Mark Zuckerberg is building a $270M bunker to escape the ZombdeerPocalypse! | Casual Dead | Zombie Book Club Podcast Episode 27

Join hosts Dan and Leah as they introduce the "Casual Dead"; the Podcast within the podcast within the book club. Dan shares his recent social media misadventure, a thread that spiraled into a chaotic debate, and contemplates a career shift to social media management. Leah, on the other hand, talks about her artistic escapades, from crafting clay mushroom incense holders to exploring digital art. The duo also introduces their new weekly format, promising a mix of casual chats, zombie news, and listener interactions through their Google Voice Mail.

Dive into the world of the undead as we cover the alarming spread of the Zombdeer virus across the world and discusses the implications of this prion disease on wildlife and humans. The episode also delves into the intriguing details of Mark Zuckerberg's secretive bunker project in Hawaii, envisioning a post-apocalyptic scenario where the rich and powerful retreat. We wrap up with listener shoutouts and a preview of the book club's upcoming discussion on Sylvester Barzey's "Planet Dead"


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Sources

Zomdeer article
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe 

Zuckerbunker
https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-inside-hawaii-compound/ 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

["Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"]. Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where we talk about nothing, in particular because this is the first episode of the Casual Dead. Yay, it's like if there was a movie between Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead called Noon of the Dead, where we talk about sandwiches and just ate.

Speaker 2 0:37

I wish we did just eat sandwiches. Why didn't we have sandwiches? Do you want to?

Speaker 1 0:40

have a sandwich podcast where we just eat sandwiches and review sandwiches.

Speaker 2 0:44

Could it be called sandwiches and hammocks?

Speaker 1 0:46

We call it club sandwich.

Speaker 2 0:49

No, you already used club sandwiches as a prior car club.

Speaker 1 0:53

Yeah, our car club was club sandwich. We met up once a month to eat club sandwiches. No other types of sandwiches were allowed. Yeah, I don't want a club sandwich and we weren't allowed to talk about anything but the sandwiches we were eating.

Speaker 2 1:05

This is a great start to our first Casual Dead podcast, feels appropriate.

Speaker 1 1:08

Yeah, I'm Dan, and when I'm not unwittingly commenting on someone's unpopular hot take on threads and being penned as the top comment in something that became a week-long controversy, I'm writing a novel that is a slow grind and I keep telling myself it's great, it's pretty good, and I'm Leah and I spent my entire vacation making clay mushroom incense holders, hoping someone will buy them on Etsy so I can quit my day job If any of you would like to buy some incense clay mushroom holders, mushroom hold incense wait.

Speaker 2 1:41

Mushroom incense holders.

Speaker 1 1:44

Native clay. Thank you, thank you Also, I made some cute frogs. Oh my God, the frogs.

Speaker 2 1:49

They are so cute.

Speaker 1 1:51

Yeah, this is our first Casual Dead episode in 2024. We're moving to weekly episodes with a new format.

Speaker 2 1:58

Yeah, week one we're going to talk more casually about the undead as well as ourselves, who are not quite undead but sometimes feel that way.

Speaker 1 2:06

Yeah, what kinds of things are we going to talk about, Leah?

Speaker 2 2:09

Our own life updates. Zombies in the news, and I'm really hoping that some folks start leaving us random creepy voicemails at 614-699-0006, where you can ask us for zombie, apocalypse or life advice, and we will answer, always in the form of it being within an apocalyptic scenario. So that's what this week is about, and then the next week we'll do our usual book club fanfare yeah, where all we do is talk about zombie media, a particular thing that we've watched, which is going to be next week. The dead don't die.

Speaker 1 2:41

They don't die, nope, no more than you or I.

Speaker 2 2:44

Well, it's actually a very philosophical statement to say the dead don't die, we just continue.

Speaker 1 2:49

Yeah, no more than you or I, yeah, yeah. So personal life update. Leah, first personal life update. We're only going to do personal life updates in this type of episode. Every other week I had a Threads Oopsy.

Speaker 2 3:07

I witnessed your Threads, oopsy, and then I suddenly liked some of it, and then suddenly it took over my entire Threads feed.

