 5 zombies: Zombies likely to win. These guys can actually fight and use guns. Though in this case, they aren't really zombies; they are infected. In short, they actually can think.

[juderodney]

Sorry to burst your bubbles, guys, but Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks, (yes, that Mel Brooks) wrote the books as satire.

[brokenergy]

You know the whole zombie thing comes from people how suffer leprosy, fungal or gangrene. A lot of fiction comes from strange but true stories

[Vindekarr]

It also comes from Vodu/Voodoo.

 

A mysterious and completely fascinating religion, it's here that Zambies originate more purely than anywhere else.

[antonkr]

There sure as hell are a lot of people who are prepared for zombie apocalypses, but I think if you are prepared for zombies you are prepared for anything. it will NEVER hurt anyone if you have a few guns in your closet or a few cans of food. If your house is blown away by a tornado having some good surival equipment ready to go in less then 3 minutes can be life saving. :thumbsup:

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[Keanumoreira]

There sure as hell are a lot of people who are prepared for zombie apocalypses, but I think if you are prepared for zombies you are prepared for anything. it will NEVER hurt anyone if you have a few guns in your closet or a few cans of food. If your house is blown away by a tornado having some good surival equipment ready to go in less then 3 minutes can be life saving. :thumbsup:

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

 

It's kind of surprising how many people do believe in Zombies. A recent survey shows that 10% and counting of America's population alone on the western half, believes in Zombies. You can tell that people take this very seriously...

[AliasTheory]

It's kind of surprising how many people do believe in Zombies. A recent survey shows that 10% and counting of America's population alone on the western half, believes in Zombies. You can tell that people take this very seriously...

Would you mind citing your source? I kind of want to see that survey. :)

[ub3rman123]

It's kind of surprising how many people do believe in Zombies. A recent survey shows that 10% and counting of America's population alone on the western half, believes in Zombies. You can tell that people take this very seriously...

Would you mind citing your source? I kind of want to see that survey. :)

 

 

I find it funny that apparently more people think zombies exist than people who think Elvis is alive.

 

There could be some correlation. Zombie Elvis?

[Keanumoreira]

It's kind of surprising how many people do believe in Zombies. A recent survey shows that 10% and counting of America's population alone on the western half, believes in Zombies. You can tell that people take this very seriously...

Would you mind citing your source? I kind of want to see that survey. :)

 

Well actually it was on a special I saw last night, and i'm sure when they meant population of Western side of America that it was most likely an estimate based on numerous sources. In other words, they could be lying or guessing. I'm gullible so that may have something to do with it. :happy:

[Sepherose]

What we call zombies today are what were referred to as ghouls many centuries ago in Europe, and many many decades before that another culture used the same word (ghoul, well not the same, but very similar) to describe something wholly different. The word zombie is actually a derivative of the aforementioned voodoo practice (aforementioned in this thread). Also, real practitioners within the Voodoo religion are offended by the modern idea of the zombie (which was caused by Romero's first film, so yes, it was a word hijacking, unintentional though, as Romero never wanted to call them zombies, but that is another story altogether).

 

Also, there are cases of people that did not have any belief whatsoever in voodoo being affected by the toxin that actually impaired brain function and made the person very receptive to suggestion, in essence, the voodoo zombie is nothing more than a poisoned individual and an unwilling slave conditioned to listen to only one person.

 

And now to get to my main point: Something very like "zombies" could appear. Look at what rabies does to it's victims. It is extremely infections, once symptoms show, the individual can not be (easily) saved (there are instances of a few people being put into a coma intentionally and kept on life support until the virus died, technically saving them, but they were not able to be resuscitated).

I am not saying that rabies could raise the dead, but here are some symptoms:

Unregulated violence, mainly against those that are uninfected with the virus (this could be a misnomer, as it is rare that two symptomatic rabies victims are within a close proximity since it kills so fast.)

Ignoring injury, and this could easily lead to moderate wounds becoming gangrenous.

Massive amounts of adrenaline in the body, allowing for pushing the body past it's normal limits.

Lack of desire for food/water. (this almost damages this whole idea, but I will get to it in the next part)

 

Now let's look at the problem with something like this becoming a pandemic: The time from infection to symptom is very, very long.

 

That problem is a killer to this idea, until you realize that rabies is a virus, meaning it's one of the most mutable things on earth when it comes to organisms. (more on this later)

Now it being a virus means we could become immune, right? No, not really. Rabies is what is known as an encapsulated virus, and the human body has a notorious problem with those, as in it can't make antibodies for them, hence why a human rabies vaccine does not exist, and medical treatment is the only way to get rid of it, but once symptoms are there, it's "game over" so to speak.

 

Now, there is only one movie I know of that has touched on this idea, and that is Quarantine, anyway, let's continue.

 

A virus has a few primary advantages, it reproduces quickly, very quickly, it is very tough to kill, and it is very mutable. We are going to ignore the first two, as they are self explanatory, but that last one in this instance is very important. The rabies virus could mutate and start becoming symptomatic in days, or maybe even hours, but minutes is not a possible reality as far as I am aware, or in the very least has not been observed. But, in the case of days or hours, it is very likely that the infected individuals will not think to get treatment, especially if it was an infected human that bit them, most likely thinking they were a mentally unbalanced individual. And even if caught, the only way to test for rabies is a brain sample, which kills the infected. Most medical professionals will not do this, as it is against their Hippocratic Oath. And by the time they die, it is likely that the bitten individual(s) have already shown symptoms.

 

Also, the virus could also mutate so that the lack of desire for food goes in quite the opposite direction, and it's easy to see where that could go.

 

Now comes the biggest hurdle in this whole theory: It is highly unlikely that these mutations could occur at random, and even if it did, it would likely be stopped rather effectively with one or two isolated cases or outbreaks that are small. So the other possibility is that it wouldn't happen randomly, but would be a thought out and intentional mutation, and most large nations on the planet have the capability, but are they doing it? Hopefully not. And if they are, well, the future just started looking a lot worse.

 

EDIT: Hmmm... I should have looked at the date the last reply was posted....