Social Justice for the Undead!

[Thought]

Given that it is nearly Halloween, I thought it might be an enjoyable diversion to discuss a bit of a what-if. In this case, what if zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other former-normal-humans truly existed in modern society. What rights should be extended to those people groups, if any? Should they be under particular regulations?

Consider the classic zombie, for example. Though formerly human, the common variety lack the intelligence necessary for communication and thus by their very nature cannot participate in the common human experience. Voting, it would seem, must be denied them. Given that I am not sure what reproductive and sexual drives they have, I cannot speak for certain, but I suspect the marriage privileges might have to be restricted as well. We might relegate them to the status of unthinking animals. Given their high risk to normal human life, they would probably have to be closely regulated, possibly existing only in special government reserves. Though undead, I can find no particular reason to eradicate an entire branch of humanity. Of course, the problem of diet might solve that. If they are traditional horror-movie zombies that require a steady diet of human brains, I am afraid we must, through not providing that, allow them to die out.

Vampires, on the other hand, seem like they might be able to be a productive and useful addition to society. The problem there, however, would be with their immortality. Would vampires be required to pay into social security? If so, when would they collect? Would population controls need to be put in place?

[FaustWolf]

I'm extremely worried about sexual exploitation of the zombie. There's literally an ad for a "Zombie Sex Party" hanging on the front entrance bulletin board of the economics building where I take my graduate courses. I'm not sure what it is, and it scares me that the tag line is "Who Says Zombies Don't Wanna F!#^?"

Who, indeed? How are we supposed to take a Halloween celebrant's word for it? Do the zombies have a union or other institution through which to let us know whether they do, indeed, categorically enjoy sexual relations with the living? Is a zombie even aware enough of its social environment to give proper consent?

Sexual exploitation of zombies is a manifestation of what I call the "mechanization of sex," wherein men (and maybe, sometimes women) seek sex with some body without all the niceties and complications of real human interaction. Like the prophesied sex bot, this can't be healthy for society.

The idea isn't new -- zombies have been highly sexualized and objectivized in Michael Jackson's Thriller and Ghosts music videos. Also, zombies may have been abused in the Marquis de Sade's novels, though I don't have a quote or citation handy or anything.

When I go back tomorrow I'm going to see if I can glean any more information about what, exactly, this event at my college is. But I'd feel awkward if someone caught me staring at it.

EDIT: I don't mean to devalue zombies by infantilizing them in protectionist fashion or anything; I just want to make sure that zombies do, indeed, enjoy what the halloween celebrants at my college are proposing that they go through. If a person's having sex with a zombie and all the zombie is thinking about is "braiiiins," then that zombie is not enjoying the act, and should not feel forced to participate.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

OFFENSIVE THREAD.

<img src="http://www.joe-ludwig.de/bild.jpg">

Population control is a vampire's choice!

EDIT: Can't get thet thur photo up.

[Truthordeal]

(Assuming the Civil War Bubba facade)

Them thar zombies ain't too liked 'round these parts. Always stealin' ar crops an' ar welfare. Them vampires always corruptin' ar womenfolk and commitin' adultries over yonder on that thar swimmin' hole.

All 'o them what are commitin' sacrilege and makin' dear sweet Baby Jesus clamour in his manger. Rev. Falwell says so. They ain't right, that they ain't.

(Resumes whittling)

[Mr Bekkler]

I'm extremely worried about sexual exploitation of the zombie. There's literally an ad for a "Zombie Sex Party" hanging on the front entrance bulletin board of the economics building where I take my graduate courses. I'm not sure what it is, and it scares me that the tag line is "Who Says Zombies Don't Wanna F!#^?"

Who, indeed? How are we supposed to take a Halloween celebrant's word for it? Do the zombies have a union or other institution through which to let us know whether they do, indeed, categorically enjoy sexual relations with the living? Is a zombie even aware enough of its social environment to give proper consent?

Sexual exploitation of zombies is a manifestation of what I call the "mechanization of sex," wherein men (and maybe, sometimes women) seek sex with some body without all the niceties and complications of real human interaction. Like the prophesied sex bot, this can't be healthy for society.

