Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yet another novel I will no longer write

antipope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 180 posts

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#111

Post by mattmanser »

rapind wrote: post #53

What always bugged me about zombie movies is that no one seems to figure out a way to take advantage of it beyond total anarchy. I would expect enterprising individuals to see zombies as a potential tool. Like maybe figure out what makes them tick (they never seem to possess intelligent thought) and leverage them for a labour force or army. What are they fuelled by? Can they be taught to perform complex tasks through…

It's not really the point of a zombie movie, or any movie or story containing magical, free-energy beings/things/spells/doodads for that matter. It's just an accidental consequence of the magic/fantasy.

For zombies the point (and the plot) should always revolve around the existential dread of relentless, never-ending hordes of beings who want to eat your brains.

It's like the old story about the very best thing superman could do is simply turn a crank powering the world's energy. All that flying around saving people is actually a massive, inefficient, effectively people-killing, waste of time.

Try writing many series of comics about that though!

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#112

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #63
jfim wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The elite are fine in a disaster and they know it. Not all the time, though. For example, Bloomberg reported a few days ago that Nigeria's elite, which normally flies out of the country for healthcare, can't do it now due to the travel restrictions across countries [0]. > The panic strikes the middle class more than any other group, because their status is the most easily lost. Unlike the rich, their power goes awa…

> Not all the time, though. And to drive the point home even more: many high-status politicians in Western countries have contracted COVID-19 and it's uncertain how many more will, and how many will die. Also: uncertainty creates a panic of its own.

Many high-status politicians are clueless fools with no idea how to avoid infection, or how to minimise the risk of contagion within their immediate circle.

Most won't die unless they're in a vulnerable age group. But they will spread the infection to friends, family, and colleagues, some of whom will die.

The median age in the House of Lords is 70.

As for elite panic - armed gangs are already a thing in the UK and US. The suggestion they wouldn't move into a power vacuum left by the police/military when they're already battling for turf with violence, extortion, and intimidation is hard to take seriously.

Yes, there are plenty of people who will help others, especially in nice middle class enclaves. But you only need a small minority of dark triad types willing to use violence to create an immediate problem for everyone.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#113

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #56
rpiguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His observation is wrong. In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Witness Africa, South America, Burma, and the middle Eastern countries in which we have removed the “dictators.” Asia after WW2 was different because the West essentially sponsored state corporate Facism in Japan and Korea until they had 30-50 years to evolve into something resembling a true democracy. Even the term “elite pa…

> In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Such gangs are the basic form of government. They have command structure, and a population base they exploit. Over time, as gang grows, it comes into conflict with other gangs and one eventually emerges as the dominant. Once in command over a big chunk of population, it either splits into many smaller bands, repeating the cycle, or it evolves to be…

How does your hypothesis apply to, for example, Mexico? Seems that "eventually" may mean decades, if not longer.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#114

Post by crooked-v »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #56
rpiguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His observation is wrong. In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Witness Africa, South America, Burma, and the middle Eastern countries in which we have removed the “dictators.” Asia after WW2 was different because the West essentially sponsored state corporate Facism in Japan and Korea until they had 30-50 years to evolve into something resembling a true democracy. Even the term “elite pa…

> In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Such gangs are the basic form of government. They have command structure, and a population base they exploit. Over time, as gang grows, it comes into conflict with other gangs and one eventually emerges as the dominant. Once in command over a big chunk of population, it either splits into many smaller bands, repeating the cycle, or it evolves to be…

The classic example of this on a massive scale is, of course, medieval Europe. All Roman-imposed centralized order broke down in a slow apocalypse and control reverted to local armed gangs... which then formed alliances and feudal pecking orders and gradually recentralized into kingdoms and empires.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#115

Post by Aeolun »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #94
UweSchmidt wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many societies with turmoil have managed to resolve the situation and went back to normal. Surely that depends on the attitudes of people, and especially leadership, on how to deal with the situation. Zombie television presents violence as the only option and the enemy as an incurable and unsavable evil. If the only option shown is to kill and build walls, then that's what they are programmed to do. In the real world…

> " In the real world people can always come together and compromise, share ressources and help each other. " That's starkly contradicted by the absence of toilet paper and other staples on store shelves at the individual level and the ongoing profiteering on and commandeering of medical protective gear and other medical supplies at the international level.

