Comments on: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Brains: Zombieconomics

By: Economics Notes « 36 Chambers – The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:02:13 +0000

[...] Filed under: Catallactics, Curmudgeonliness, Economics, Zombies — Kevin Feasel @ 7:02 pm – Zombienomics. This obviously gets top billing in this set of notes… I think that Shadow Banker has it [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:32:25 +0000

Excellent article… I especially liked the idea about people voluntarily becoming zombies in return for a sweet lifestyle.
One thing I was surprised you didn’t mention more about was how awesome (and cost effective) zombie laborers would be, and how they could solve our energy dependency. I mentioned it a few months ago on my blog:

http://rubinonwry.blogspot.com/2009/01/wholly-original-idea.html

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:49:00 +0000

What guarantee do we have that these zombies would be mentally or physically able to perform such tasks? What would be their motivation?

Even unskilled minimum wage earners are motivated by the basic need to have food and shelter. If they cannot, or refuse, to perform their job they’re fired.

What punishment would you give to a zombie which would not such motivations?

By: David

David — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:18:32 +0000

Pffft you zombie fearing heretics.

I pray raptor jesus has mercy on your souls, for the raptor-apocalypse will be swift and merciless.

By: undead astronauts » Zombieconomics

undead astronauts » Zombieconomics — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:00:11 +0000

[...] at the aptly named overthinking it, there’s an article analyzing the economic fallout from a zombie apocalypse. it assumes that post-apocalypse survivors [...]

By: links for 2009-06-23 « Embololalia

links for 2009-06-23 « Embololalia — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:05:34 +0000

[...] Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Brains: Zombieconomics | Overthinking It Zombies represent a source of cheap labor and a particularly lucrative source being that they are infinitely undead. They don’t require any upkeep—no food to survive assuming the government has found a way to curb their hunger, no wages, no health care, no benefits, etc. (tags: economics funny zombies) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Timeline of Jobsminus the derogatory stuff to menDual Review – Minami-ke [...]

By: Dr_eX

Dr_eX — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:23:50 +0000

Anyone read the excellent ‘Ressurection,Inc’ by Kevin J Anderson? This is (almost) precisely what happens. When someone dies (almost any cause, except for age or extremely bad mutilations), the body has a processor, fake organs, and synth-blood inserted into their system, and are brought back to life as mindless puppets (aka, zombies) which must respond to any action ordered by a Human.

Of course, as stories go, there’s more than meets the eye to the book. Might be worth a read, could give a good insight into zombie workforce.

By: Gab

Gab — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:23:50 +0000

A potential blip I see coming up is the age and condition of the body being converted into a zombie. For maximum output of labor, the body should probably be in fairly good shape before zombification occurs, or else the resulting zombie may literally fall apart as it is performing its tasks. Granted, specific body types could be assigned to specific jobs (senior converts could take tokens at the subway, young adult converts could build houses, etc.), but I don’t see a fit thirty-year-old agreeing to become a zombie unless they are under duress- at which point the validity of their agreement comes into question. Once signed, seniors would probably be easier to convince (or keep on track) as the day of conversion approaches, so I imagine the pool of “younger” zombies would have much less in it (people running away, backing out, etc.). All of this, of course, assumes that zombification doesn’t generate strength and mobility, though, so it is moot if all zombies have basically the same physical parameters as a result of zombification, regardless of if they were overweight, arthritic, and aged versus toned, flexible, and robust when converted.

By: Mystois

Mystois — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:30:36 +0000

Really nice article, actually, the consequences of a much reduced workforce combined with a higher level of capital (i.e. machines) per worker would mean that the real wage would increase even more than after the black death because each no-zombie human would be able to produce more by controlling the zombies to do work..

By: mlawski

mlawski — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:14:27 +0000

Simber hit the point right on the head: robots. If zombies take over the menial labor, what’s going to happen to all the robots out there? Well, let’s look at humans who lose their jobs. Some get depressed and waste away in their homes. Some get angry and start killing people.

I’m sure you realize robots cannot cry. What else is there left to do but to replace the zombie apocalypse with a robocalypse? Nothing, that’s what.