The idea isn't new -- zombies have been highly sexualized and objectivized in Michael Jackson's Thriller and Ghosts music videos. Also, zombies may have been abused in the Marquis de Sade's novels, though I don't have a quote or citation handy or anything.

When I go back tomorrow I'm going to see if I can glean any more information about what, exactly, this event at my college is. But I'd feel awkward if someone caught me staring at it.

EDIT: I don't mean to devalue zombies by infantilizing them in protectionist fashion or anything; I just want to make sure that zombies do, indeed, enjoy what the halloween celebrants at my college are proposing that they go through. If a person's having sex with a zombie and all the zombie is thinking about is "braiiiins," then that zombie is not enjoying the act, and should not feel forced to participate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2SSL6Ipnvw
Edit: This is a trailer for a film called DeadGirl that was recommended to me. Basically two friends skip school and go to a shut down asylum in their town and find a perfectly preserved dead woman strapped naked to a table. When they get closer she starts breathing and later they find out she's a zombie, and they're torn. One of them wants to tell the police and leave. The other wants to "keep" her and do exactly what FaustWolf is worried about. Needless to say, shit eventually hits the fan. It's a crazy movie and I'm not exactly recommending it. Just putting it out there. It's already a movie!


And Thought:

I think before deciding what rights and what effects zombies and such would have, I think we need to define each one, specifically by brain activity, exhibited control, violent tendencies, and frequency of abnormal behavior that would be considered illegal if a person did it.

I think a zombie, for instance, would be the Romero classic, slow moving, brain-dead, pure instinct zombie that remembers activities like walking and how to eat and use objects as bludgeoning devices, but does not remember their own identity or their loved ones, but would rather like to ingest them on sight.

A vampire really shouldn't need discussion but Twilight kind of ruined basic vampire canon. Now we could go several directions, but the most fun I think are Trueblood vampires but without the super fastness or problems with silver. Or the whole "vampire blood=ecstasy+acid+meth+every other drug effect imaginable etc."

Silver is reserved for werewolves. Who only become werewolves involuntarily, and only once a month. The question here is does the "curse" end if you kill the first werewolf?

[FaustWolf]

The, perhaps, ironic thing about Deadgirl is, the preview presents it like it could be a well-made film that treats its subject with sensitivity and panache...or it could be totally horrible. But the preview was well done. It speaks to real, deeper societal issues using a fanciful context. Although I was going for some kind of low-brow humor in my post, I was only being half facetious in some parts. When we develop realistic humanoid robots over the next century, this sort of thing will become a serious societal issue, and we'll have to go places in our examination of human morality that we never imagined we'd have to explore before.


As far as werewolves go, should we punish the human lycanthrope for crimes committed by the werewolf? Would lycanthropy fall into the same legal arena as multiple personality disorder?

[Thought]

EDIT: I don't mean to devalue zombies by infantilizing them in protectionist fashion or anything; I just want to make sure that zombies do, indeed, enjoy what the halloween celebrants at my college are proposing that they go through. If a person's having sex with a zombie and all the zombie is thinking about is "braiiiins," then that zombie is not enjoying the act, and should not feel forced to participate.

Remember, "braiiins" means "no!"

But given the limited vocabulary of Zombies (with indeed, "brains" being high discourse, if the various documentaries on the subject are to be believed), consent is a very serious quandary. Given that effective communication between Zombies and non-Zombies does not presently exist, except in rare cases of Necromancy, it would seem that sex with zombies might necessarily be defined as rape.

But should labor laws be extended to cover zombies? Given the lack of zombie unions, there is the real danger of them being exploited in the work place.

A vampire really shouldn't need discussion but Twilight kind of ruined basic vampire canon. Now we could go several directions, but the most fun I think are Trueblood vampires but without the super fastness or problems with silver. Or the whole "vampire blood=ecstasy+acid+meth+every other drug effect imaginable etc."

Or you know, we could do with real vampires, not the showy supermodels that the media holds up as unrealistic ideals of undead perfection.

