[ExI] et tu, nova?

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] et tu, nova?

 

On Sat, Oct 15, 2022 at 7:13 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

You never saw a zombie running, ja?

 

>…Ja, in the Left 4 Dead series among others.  They're rare, but depictions of "fast zombies" exist.

 

 

Cool thx.  I am not an expert on zombies, my experience being limited to Michael Jackson’s excellent Thriller video.  They can’t run but oh they can dance.

 

Here it is, my young friends, the video which launched MTV.  This cat had TALENT!  Both the tunes and the moves!

 

https://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA

 

This is how we had fun 40 years ago.  Truly he was one of the ultra talents of our lifetime.

 

Regarding actual zombies, they really exist, according to a non-fiction book by Harvard anthropologist Wade Davis.  I read his book, where he describes going to Haiti to learn the craft of the witch doctors there, which was a mixture of superstition and… he wanted to find out the rest of the story.  The witch doctors figured out how to extract the venom of the poisonous tree frog, along with the nasty chemicals in other indigenous creepy crawlers, and distill a chemical Davis took back to Harvard and managed to analyze.  It binds to the nerves of the victim making her completely immobilized, even though still alive, a kind of universal body-wide novacaine.  

 

The witch doctors also figured out an antidote of sorts.  It didn’t completely undo what the tetradotoxin had done, but the patent could walk (after a fashion) and remember what had happened.  The witchdoctor convinced the victim that he had killed her and that he had brought her back to life, and he could kill her again if she repeated the transgression that led to her death sentence.  She was banished to live in the cemetery.  Sounds crazy, ja?  Davis wrote about it in The Serpent and the Rainbow:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Davis_(anthropologist)

 

In the Serpent and the Rainbow, Dr. Davis made a side comment that has gained more attention than anything else in the book.  He said the Haitians had discovered a particular type of marijuana or perhaps an additive, that resulted in the most astonishing high he had ever felt, in spite of many years’ experience with grass.  This one comment led to a cult fad of trying to figure out what Dr. Davis smoked in Haiti, and perhaps Americans could get some of that stuff.  As far as I know, Davis’ Haitian weed was never found.

 

But as with zombies, I am no expert on these matters.

 

spike

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