Speaker 1 3:13

Yeah, so I made a whole bunch of bullet points about this because, honestly, there is just so much going on here that I really couldn't commit all of it to memory. So basically, what happened here was someone made this post that to me seemed like they were a reader that was tired of authors who did cold solicitation to them to buy their book. All the time I've had this happen, where I'm talking to somebody like, ooh, I like reading this kind of book, and then somebody's like what?

Speaker 2 3:44

do you think about my book?

Speaker 1 3:46

Read my book, read my book, buy it, buy my book. And then I'm like I don't know you, man, stop trying to get me to buy your book. Anyways, personally, I felt that it was like valuable marketing advice. Like, yeah, you should connect with people, you should make community, you should connect with people on a personal level if you want them to be interested in what you're writing. Makes sense to me and I'm like this is great advice. Turns out, people were very mad about it and I found that out right after I was pinned as the top thread as I tried to dissect what she wrote, because it wasn't as eloquent as I would have written.

Speaker 2 4:37

Yeah, because you're a writer and this person is not.

Speaker 1 4:40

And I felt it was a little unclear. So I tried to clear things up for people and explain why it's good advice, and it went to hell. It blew up way out of control and the original poster just started fighting with people and it turned into this argument over. Literally the phrase was capitalism versus community, which, unless they backed up what they were saying, was what that means to people and meant nothing.

Speaker 2 5:13

Yeah, it was basically like and obviously I'm capitalism over. Oh my god, I almost said that backwards.

Speaker 1 5:18

I'm community over capitalism.

Speaker 2 5:21

And it was like somebody would be like my feelings are hurt, I should be able to publish, I should be able to advertise my book without getting into my personal life, and then she would just write capitalism over.

Speaker 1 5:34

Yeah, we know the thing.

Speaker 2 5:35

the phrase this is what happens when we try to record something when it's getting darker, and both of us are just having a hard time with words.

Speaker 1 5:44

So a lot of the authors took the post as her, saying that authors shouldn't ever post anything about selling their book. They should never be like I wrote a book, please buy my book, or here's a pitch about my book. They should only ever build community and never mention their book, which is a really hard stance to extrapolate from that. But I get it that the way that she worded it was very ambiguous and then then things got racist. There was a real race there was, there was some racism going on and it was blowing my mind and honestly I wish I never said anything at all, because now it's clear to me now that the post was designed to be divisive.

Speaker 1 6:36

Yeah, she said it was an experiment. She said it was a social experiment, which I don't know if that's just her trying to weasel her way out of this, this kerfuffle, or if that was actually her intention. I don't know. But it was vague, poorly worded and quickly turned into a bear ducal. Drag out, fist fight in the front yard with all your aunts and uncles after watching Fox News on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 7:02

Oh God. So what is the survival tip here? What is the social media survival tip?

Speaker 1 7:06

that you learned. No, I'd say read all the comments. The problem is that I came in very early before the arguments happened. I was like, yeah, it's very helpful. And then everybody's like, yeah, well, maybe I need to sell my book to feed my family.

Speaker 2 7:24

And I don't want to tell you about my personal life and every time I take a poop.

Speaker 1 7:28

Yeah, and, to be fair, a lot of people agreed with what I was saying, like people who were professional marketers, who have been authors for a long time and know how to market books. But if you're, if you're taking her words exactly the way they were written, which a lot of people did, you know it, could, it, could, it could be interpreted as don't sell me your books.

Speaker 2 7:55

Yeah or don't advertise your books. Yeah, Don't advertise.

Speaker 1 7:59

Just don't advertise, but what I would say?

Speaker 2 8:01

about this. If you want to see Dan make a fool of himself occasionally on the internet, go to Threads. This is your second thread story that you've had to learn.

Speaker 1 8:08

Oh my God, the countertop heights, yeah.

