Oct 25 2011

Psychics have a moral responsibility to address the zombie scourge

Categories:

Kooks, Skepticism

by PZ Myers

What good are they if they can talk to the dead, but won’t converse with the walking dead? Discrimination! Cowardice!

“I think I see a letter ‘z’…is there anyone in the audience with nothing on their mind but braaains?”

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24 comments

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1

eigenperson

25 October 2011 at 8:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“Can James Van Praagh Talk With Dead People?”

No.
2

Mario

25 October 2011 at 8:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It is like that people who claim to be able to become invisible but only while nobody is watching, this people say they are able to talk to the dead but only if the dead are not present.
3

Sally Strange, OM

25 October 2011 at 8:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hilarious. I love how the zombie meme is spreading to various causes. First the money-hungry zombies of Occupy Wall Street, now this. Brilliant.

Weren’t zombie movies also at a peak during the late 50s and early 60s? I reckon it says something about our culture and the historical moment that we are so fascinated by them right now.
4

billygutter01

25 October 2011 at 8:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

This video was in my YouTube subscription box this morning when I got up.

It got my day off to a mirthful and jaunty start.
5

Caine, Fleur du Mal عنتر

25 October 2011 at 8:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Fabulous! Poor zombies, they get no respect.
6

'Tis Himself, OM

25 October 2011 at 8:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I was paying attention to the “dead people” Grothe had with him. As Mad Max would say, “They’re just mostly dead.”
7

Russell

25 October 2011 at 9:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The obituaries of Hari Krishna Swami Bhaktapata reveal that , a part from being the son of, wait for it the Baptist Reverend Ham of Peekskill NY , the queer guru was convicted of conspiracy to commit attempted murder.

Which makes one wonder what vegetarian Zombies like Hare Krishnas eat? Do they devour human vegetables like each other, or did their late guru rule brains to be a body fluid, and thus on the menu?
8

Moggie

25 October 2011 at 9:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

‘Tis:

I was paying attention to the “dead people” Grothe had with him. As Mad Max would say, “They’re just mostly dead.”

I think you’re maxing up your Mixes.
9

lukescientiae

25 October 2011 at 9:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Talking to dead people and the dead people talking back? You mean like mumbling to Jesus and Jesus telling you what should be doing with your life? Why doesn’t every believing Christian jump on the $1M challenge?

Oh yeah. ‘Cos “it doesn’t work like that.” As in, it doesn’t work at all.
10

billygutter01

25 October 2011 at 9:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

At least Van Praagh didn’t have to fend off these guys.

John Edwards wasn’t so lucky.
11

lukescientiae

25 October 2011 at 9:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And I love how the name just lends itself so perfectly to the zombies’ “James van Praaaaaaaaggghhhhhhhh”
12

billygutter01

25 October 2011 at 9:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Crap. Messed up the link.

Try this.
13

fastlane

25 October 2011 at 10:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

‘Tis @ 6 (Pssst. That’s Miracle Max.) ;-)
14

Atheist Aaron

25 October 2011 at 10:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Real crowd pleaser, John Edwards gets eaten by zombies.
15

DoubtingT

25 October 2011 at 10:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Forget zombies. Why not invite a speaker-to-the-dead to an open-casket funeral and say, “Here he/she is, what are they saying right now?” (Apart from, “I’m dead, you idiot. I can’t say anything”)
16

San Ban

25 October 2011 at 10:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A true LOL moment!
17

machintelligence

25 October 2011 at 11:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Russell @7 GRAAAAIIIIINS!!
18

and then there were fore

26 October 2011 at 12:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

tis himself:

As Mad Max would say, “They’re just mostly dead.”

Wrong max douchebag.
19

DLC

26 October 2011 at 1:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I see Dead People. . .
who’re out to eat your brain and make you into a creationist MRA.
20

Russell

26 October 2011 at 3:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

17
Bad android!

As the eponymous umbrella cocktail suggests, fermenting graaaiiins attract only alcoholic zombies.
21

Ragutis

26 October 2011 at 9:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Sally Strange, OM says:
25 October 2011 at 8:36 pm

Weren’t zombie movies also at a peak during the late 50s and early 60s? I reckon it says something about our culture and the historical moment that we are so fascinated by them right now.

The Last Man on Earth, Night of the Living Dead, and a Hammer flick that I can’t remember the name of right now established the modern idea of zombies (flesh-eating infected/infectious undead)in the mid 60s. Zombies prior to that were mainly Voodoo-ish with the occasional mad scientist’s experiment.
22

ChasCPeterson

26 October 2011 at 9:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@#18: see #8 and #13. Now who’s the douchebag?
23

Birger Johansson

27 October 2011 at 11:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A question not addressed in most stories is where the zombies get their energy from. Do they chase small mammals or insects once all the living humans are gone? This is what Max Brooks suggested in his book.
— — — — — — — —

The book series “Day To Day Armageddon” attributes the zombie plague to an extra-terrestrial origin, possibly a biological weapon that claimed the xenomorph pilot of a craft found in a glacier in a Chinese mountain range. In this case the zombies might well get their energy from some quantum effect harnessed by nanotech replicators, producing ATP. The hunger for flesh may then be a purely reproductive strategy (reproduction through infection) rather than a means to get energy.

— — — — — — —
In one of the Pratchett novels a dead wizard comes back and possesses his own dead body, thus becoming a kind of zombie that has no problem thinking, and has no need to eat!
In this regard he is a bit like like Wormwood*, a spirit that is currently inhabiting a worm sitting in the eye of a corpse, and operating the corpse through telepathy like a big bipedal robot body.

*story and art by John Templesmith
— — — — — — —
BTW “28 Days Later” is a rather good re-write of “Day of the Triffids” rather than a zombie film.
24

Birger Johansson

27 October 2011 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

In regards to the various complications you encounter when communicating with different forms of undead, Laurell K. Hamilton addressed this in her earlier -rather cool- Anita Blake novels. The later novels are just bad porn with some minor action sequences.

As for the “vampire” book series of Anne Rice, she also adresses some complications. What if someone manage to switch mnd and body -stealing the body of a vampire while leaving the mind of a vampire in a human body- how can the unfortunate (former) blood-drinker fight back?
If your vampire body is frozen, can it reanimate successfully when thawed? How does being dead affect eyesight and hearing? Smell?