Germany is taking patients from surrounding countries. It’s not everywhere that things are like that.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#116

Post by Aeolun »

chippy wrote: post #101
rapind wrote: post #53

What always bugged me about zombie movies is that no one seems to figure out a way to take advantage of it beyond total anarchy. I would expect enterprising individuals to see zombies as a potential tool. Like maybe figure out what makes them tick (they never seem to possess intelligent thought) and leverage them for a labour force or army. What are they fuelled by? Can they be taught to perform complex tasks through…

the early zombie movies covered this too. It was a major plot point of the research of living with the virus (and training them) via intelligence vs eliminating it via brute strength

What are these movies? I’d be interested to see them.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#117

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

gamblor956 wrote: post #30
rpiguy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His observation is wrong. In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Witness Africa, South America, Burma, and the middle Eastern countries in which we have removed the “dictators.” Asia after WW2 was different because the West essentially sponsored state corporate Facism in Japan and Korea until they had 30-50 years to evolve into something resembling a true democracy. Even the term “elite pa…

The term "elite panic" is a very real thing based in actual historical events. It traces its roots to the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, and Maoist Revolution, where the rich/elite were slaughtered and imprisoned by mobs of peasants. By comparison, the middle class didn't exist when these revolutions took place. The "middle class" is a very new construct that is only a few decades old, dating back to the post…

That's not entirely true. The middle class used to be known as the bourgeoisie, and before that they were traders, merchants, and sometimes small-scale artisans, who were below the local aristocracy, but above the peasants, serfs, and cannon fodder.

The US has a peculiar definition which includes workers who would normally be considered working class. The true middle classes are usually professionals with advanced specialisms that require above-average intellect and education, and typically include some element of management and administration. They have some political leverage, but typically less than they think.

This version of the middle classes emerged as the administrative, technical, scientific, medical, and legal support for company owners and speculators during the Industrial Revolution. This is still recognisable today. (It was a huge problem during the Maoist revolution, and Mao went out of his way to destroy and "reeducate" this class - because they were capable of resisting him.)

The upper classes rely on inherited wealth and power, make their money from property, land, share ownership and other forms of rent seeking, have direct personal connections to networks that shape policy and power, and don't need to work unless they choose to.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#118

Post by barry-cotter »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #113
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all societies in which there is a power vacuum gangs take over. Such gangs are the basic form of government. They have command structure, and a population base they exploit. Over time, as gang grows, it comes into conflict with other gangs and one eventually emerges as the dominant. Once in command over a big chunk of population, it either splits into many smaller bands, repeating the cycle, or it evolves to be…

How does your hypothesis apply to, for example, Mexico? Seems that "eventually" may mean decades, if not longer.

It seems to apply pretty well to Mexico. Every time the cartels reach an equilibrium of violence where there’s a clear chain of command and territories violence drops. Then the Mexican state decides that having para-states on its territory is unacceptable, smashes them and violence increases. You see the same dynamic though not on the same scale in US organized crime history; the Mafia were brutal thugs just like the brutal thugs who are criminals in US inner cities now. The Mafia used violence less often because they were organized. People knew where they stood. Pay your protection money, don’t talk to the police unless they’re our police and you’re done.

No crime is better than organized crime is better than widespread disorganized crime.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#119

Post by vl »

dane-pgp wrote: post #42
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a world-view you'd expect of unreconstructed pre-Enlightenment aristocrats, or maybe a society dominated by a violent slave-owning elite. This really hit home for me. It has always struck me as supremely odd, the civilization-breakdown fantasies that people have when I suggest that everyone in a society, not just the police, have easy and unrestrained access to arms, as advocated by many throughout history. Th…

> ... that society will devolve into this immediately, every fender bender or bit of road rage turning into life or death conflict. To provide context, here is some data on that: "cases of road rage involving a firearm — where someone brandished a gun or fired one at a driver or passenger — more than doubled to 620 in 2016, from 247 in 2014." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/us/road-rage-guns.html That doesn't amou…

> brandished a gun or fired one

There is a huge difference between brandishing a gun, firing it, injuring someone and killing someone. This is typical leftist misrepresentation of statistics by NYT - conflating of significant and insignificant events into single number to make it appear larger.

Re: Yet another novel I will no longer write

#120

Post by phkahler »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

> The survivors/protagonists of the zombie plague are the viewpoint the audience is intended to empathize with, but their response to the shambling horde is as brutal and violent as any plantation owner's reaction to their slaves rising, and it speaks to a peculiarly American cognitive disorder, elite panic. Elite panic is the phenomenon by which rich and/or privileged people imagine that in times of chaos all social…

>> To some extent this reflects their own implicit belief that humanity is by nature grasping, avaricious, amoral, and cruel, and that their status depends on power and violence.

A lot of that sounds like projection.

Post reply on HN