Programmers vs. Zombies | Hacker News Reader

Programmers vs. Zombies

15 pointsajwinn5 comments

Recently, I've been trying to learn Ruby on Rails via Rails for Zombies (www.railsforzombies.org), and it's gotten me wondering: what's the deal with Zombies? (Yes, I'm going to use a capital Z.)

Our monsters have always described our contemporary fears. I think these are the eight most revealing monsters through the ages:

1. Ancient Mesopotamia - Golem: fear of the implications of Origin stories

2. Dark Ages, Europe - Werewolf: fear of the dual nature of self

3. Victorian Era - Vampires: fear of blood/rabies/sexuality/nobility

4. Industrial Revolution - Frankenstein: fear of the implications of medical science

5. Pre-World War II - King Kong: fear of the undiscovered/uncharted/unconquered

6. Post-World War II - Godzilla: fear of the discovered/nuclear technology

7. Baby Boom - Robots: fear of rapid technological progress

8. Internet Revolution - Zombies: fear of the lack of technology

Somewhere between #7 and #8 we changed our minds about technology. We went from being afraid the future would move on without us, to being afraid that we'd lose everything we've built. And take a look at who creates the monster - it's not the guy tinkering with science anymore, it's usually some prideful oaf abusing the scientist. Also note whose skills become fearfully useless in the Zombie apocalypse - the programmer.

To me, Zombies teach us:

1. People love technology and fear it's demise.

2. Many people are programmers and would fear the demise of their usefulness.

3. Most people believe programmers and their skills are the future - if they become useless, the future becomes a scary question mark.

Programmers, you are the world's only hope against the coming Zombie apocalypse. Only you can keep the Machines running to defend us against the onslaught. Who better to defeat the brainless army lumbering toward us than the tastiest brains on earth? Some ways to help:

1. Consider designing missile software in your free time that could be used to prevent alien asteroids from reaching earth.

2. Do not let your hubris cause you to join LulzSec, hack secret biological weapons facilities, and release strange puffs of green smoke into the atmosphere. I'll be so pissed.

3. Given the possibility you will not heed #1 or #2, at least become a ninja so you stay alive long enough to engineer us back out of the coming nightmare.

Personally, I think zombie movies reflect 'fear of societal collapse' more than 'fear over the absence of technology'. (The absence of technology is certainly part of a societal collapse, but societal collapse is more than just the absence of technology.)

Sudden, unpredictable, uncontrollable events - large stock market fluctuations, 9/11, the housing crisis, almost certainly the upcoming sovereign debt crisis - have made people very uneasy.

Zombie movies give people an opportunity to think about what they'd do in a societal breakdown, reassuring them on some level - since unlike a sovereign debt crisis, the zombie apocalypse isn't going to happen. Thinking about barricading the windows and aiming for the head is fun; thinking about total market failure is horrifying.

There's also a certain segment of the population, the underclass that's being left behind, who sees nothing in our society for them and would love a hard reset. For them, zombie movies feed into happy fantasies about their rugged gun-toting individualism. (The hero-protagonist in a zombie movie is never, say, a stockbroker from New York.)

Good thoughts. Something else I've been wondering about - why do you think the reset always brings us to Pre-Industrial Revolution (lack of infrastructure) - as opposed, to say, the Dark Ages (lack of scientific method)? Specifically, the apocalypse never seems to impact survivor knowledge, just the speed at which they can rebuild?

There are a really huge number of books around - it's unlikely that they'll all be destroyed, unless some doomsday cult starts burning every book they can find, so there would be a large amount of knowledge that could be recovered without much difficulty. The scientific method is a fairly easy thing to know; it doesn't seem likely that it's just going to vanish. Realistically, there would also be a lot of people hiding out in bunkers, mountain cabins, or other areas where the number of zombies would be more manageable. So, while a large amount of knowledge is going to vanish (anything computerized is going to be hard to access unless you have a generator), most of it won't be hard to recover unless you wait too long.

I highly encourage you to read World War Z (written by the same guy who wrote the Zombie Survival Guide); while it doesn't directly address most of those questions, you can read between the lines to find the answers. It is, admittedly, only a type 1 Apocalypse, by the TVTropes scale, but still.

:) I like how you outlined the discussion.

Now, there are many different Zombie scenarios, but I can understand why you see Zombies corresponding to a fear of loss of technology. Although I always took the fascination with Zombies as:

(besides being the "post-apocalyptic scenario" where you have to figure out how to survive)

- a fear of losing individuality/being slave to society, or the sort.

- people feeling others in society are some sort of "monster" or "animals" consuming each other,

- which makes people feel frustrated, creating a schism between wanting to see it all destroyed (especially if you're a "forever alone"), but at the same time seeing those that reflect what you are/were and your friends and loved ones, becoming something else; join them or psychically "kill" them ("disconnecting" the bond).

And the end product (hitherto): stories about it (or a proletarian revolution?).

Regarding "Also note whose skills become fearfully useless in the Zombie apocalypse - the programmer."

Dude. If the dead starts walking and your worries are finding a job then maybe your problems lies elsewhere.

... Code. Need to code...

I think you're right that the feeling others in society are some sort of "monster" is really key. I heard a podcast of This American Life that interviewed Mr. Rogers, and I remember this moment where he's asking a man why they don't talk with their neighbors, and he has this way of making them open up like they're a kid. And the guy responded something like, "I'm afraid they won't BE like me. Like a monster or something."

And that's where our modern monsters come from (and maybe always have): these unspoken, emotional, real-life fears. Like the fear of 'Others', I would suggest that the fear of finding a job is probably weightier than the fear of Zombies, and if they DO start walking... it will be a relief to stop worrying about losing/finding a job. :)

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