"Are zombies human?" Topic

Well? Why or why not (with respect to gaming)?

I say no. Zeds routinely do things that violate human kinematic and strength of materials limits; they punch through things that would pulverize normal human limbs, and do it with severly atrophied muscles. Also, they don't show up on IR scans (unless they're on fire), which doesn't necessarily make them not human, but does affect detection in some games.

Not human. The only way to take them out is with a head shot, or "double tap" them.
Bob

Also, they don't show up on IR scans

I must have missed that JAMA article…

You are making a deadly mistake, in assuming that your favorite movie or game rules reflect zombies in real life.
In real life, they are much different.

>>You are making a deadly mistake, in assuming that your favorite movie or game rules reflect zombies in real life.
In real life, they are much different.<<

LOL. Good one.

Nope, they are meat robots -- flesh Terminators… but here's a great article on why the Zombie Apocalypse would be over in about 2 weeks…

link

No

You guys do know that zombies aren't real, right?

They are as human as vampires.

So no, not really.

Nope.
They are monsters.
Says so in the D&D Monster Manual.

"You guys do know that zombies aren't real, right?"

LMAO, almost fell out of the chair.

They are as human as vampires.

But much less sparkly. :)

The only qualification required for human-ness is genetic. Is a zombie's DNA still recognizably human (even if dead)? If so then they're human. Dead humans, but still humans.

The question of whether or not zombies are persons is rather more complex, and as it is likely of interest to very few people more typing than I feel like doing right now. :)

Yea keep thinking they are not real when the Zombie Apocalypse comes we will see who is laughing then!

Zombies are just misunderstood.

And if they are not Human how come they have their own month?

VR
James Mattes

IDK apparently dolphins get a month.

I don't think having a month is a good measurement of humanity (unless celery, bikes, and honey are human now ) link

I'm going to withhold judgement on the zombie question for now (although it obviously depends on type of zombie, and what our definition of human actually is). Ask me again in a couple months; the last week of the ethics course I'm taking is going to be all about zombie related ethical questions (I love this professor).

Since the OFM brought up JAMA …

The term "cloning" may suggest that one organism is the exact replica of another. Human clones would
be identical insofar as they would have the same nuclear genes as the donor. However, as observed in
natural monozygotic twins, having identical genes does not result in two indistinguishable individuals. A
clone must— because of the different environment and circumstances in which he or she creates his or her
life story— be a different person from the person from whom he or she was cloned. Although human
cloning may be thought of as a sort of "delayed twinning," twins may be more similar than clones since
most twins are conceived and nurtured in the same environment in utero and often during childhood.
Since environment has a profound influence on development, human clones likely would be different in
terms of personality and other characteristics.
Because cloning would not produce exact replicas, several applications of human cloning are illogical. In
particular, human cloning would not be a solution to terminal illness or mortality. Children are already
thought of as a way to "soften the blow of mortality," and clones may be seen as a more powerful
approach since there is no sharing or mixing of genomes.iv The possibility of having one's life to live
over again, or of getting back a lost child, might be attractive. But the clone would not be the same
person as the cloned individual. The fact remains that the person does die and cannot be replaced.
The same reasoning applies to recreating sports stars, dictators, and geniuses— genetics does not wholly
define a person.

PDF link

Not an AMA report on zombies, but over a decade and a half I can still hear the ring of that last clause I quoted. I think I quoted enough to demonstrate the context, but feel free to link through and read all of it, and more.

I'm still open to the argument that zombies are human, but not based on a DNA alone argument.

Similar to orcs.
They're human enough that they are fun to shoot… but not so human that we have to feel guilty about it. Kinda like how certain colonials felt about primitive tribesman.

The "7 Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse would be quickly Over" is the reason I never appreciated any Zombie movies/books/comics. One needs a good enough premise to suspend reality for the story to work.
How will the upcoming film, "World War Z" do it?

You guys do know that zombies aren't real, right?

I assume you haven't been in a McDonalds for some time then?

Only the ones still using mobile phones or Facebook.

>I'm still open to the argument that zombies are human, but not based on a DNA alone argument.<

That's because you're conflating humanity with personhood. They're not the same thing. DNA, and DNA alone, a human makes; which your link does not in and of itself refute. Personhood, on the other hand, is a lot more complicated.

"They're human enough that they are fun to shoot…"

LOL. Great line!

They camp out in front of store sales and concerts. Some of them even vote.

Depends. Ever work in a Prairie Cube Town? There are Zeds there I tell you.

Eric

That's because you're conflating humanity with personhood.

No, I'm rejecting your definition of "human". Any inquiry of the form "is X Y?" is as much about what Y means as it is about what X means. I get what you're saying. A fingernail clipping is human. I just think there's more gaming applicability to the definition of aombies as consumerism hypnotized people in WalMart than there is for a purely DNA based definition of human.

A complex question, but yes, zombies are definitively human.
One can't deny they are from a purely biological point of view: they are diseased or mutilated humans. Diseased in the 'plague model', mutilated in the 'Haitian zombie' model: people drugged to apparent death by the voodoo witch-doctor who then 'resurrects' them with an antidote -but their brained suffered irreversible damage from lack of oxygen during the apparent death.
If you add the psychological factor, beware 'political correctness': if zombies are not human because their lack of human intelligence, then neither are those deeply retarded people: touchy, touchy…
Anyway zombies are NOT dead: dead organisms don't move, don't react to their environment. Zombies are alive, with an active metabolism, requiring functional hear & lungs and a minimal of brain. Of course, with an active metabolism they appear on IR scans; as vampires do, of course: it's just a transposition of the legend that vampires (and witches) are deprived of mirror image (or of shadow) 'because the devil took their soul'; not at all compatible with the approach of this thread (did Carmilla & Dracula have a mirror image, btw?).

