post-apocalyptic govt...

[Trencher]

lol, its because we accept facts, to us its going to be survive, or not survive. If I don't survive I don't need to worry about it, so for me losing wouldn't be an option. Being able to think further than your own nose could mean the difference between your family members life or death so I think you should con cider the option that your raiding ways would make you loose. With that abandon in such a situation, there are moral codes I don't need to worry about like you civilized, socialized types. I can do whatever must be done for me to win, even if it means poisoning your TN Hillbillies water well or food supply and letting them die without knowing why they are dying and who caused it. Capiche? You forget that ruthlessness only is a strength when the other people are not ruthless. Raiding partys dont have monopoly on ruthlessness. Those tactics you describe needs lots of civilians (women and children are preferred) to hide amongst. And when you burn their barns and poison their water some innocent people die and you get some tin cans that would maybe give you some food for a couple of weeks. Soon you would run out of places to raid. In the long run people who are willing to work hard always wins out over people who are willing to stab his fellow man in the back. History shows us that.

[Legion2213]

You can never fully trust anyone in this kind of situation. Bub, if you were running down a street, slipped and snapped your ankle (while hundreds of zacks were on your tail) would you trust a stranger who came along, threw you over his shoulder and saved your life? (unless it was Khardis, who would just snap your other ankle, steal your stuff and leave you to die). I suppose I am trying say what Wyldwraith said, but less eloquantly...I suppose we all have the image of ourselves as the 21st century "high plains drifter" roaming around the post zombie planet and kicking ass, but the truth is, we are not robots, we get tired, we get sick and sometimes we just get damn sloppy...look at the original dawn of the dead, how long do you think any of the original characters would have lasted on their own...there certainly wouldn't have been any shopping going on in Monroeville Mall! SRP76, see Wyldwraith's post, we would have to trust somebody at some stage, I'm not talking about instantly giving 100% trust to a total stranger, we don't do that now, and there is no zombie/apocalypse crisis. Edit: This is a great thread, a bit heated here and there, but some great reading and opinions.

[Khardis]

Being able to think further than your own nose could mean the difference between your family members life or death so I think you should con cider the option that your raiding ways would make you loose. You forget that ruthlessness only is a strength when the other people are not ruthless. Raiding partys dont have monopoly on ruthlessness. Those tactics you describe needs lots of civilians (women and children are preferred) to hide amongst. And when you burn their barns and poison their water some innocent people die and you get some tin cans that would maybe give you some food for a couple of weeks. Soon you would run out of places to raid. In the long run people who are willing to work hard always wins out over people who are willing to stab his fellow man in the back. History shows us that. lol I don't think i would run out of places to raid, there are over 300 million people in the United States alone. Lets say 295 million of them die and become ghouls, then thats 295 Million worth of homes, grocery stores, cars, guns etc I can now take freely. Its funny even GAR agrees with me, Watch Dawn and see, he says it in the commentary track when the raiders are taking over the Mall, when this stuff goes down its those people who will survive. Bub, if you were running down a street, slipped and snapped your ankle (while hundreds of zacks were on your tail) would you trust a stranger who came along, threw you over his shoulder and saved your life? (unless it was Khardis, who would just snap your other ankle, steal your stuff and leave you to die). I suppose I am trying say what Wyldwraith said, but less eloquantly...I suppose we all have the image of ourselves as the 21st century "high plains drifter" roaming around the post zombie planet and kicking ass, but the truth is, we are not robots, we get tired, we get sick and sometimes we just get damn sloppy...look at the original dawn of the dead, how long do you think any of the original characters would have lasted on their own...there certainly wouldn't have been any shopping going on in Monroeville Mall! SRP76, see Wyldwraith's post, we would have to trust somebody at some stage, I'm not talking about instantly giving 100% trust to a total stranger, we don't do that now, and there is no zombie/apocalypse crisis. Edit: This is a great thread, a bit heated here and there, but some great reading and opinions. I dunno, what everyone here who disagrees with me seems to be advocating for is some sort of proto-facist military-ocracy where they control everyones lives. Not for me, raiding seems to be less fascist and totalitarian when compared.

[SRP76]

I suppose I am trying say what Wyldwraith said, but less eloquantly...I suppose we all have the image of ourselves as the 21st century "high plains drifter" roaming around the post zombie planet and kicking ass, but the truth is, we are not robots, we get tired, we get sick and sometimes we just get damn sloppy...look at the original dawn of the dead, how long do you think any of the original characters would have lasted on their own...there certainly wouldn't have been any shopping going on in Monroeville Mall! We're talking about post-apocalypse here. No more zombies. Any of the characters would do just fine roaming on their own.