Speaker 1 8:14

In other news we grow on the internet and I said in other news, in other news, in other news, despite my thread, soup, see, I've realized that I have always had a natural talent for social media. I mean, this is actually clearly an example of how good at social media I am. I fucking blew up. You did In a single thread that lasted four days. You did, which is a it's like an eternity for a thread, like usually 24 hours. That's it, it's gone, it's old news. But I've decided I think I need to like pursue social media management as possible replacement for truck driving, as like the way that I make money in this life, because you know, I actually do have experience doing it.

Speaker 2 9:02

You do and you have a great track record.

Speaker 1 9:04

Yeah, you know, I have provable track record. Can I get on?

Speaker 2 9:08

Right Mountain for a moment.

Speaker 1 9:09

Yes, the Right Mountain is all yours.

Speaker 2 9:11

Like my suggestion of the creation of this podcast. I also said turn to you and said Dan, why have you never thought about social media marketing as your job?

Speaker 1 9:20

And that's when my brain exploded. I'm like how have I never thought of that?

Speaker 2 9:24

I'm an excellent wing person for you, yeah.

Speaker 1 9:26

People, people don't know, probably, but, like you know, many years ago I was actually a full time video editor for like a number of pretty pretty big subscriber account, youtubers and and I did manage some of their social media profiles, but for some reason I've just never considered just being like hey, can I get a job doing that.

Speaker 2 9:52

You can get a lot of jobs doing that. That's what I was saying because, like I had, we have people who do this for the organization I work for and past organizations I've worked for, and they get paid a comfortable salary and their like subscription accounts are really like 4000 people. You know like you have to be viral and have a million followers to prove that you can do this well.

Speaker 1 10:10

So that's true, my I mean my YouTube channel that, like, I haven't uploaded anything to since like 2018. I had that up to almost 50,000 subscribers, which you know, at the time I would have been like I'm a failure. I never, I never, made it to 50 million failure. But you know, in retrospect I'm like, actually, that's pretty good 50,000, you can do it.

Speaker 2 10:35

That's that's quite a bit. I paid my bills.

Speaker 1 10:37

Yeah, not very well, but I did it.

Speaker 2 10:41

You did it. Well, you know, I think this is the personal life update where we both share embarrassing things. Yeah, so, dan, have you ever intentionally or accidentally shared a dick pic?

Speaker 1 10:51

before. I haven't, because I've never, ever, even once, taken a picture of my dick.

Speaker 2 10:57

I think that that's probably wise. So last week, when we recorded and put the podcast out, I talked about how I went through this phase, on Dan's tablet, of learning how to draw dicks, and I drew a piece called the Forest of Dicks that I'm actually quite proud of, thank you. There's a lot of exploding happening in it. There's one called the Green Geyser, yeah, or Geyser Geyser, anyhow.

Speaker 1 11:22

It can be a geyser too.

Speaker 2 11:24

These are not things I'm going to put out there in the universe, or if I do, I will be doing it under a pseudonym that nobody will ever know.

Speaker 1 11:28

Yeah, we'll post the link in the description. No.

Speaker 2 11:32

But anyhow, I was like I need to share this with somebody, like I need to share this. So I shared it with my best friend, brittany. I was like. I said to Brittany I was like Brittany, can I please share a dick pic with you? And she said yes. So I sent her my artistic rendering of a forest of exploding dicks and we had a good laugh about our own impressions of what dicks look like. It was a good time. But I forgot that I took it. I took it. I'd taken a picture of this forest of dicks and it was on my phone.

Speaker 2 12:01

And so I got a massage this week, part of my wonderful vacation, and I was telling a massage therapist with all the mushrooms that I had made yeah, he made some mushrooms, I did make some mushrooms and she was like, oh, I really want to see them. Like, can you show me some pictures? So I pull out my phone, I'm scrolling through the mushroom pictures and then all of a sudden I just see her. Because I'm not looking at my phone, I see her face, her eyes like bug out of her head or hand covers her mouth and she just starts laughing. I like pull my phone away and it's the forest of fucking dicks.

Speaker 2 12:34

So I accidentally sexually harassed my massage therapist and I think she's forgiven me, but I don't know. I mean it sounds like she found it very amusing. She did. She laughed a lot and I was like I really didn't mean to show you that and she's like it's OK, like me and my friends do worse. But what made it like extra terrible was she had just been telling me about all of the creepy dudes who hit on her as a massage therapist and I'd asked her if a woman had ever done that and she said no.