.

They are as human as vampires.

A little more complicated: vampire kept their human intelligence (if with disturbed ethics) thus are 'more [obviously] human' than zombies. Besides, in the 'Matheson model' of vampirism as a kind of rabies the 'pathogen' gives its human host such 'improvements' (extended life, regeneration, outstanding physical abilities, night vision..) that it can also be seen as a *symbiont*. if the 'complete vampire' is a symbiosis he is 'human +', a kind of new type of organism just like lichens (and Orks in 40K). Maybe hairsplitting, but the criterion could be the ability of vampire to reproduce: if the 'human body' of the vampire is sterile, then the microbe is not a symbiont but really a parasite.

"Similar to orcs": I suspect Orcs are cruelly maligned representatives of a slightly earlier branch of human
evolution. Older than Neanderthals (unless their 'ugliness' is greatly exaggerated by prejudiced descriptions) but not by much. As members of the human evolutionary tree who can reason and speak, Orcs are human, if not members of Homo sapiens sapiens sapiens. The accepted existence of Half-Orcs (possibly following a hint in Tolkien?) shows that Orcs can occasionally breed true with humans: if not belonging to H. sapiens they are biologically very close.

Zombies, Vampire, Orks, etc. … are targets … And note throughout Earth's history, Homo sapiens/Humans/etc. never have had much problem killing each other off for a variety of reasons …

There are many in real life…. Just walk around in WMart. You cant swing a dead cat without hittin one :)

Respectfully,
Gunny

Are we talking Humanoids or Human. And what about Neanderthals? They are still around and very much real, check out some of the Balkan's NBA Basketball players.

I just started reading World War Z. As in all warfare (remember the Hun for Germans in World War 1), dehumanizing the enemy is part of the process to allow us to kill our fellow man. Skinnys and ribs were used in Gothic Serpent to address the enemy combatants.

As for burning Zombies it is not a preferred technique as I have learned from WWZ.

So the question is when do we consider Zombies no longer human? Demonization of the enemy is as old as time and part of the psychology of warfare. One can no longer stop to consider the human in the uniform and effectively engage the enemy if your humanity gets in the way.

Now back the zombification, personally, I would rather be red than one of the undead or PDS (Partial Death Syndrome) survivor!

VR
James Mattes

One can no longer stop to consider the human in the uniform and effectively engage the enemy if your humanity gets in the way.

While I agree with your point in general, I don't think that it is necessary to dehumanize the enemy – or yourself – to effectively engage in violence against them. In reaction to an atrocity like a mass grave of slaughtered children, one does not need to create a fictional construct of less than human status for the perpetrators. You simply need to acknowledge the lengths to which some all-too-human opponents will go to preserve what they deem to be important, and believe that that behaviour is unacceptable and must be stopped.

Dehumanization is certainly a coping technique after witnessing such an event (or even less severe ones) to allow one to readjust to the rest of the world. But again, not a necessary one.

@abdul666lw – Now there is a rationale for the humanity of zombies that I can accept. The idea that all monsters are simply a very rare (and monstrous!) variation on the natural order as we know it. Completely and consistently rejecting the occult explanation. I've run campaigns like that. Just not for a long while.

I'm not familiar with the new kinds of zombies. The old AD&D zombies are dead corpses animated by magic; most of them are human corpses. As I understand, new fashionable zombies are humans affected by some viruses or whatever; so, human too.

However, what does the question mean? What does "being human" implies?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not apply to them, because they are dead (or they are undead but anyway they have died).

However the Geneva Conventions article 17, is about the "dead", so if you meet any zombies, you must respect it!

"Parties to the conflict shall ensure that burial or cremation of the dead, carried out individually as far as circumstances permit, is preceded by a careful examination, if possible by a medical examination, of the bodies, with a view to confirming death, establishing identity and enabling a report to be made. (…) They shall further ensure that the dead are honourably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, that their graves are respected, grouped if possible according to the nationality of the deceased, properly maintained and marked so that they may always be found."

Can't believe we're trying to have an informed discussion about this "issue"……… :>D

I agree totally Tazman !! And ditto on that morrigan !!

Surely this depends on what they were before they were zombies….

all fear the zombie cow, the zombie duck, and the zombie chicken!

When your dinner wakes up on the plate and attacks you then you have real problems!

The humanity of zombies being determined by genetics line of reasoning is interesting and significant in real life, but less because of the undead and more because of transgenic organisms.

Sure, a clone of a person could still be considered a person by the standard definitions, but what if the DNA used for that new organism had been tweaked a bit before being spurred to replicate?

"Personhood" will need to be defined legally and it is not really clear where that line should be drawn.

…regarding zombies…sure they are humans, dead ones, and thus have relinquished their rights. The fact that (in most genres at least) they fail to retain much of their former personalities makes an easy case for non-personhood. However, in other story lines like the failed show, Babylon Fields, the zeds are essentially rotted versions of their former selves and attempt to pick up their lives where they left off. That kind of zombie at least makes one ask the question.

Basically, I think their "personhood" would be defined by their need to consume the flesh of living humans. If they didn't need that, and they have some semblance of intellect, they would eventually be integrated into society.