[Legion2213]

Khardis, I personally am not advocating "control" of other peoples lives, I am advocating "no more welfare state", like most others, I think it's fair to expect everybody in the "PA community" (or what ever you wish to call it) to pull their own weight and contribute something. I wouldn't be forcing anybody to join up with us if they don't wish to, they can go their own way. SRP76, zombies and zombie scenarios have been mentioned frequently in this thread.

[Mike70]

and the award for the thread that refuses to die goes to... i'm not advocating "control" over people's lives either. in the scenario i put forward in my original post, everyone over 17 would have a say in what goes on through a direct vote.

[Trencher]

lol I don't think i would run out of places to raid, there are over 300 million people in the United States alone. Lets say 295 million of them die and become ghouls, then thats 295 Million worth of homes, grocery stores, cars, guns etc I can now take freely. No argument there, but I would like to point out that if you are strong enough to take what you need from the zombies then you dont need to attack the living. Its funny even GAR agrees with me, Watch Dawn and see, he says it in the commentary track when the raiders are taking over the Mall, when this stuff goes down its those people who will survive. The people in the mall were just a bunch of thiefs not really a big loss in the big picture, you might even say that they were raiders too even though they were non violent. I think its pretty obivious that the raiders lost a bunch of people raiding while the defenders lost only one. how many places could they raid again before they would be wittled down? I dunno, what everyone here who disagrees with me seems to be advocating for is some sort of proto-facist military-ocracy where they control everyones lives. Not for me, raiding seems to be less fascist and totalitarian when compared. I want a democracy where there is place for all. The advantage that an post acopalyptic goverment has is that the people feel hunger and death breating at the back of their necks, this will make them work harder and choose their leaders with more care than they do now.

[Wyldwraith]

There are other problems with raiding, 1) Unless your raider contingent is comprised entirely of Ninjas or ex-Spec. Ops members the chances of eliminating 100% of a community larger than 10-15 people is close to zero. What happens if out of a community of 20 six of them bolt in six different directions away from the now-ruined community? Chances are that the survivors know the surrounding area much more intimately than even the best information short-term recon could provide raiders with. Sure, with contingencies for such events you might track down the majority of those who fled, and the zombies will probably get some more of them. You can be sure though that those on the run know where the nearest community is and are headed for it. If even ONE gets there the jig is up. 2) Logistics: If you cover a lot of ground using whatever vehicles you're either carrying a ton of fuel with you or relying on your ability to scavenge it. Even laying aside whether or not the time may come when you find yourself in unfamiliar territory and on fumes, what about shelter? You can't have perfect multi-directional/multi-aspect recon. Your scouts might find the perfect structure for your boys to hole up in for the night six miles northwest, but then miss the unusually large clump of zombies moving as a group that randomly happens to be moving down towards that shelter from beyond the scouted area north of the shelter. In the morning you may find a 1,000 ghouls on your doorstep, or at best your sentries will sound the alarm at 3am as they start to stagger in, forcing a night-evacuation. There's a reason that true nomads (Those who weren't simply following long-term cyclical migration routes) almost invariably moved in some sort of large, slow, caravan-like methodology. You have to carry EVERYTHING you might need for EVERYONE in your group to survive on for some time, because you never know when you're about to roam into an area which has been intensely scavenged down to nothing. Look at the Rom, or the Mongols. Both cultures had significantly higher mortality rates than settled peoples, and that had much more to do with factors besides casualties of violence. 3) Success breeds a reputation. The better/longer you've been at it, the more aware settled communities will become of you. Range over a wide enough area, or become too intense a competitor for scavenged resources and you may unite communities that for any other purpose would consider themselves too distant from one another to make day-to-day relations worthwhile. Example: If a gang of 50 motorcycle bandits are picking clean the small towns between Orlando and Jacksonville, then the communities inhabited by the survivors who successfully fled the medium sized towns between those two points would both be equally threatened by them. Sacrifices that would otherwise be considered too great might be considered acceptable to remove such a serious threat, ESPECIALLY if the raider/nomads are also known to be violent/homicidal, and not just mobile scavengers. Yes, there are a host of difficulties in establishing a settlement under such hostile circumstances, but history shows us that in the long run settlers prosper and flourish while nomads at the best remain static. Put more simply. Anyone advocating the violent raider methodology is aspiring to become a shark. Keep moving or die, kill to eat, breed when offered the opportunity, repeat until violence or natural causes claim you. If that's all life has to offer once the zombie apocalypse has begun then I might have to revise my theory about being eaten alive by cannibal corpses being about the worst thing that could happen to you, because that life truly sounds like being in Hell to me.