Speaker 1 13:02

Do you want one too?

Speaker 2 13:04

I shared a dick pic with her accidentally, so moral of the story maybe this is why. Snapchat was shared. Dick picks on Snapchat. That's my survival tip.

Speaker 1 13:17

I've never even downloaded Snapchat, even once.

Speaker 2 13:20

I downloaded Snapchat with my little sister-in-law Not your sister's, my ex-sister-in-law, but still my sister-in-law, because she's family to me forever. Anyways, she got Snapchat when she was a teenager and at first I was like this is fun. And then I was like if I was 15 and I had this app, if you and I had been teenagers with that app together?

Speaker 1 13:37

Yeah, I would have screen shot at a lot of things.

Speaker 2 13:41

Well, that's the problem. But this is the perfect fucking app for horny kids, teenagers.

Speaker 1 13:48

All right. Well, there's a hot tip for you if you're a horny teenager, yeah.

Speaker 2 13:53

And unrelated to our embarrassing stories of humiliation. Have there been any zombies in the news in the last couple weeks?

Speaker 1 13:59

Zombies in the news Leah, zombies in the news. Leah, there's zombies in the news. What's the last time we did a zombies in the news, episode one, I don't know a while. I know we kind of forgot about it I was really excited.

Speaker 2 14:12

I actually sent this one to you. It was the Zomdeer. Has anybody else heard of the Zomdeers?

Speaker 1 14:16

Yeah, we'll wait for your response. Yeah, we're just going to sit here, yeah, and I'm just going to say this is a zombie, or I keep hearing about.

Speaker 2 14:24

It's an epidemic of zombie deer spreading across North America as well as South Korea, norway, all around the world basically and it's only with cervids, which I don't know what that means, but it's deer elk, moose, caribou and reindeer and it's a chronic wasting disease which is a prion disease. Dan, do you remember the last time we had a major issue with a prion disease?

Wasting Disease and Zuckerberg's Bunker

Speaker 1 14:48

Yeah, I do. What was that? You were there for it, yeah, did you get it? Yeah, I got it, and that explains what I am right now. Mad cow disease I don't know if that's the last prion disease, but that was the last big one that I recall. Yeah, but yeah, prion diseases are fun. It's an unfolded protein strand, that's mutated.

Speaker 2 15:11

I didn't know. Protein strands were folded. See, this is what I rely on Dan for this is science.

Speaker 1 15:15

So imagine like a protein strand, kind of like it unravels itself and it puts it back together. But it puts itself back together wrong, Uh-oh, and then that protein strand goes to a whole bunch of other protein strands. It says you're the problem. You should be like me. That's a bully. Yeah, it's a bully. A bully protein. That's basically what happens. And with a mad cow disease it started because they were feeding like cattle byproduct. Back to cattle, Back to cattle.

Speaker 2 15:47

Another reason why I don't eat animals, so fucked up.

Speaker 1 15:50

So like if you if this is something that can happen if you, you know, do cannibalism over a long period of time is. I forget what it's called, but there is actually like a human preon disease that you can get from eating other humans.

Speaker 2 16:04

I wonder if the Donner party, anybody from there, got it and we just don't know.

Speaker 1 16:07

Well, it may be.

Speaker 2 16:08

It's possible, but regardless it's a preon disease, which means it's potentially spreadable to humans. We don't know if it is yet, but what it does is it changes the deer's brains and nervous system, so they have symptoms like drooling, lethargy, they get really emaciated, they stumble and then I think what's like most zombie-esque is the blank stare. They're just not really there anymore and it's fatal. There's no treatments, there's no vaccines. They can take over like a year before an animal even develops any symptoms. So like if you ate venison recently, you never know. And to date there have been no reported cases yet of it in people. But there is a high potential for it to hop over because it's something that's happened before and they've done studies on monkeys, which I don't condone. But they've done studies on monkeys and shown that it can cross over.

