GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS
I had dinner with a handful of ZRS Researchers last weekend, and was struck by how much the discussion was dominated by the “human” issue.
The group expressed near-uniform belief that their fellow citizens would likely be the source of greatest 
concern when faced with an actual Zombie Pandemic. Their argument is simple, summed up here by Researcher James Beebe:
“Zombies don’t possess a human’s ability to think, plan, plot, scheme, double-cross, negotiate, and cheat. Furthermore, Zombies don’t know where you hide your essential supplies, and aren’t interested in stealing them even if they did.”
Of course, the conversation quickly devolved into a heated debate over the worst way to die at the hands of another living person. After much back-and-forth, it was generally agreed that getting used as forced Zombie bait topped the list.
Imagine being tied up to a light pole in your post-apocalyptic hometown, just waiting for the undead to sniff you out and come shambling. Your former friends (and relatives?) wait in upper floors of nearby buildings, armed to the teeth, but under strict orders not to fire until they see the whites of your intestines. The Zombies hungrily claw at your exposed body as they’re picked off one-by-one. They save the last bullet for you, only after you’ve finally given in to an agonizingly slow death.
What do you think? Is this as bad as it gets when dealing with you suddenly not-so-friendly neighbors? What’s worse?
Survivors will always move towards a group. It is always easier to survive this way, let alone the psychological benefits the group will provide. With every group there will be a need for a leader. In the beginning this individual will most likely be the person that can provide the safest environment for the group. By this I not only mean defense but sustenance, shelter, and above all leadership. The strongest willed people will gravitate to this position, they won’t be the strongest or the smartest, all they will most likely have is the ability to make decisions and the fortitude to see them through. In a hostile environment it will be better to make a bad decision then no decision at all. You can argue that point with what ifs, but it has been proven time and time again. Now these leaders will not be chosen they will be thrust into these positions by the rest of the group. It will be a dictatorship, and with this comes my main point. No one’s moral compass is the same, and once someone has the power it is much harder to take it away. Bad people will follow bad people, and middle to good people will follow their leaders. Out of these leaders who do think will be the most violent? Who do you think would attack their fellow survivors first? Who do you think will come and try to take instead of prepare for themselves? The centuries have shown that the most dangerous weapon on earth is a thinking human being. The leading cause of death for human beings is other human beings. When to shelter of the LAW is gone you must be prepared to defend yourselves and others.
To go further with your statements, I would say the most violent and the most likely to attack others are those who think they are doing “moral” work. Say some religious group that survives the zombie outbreak decides they’ll remake this world in their god’s image (whichever god they happen to believe, I’m not singling out one group or another here). All “nonbelievers” will either be given a chance to repent or be killed. These would be the radicals ofcourse.
My case in point is the movie/book “The Mist” by Stephen King.
I think that would take a little bit before those groups started, Oh they will come. The violent criminals will be first and the quickest to attack. Just look at the L.A. Riots and Katrina. It wasn’t even the end of the world and people were already taking what they wanted because no one was there to stop them
I think there’s a very real danger of being forced to deal with highly dangerous humans after the Apocalypse. After all, it’s not every person who can make it alone, much less carry their family to safety with them. It’s far easier to fall in with a group of like-minded people or a single, strong-willed leader and follow them to safety. Once you have an insular group, it will become harder and harder to voice opposition to group consensus or dictates from the group leader, as the alternative will often mean expulsion or worse. Consider just a few examples from fiction where a closed group quickly slides into behavior that would have been totally inconceivable and morally reprehensible before the formation of the group (Woodbury in ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘The Lord of the Flies’ comes to mind). We do, of course, have many non-fictional examples as well (mostly religious insular groups) which show a similar pattern of moral evolution.
So in the example presented by the OP, the bait human might be a captive from a raid or simply a hapless stranger who wandered into an existing group that had no need of her other than her ability to draw in zeds. I think it’s safe to say that in every example of zombie fiction (the only research source we have as of now) it’s human beings who cause the biggest loss of life to the initial survivors, through direct malice or indirect carelessness. I definitely feel that zombies will be the secondary threat during the Zombie Apocalypse. Zombies only want to eat you. Humans want a whole helluva lot more.
Very true.
Seems silly to leave someone tied out there to me, maybe if they were infected and wanted to do something before they turned zombie. Seems like a better thing to do would leave the person inside a phone booth or a car where they would have some sort of protection from the zombies. If you had electricity, you could probably show a movie on a blank wall across from your sniper roost and have them line up to be shot without risking anyone.
Well that could be an ok plan, if the bait was not in any danger and had an escape route, to clear out a small area like with in a fenced in position. Put someone on an elevated platform with a zip-line escape. It would be stupid dangerous but could be very effective. the bait would have to be a strong willed person to pull of being the bait. But to be forced into this, that would suck. and better than just being strapped to a pole they could make a human piñata. have you dangling just close enough for the zombies to reach up and scratch you belly. you die of starvation and dehydration, or a blood clot from you limbs being tied so tight, but have to listen to the zombies trying to eat you till you die. I think that is worse than just being eaten.
No, no. What I was getting at is you simply tie someone up and allow them to be killed for the benefit of the rest of the group. The argument is that this is the sort of thing that will happen on a regular basis when the Zombies come. All morals out the window, and people become willing to do whatever they can – no matter how wrong – to increase their chance of survival.
I would call those people cowards who could no longer deal with the threat at hand. There really isn’t any reason to put a noninfected person out as bait. Well, a noninfected, noncriminal person.
I can fully see this as a punishment for some criminal misdeed such as killing another human.