Silver is reserved for werewolves. Who only become werewolves involuntarily, and only once a month. The question here is does the "curse" end if you kill the first werewolf?

Whoa there buddy, that's some highly offensive language. Sure, lycanthropes live with a chronic disease, the lupine parvovirus, but that is no more some "mystical curse" than other chronic diseases (HIV being a classic example). And these are human beings we're talking about! Killing without due process of law is just flat out wrong.

An interesting documentary on the subject, or so I have been told, is the movie "Ginger Snaps"


There are, of course, other forms of "demi-humans" (for lack of a less offensive phrase) that haven't been discussed yet. Human-Alien hybrids, for example, or heads/brains kept alive through the wonders of SCIENCE^TM.

[hiddensquire]

The superior strength, speed, stamina, charisma, and lifespan (also, potentially, superior intelligence and wisdom given multiple equivalent human lifetimes) of a vampire definitely proves that they should be treated equally with humans.  Can't you see the equality?  A public acceptance of vampires certainly won't evolve into their eventual complete domination of society and the world at large.  They won't publicly refer to us as cattle, and in return we won't publicly call them horrible, manipulative monsters.

I urge the members of the Compendium to write their congressmen (or other applicable lawmakers if outside the US) about passing a bill to force all companies to remain in open business during nighttime hours as well as day, to increase employment opportunities and general social accessibility for these poor, misunderstood people.  And, as Thought all but directly pointed out, vampires should be forbidden from participation in the Social Security program, both in tax paying and receiving benefits later.  I am sure they will not mind, as opting out of those heavy taxes is a steal of a trade-off.

Population control definitely won't be a problem.  Since they do not need to breathe and have no heartbeat, vampires have no need to worry about the dangers of explosive decompression and freezing cold in the vacuum of space - although sunlight exposure would be a major concern.  For the latter problem I motion to offer housing options on the dark side of the moon.  Naturally, there would be regular shuttle shipments of blood or blood-bearing animals, and in return the shuttle could come back with vampire-mined moon minerals or whatnot.  Support the blue-collar vamp!

[Mr Bekkler]

EDIT: I don't mean to devalue zombies by infantilizing them in protectionist fashion or anything; I just want to make sure that zombies do, indeed, enjoy what the halloween celebrants at my college are proposing that they go through. If a person's having sex with a zombie and all the zombie is thinking about is "braiiiins," then that zombie is not enjoying the act, and should not feel forced to participate.

Remember, "braiiins" means "no!"

You're thinking Dan O'Bannon's "Return of the Living Dead" series zombies, which actually don't have that limited a vocabulary. Nor do their bodies deteriorate much. They're very similar to you and I, just with a desire, no, an obsession with brains. They can hold what would seem like perfectly normal conversations, except the zombie would direct the conversation covertly toward talking about brains, or he/she would try to trick the listener into a situation where the zombie could get to their brain. These zombies are particularly silly and these movies are basically considered to be the "Twilight" of the zombie genre. However, in this case, the zombie would have certain rights and privileges, but in the case of eating brains (which results in the amount of pain the zombie feels decreasing drastically, hence, their motivation) they would be liable to face legal consequences, and they would be able to understand they're in deep shit essentially.

George A. Romero's zombies (in other words, REAL zombies) from Night of the Living Dead (then Dawn of the Dead[not the one where they run], Day of the Dead[not the one with Nick Cannon], Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, and the upcoming Survival of the Dead[formerly Island of the Dead]) have rigor mortis but still try to move, have the instincts to eat but no working organs to digest or use nutrients, cannot speak, and care not for brains specifically (because of the skull probably) and would rather just feast on the nearest open flesh available.

But should labor laws be extended to cover zombies? Given the lack of zombie unions, there is the real danger of them being exploited in the work place.

What's funny is the real danger when dealing with zombies is when they group into hordes. That could be considered a union except for the lack of intent to be in a union. This should not be confused with common intent to kill/eat people.

