... about misanthropy

It's not that I hate people, really, it's just that there's so damn many of us that it's getting ridiculous. I think what we need is a good old fashioned population bottleneck: another ice age or a Waterworld - type everybody-get-in-a-boat scenario. Something to thin the herd a little bit and give us a chance to regroup as a species.

I'm not even too particular about who gets killed and who doesn't. Obviously I'd prefer the chance to help rebuild, but it's not a deal breaker for me. I'm trying to think about this at a species level, rather than as just a person.

As a species I think we need to seriously reconsider this whole civilization thing. Granted, we've been at it for so long it seems a waste to abandon it now, just when it seems like we're getting the hang of it (relatively, I mean), but I really think we got sidetracked somewhere.

I think it was toothpicks. When our society reached the point that we not only had to manufacture little slivers of wood to clean our teeth with, but that we had to include a 1-800 help line and instructions on the package, we should probably have folded it all up and gone to the beach.

All that being said, I find myself thinking a lot about the end of civilization. I'll be sitting in traffic and ruminating over something deep and meaningful and then I'll remember that there's a good chance that the house I just bought will be beachfront property within my lifetime. That always makes me smile for some reason, probably because I know how to swim and sail a ship.

I also think about zombies. Zombie Apocalypse is my favorite end of civilization scenario for several reasons.

For one thing, it gives the survivors a fighting chance: zombies aren't like meteor impacts or global warming. Those big scary major disasters tend to leave things more or less ruined, so that even if there are survivors they stand little to no chance of surviving for very long.

Zombies are not so unforgiving. They won't compete with survivors for food, as they tend to look at survivors as food. Also they're not very smart, and I think eventually they'll just biodegrade or starve to death we leave them to their own devices.

The other thing is that zombie attacks give us the chance to really just kill the hell out of people ... er, people-shaped things, anyway.

I've always thought of violence as something like a prostate exam: not very pleasant but occasionally necessary to insure a longer and healthier life. Inside the Zombie Apocalypse this becomes even more true, but it doesn't have to be all bad (unless you're the squeamish type, in which case decide for yourself which is worse: getting smeared with blood and grey matter or craving blood and brain matter for dinner. Also being one of the shambling, living dead).

I tend to think that having zombies around wouldn't be all that bad. Sure they're masses of semi-decomposed, quasi-ambulatory monsters that all want to eat you, but then again, there's always a body around to behead or shoot at or light on fire or explode, so it's not like there's no bright side.

I also think there's something to be learned from living through something like that, even if it's only the most rudimentary survival skills, Like one of those team-building retreats they send corporate fatsoes on to learn how to work together, only with teeth. I've always had the notion that it's important to drive yourself to the far end of your tolerance occasionally, just to find out what you're capable of. Some people say you can't know how far a mile is until you've walked one. I disagree, I say you can't know how far a mile really is until you've walked ten or twelve or twenty; until you've walked until you stopped because it was either that or fall. Only then can you know what you're true limits are.

Plus, I think everyone needs to experience real bladder-emptying, tongue-biting, eye-popping terror from time to time. It really puts stepping in dog shit in perspective.