A vampire really shouldn't need discussion but Twilight kind of ruined basic vampire canon. Now we could go several directions, but the most fun I think are Trueblood vampires but without the super fastness or problems with silver. Or the whole "vampire blood=ecstasy+acid+meth+every other drug effect imaginable etc."

Or you know, we could do with real vampires, not the showy supermodels that the media holds up as unrealistic ideals of undead perfection.

That's why I suggested defining these specific demihumans. Are we going with Nosferatu vampire, the Buffy movie vampire, Lost Boys vampire, the Dracula novel vampire, Blade vampire? We could just say they're human and use Vlad the Impaler as an example. This is the problem with "vampires" in general, is that they are the most difficult of the "demi-humans" to define.

Silver is reserved for werewolves. Who only become werewolves involuntarily, and only once a month. The question here is does the "curse" end if you kill the first werewolf?

Whoa there buddy, that's some highly offensive language. Sure, lycanthropes live with a chronic disease, the lupine parvovirus, but that is no more some "mystical curse" than other chronic diseases (HIV being a classic example). And these are human beings we're talking about! Killing without due process of law is just flat out wrong.

With the quotes I was implying that it may not be a curse but other than a condition, I wouldn't have known what to call it. And of course, the killing scenario was hypothetical.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Has anyone here seen the film Fido? In this film, a zombie control collar that suppresses the more violent urges of zombies is invented, and used to enslave zombies as domestic servants. It's a fun film, and one that I think would be of interest for anyone interested in undead ethics.

[neo-fusion]

Given that it is nearly Halloween, I thought it might be an enjoyable diversion to discuss a bit of a what-if. In this case, what if zombies, vampires, werewolves, and other former-normal-humans truly existed in modern society. What rights should be extended to those people groups, if any? Should they be under particular regulations?

Consider the classic zombie, for example. Though formerly human, the common variety lack the intelligence necessary for communication and thus by their very nature cannot participate in the common human experience. Voting, it would seem, must be denied them. Given that I am not sure what reproductive and sexual drives they have, I cannot speak for certain, but I suspect the marriage privileges might have to be restricted as well. We might relegate them to the status of unthinking animals. Given their high risk to normal human life, they would probably have to be closely regulated, possibly existing only in special government reserves. Though undead, I can find no particular reason to eradicate an entire branch of humanity. Of course, the problem of diet might solve that. If they are traditional horror-movie zombies that require a steady diet of human brains, I am afraid we must, through not providing that, allow them to die out.

Vampires, on the other hand, seem like they might be able to be a productive and useful addition to society. The problem there, however, would be with their immortality. Would vampires be required to pay into social security? If so, when would they collect? Would population controls need to be put in place?

Are you sure zombies need brains to sustain themselves? I thought they just did that for fun or to keep busy. Seriously, do the zombies NEED brains to survive?

[Thought]

Some Zombies appear to be meatose-intollerant, but this is not a universal trait, no.

[Mr Bekkler]

Zombies don't need anything to survive. Their organs don't work. In the case of Dan O'Bannon zombies, they crave brains like a drug that stops their pain, which is like a withdrawal symptom.  In the case of ANY other zombie, they just crave living flesh by instinct, brain or otherwise. They don't much care.

Has anyone here seen the film Fido? In this film, a zombie control collar that suppresses the more violent urges of zombies is invented, and used to enslave zombies as domestic servants. It's a fun film, and one that I think would be of interest for anyone interested in undead ethics.

It has a slow start but I enjoyed it overall. The ending was satisfying, and the overall premise was similar to the end of Shawn of the Dead, as well as alluded to in the original Day of the Dead. Domesticated zombies!

[Sajainta]

Frankly, I'm disgusted by the usage of the term "undead".  How can we try to bring about social justice for these beings if we keep throwing around such ugly slurs?  We need to be Politically Correct--it's "mortally challenged", not the derogatory "undead".  I'm incredibly offended.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

[Thought]

While it is a derogatory term, it is also one that should be reclaimed for the community at large.

Besides, it is useful for distinguishing them from redeads. Unless you have a PC name for them?