Speaker 1 16:59

So basically there's an outbreak, there's a nautical shift.

Speaker 2 17:01

An outbreak. It's finally made it to Yellowstone. So it's basically gonna probably, over the many years, decimate the Yellowstone population ecosystem. And it's persistent, it's extremely hard to eradicate. So once it is somewhere, it lives in the dirt, on services of resistance to disinfectants, formaldehyde, radiation, high temperatures, like. Once it's there, it's there. It's not getting rid of it. I think it's like ticks in that way. I hate ticks. So, yeah, that's what's happening and as human settlements and agriculture continues to encroach on wildlife, basically we're gonna have more outbreaks. And what's freaky to me about it is that already the Alliance for Public Wildlife estimated that 7,000 to 15,000 chronic wasting disease infected animals are consumed already by humans annually, which is with an expected 20% increase each year. So it's happening. People are eating it. There just hasn't been a case of it, but it's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 17:57

It hasn't shifted, yet In Wisconsin they have meat testing for game meat. That's totally voluntary, but the reality is is like basically a third of the people in places like Wisconsin who are eating deer meat are eating infected deer meat and they just have no idea. So I do have some survival tips for us all on this. Yeah, Number one don't eat Bambi's mom.

Speaker 1 18:22

Okay, I won't. I feel like that's a good start. But just specifically Bambi's mom. Yeah, just just Bambi, she's already dead.

Speaker 2 18:30

Definitely was infected zombie. Yeah, what a wow. You know that could be a great mashup of Bambi and zombies. I don't really know how that would go.

Speaker 1 18:41

I don't know. I think it could make a good shirt, though.

Speaker 2 18:45

That's true. That's true. My favorite shirt that Dan gave me is the Ewalking Dead shirt Ewoks, it's Ewoks but they're zombies.

Speaker 1 18:51

Yeah, it's cute.

Speaker 2 18:53

But yeah. So yeah, don't eat Bambi's mom, don't eat deer. But if you do, get them tested, because you never know, and it really is, I think, a matter of time. And my other tip for you is avoid harming apex predators. So the other thing is, people are you know, we have this tendency to think that coyotes and wolves, other apex predators, bears are a problem and we should eradicate them because they eat our livestock and stuff like that. We should leave them alone because they'll actually help control this disease and it'll have a more balanced ecosystem. So I'm a fan of that. Yeah, also, they're really cool. They are really cool. I love hearing the coyotes around our neighborhood sometimes.

Speaker 1 19:33

Yeah, it's really sad that there's like almost no wolves left.

Speaker 2 19:38

Wolves are, so Do you know that wolves mate for life? I?

Speaker 1 19:40

didn't know that. Yeah, but that sounds really nice.

Speaker 2 19:43

But also like a pack of wolves. Sorry, I'm going down this tangent. That's what this podcast is for the Casual Dead. A pack of wolves, apparently, so it says on Instagram. Real, so fact check me. A pack of wolves. Only the one couple actually reproduces, the others don't. What, yeah, huh, I know, is it true? I don't know. I do know that they are monogamous and that's kind of sweet.

Speaker 1 20:07

I mean that sounds like a bad survival strategy.

Speaker 2 20:10

I don't know. I mean it's certainly one way of getting your gene pool to be like the gene pool if you are the that's true the leaders in the pack.

Speaker 1 20:17

Hey, Leah, you know about this Mark Zuckerberg guy.

Speaker 2 20:20

Yeah, you're using all of his apps and so am I. Yeah, it's true, I love threads. Thanks, mark. I mean, we've said it before, threads and Instagram are the Walmart of social media, and we like it better than the Amazon of social media, which is owned by Musk.

Speaker 1 20:35

Yeah, so it's what it is, it's true. Isn't it weird how, like, things went full circle because Walmart was like the devil, and then, you know, we got to a point where, like we got to go back to shopping at Walmart because Amazon's the devil. Now At least Walmart has brick and mortar stores.

Speaker 2 20:52

Yeah, I don't know, it's just the world we live in.

Speaker 1 20:55

Yeah, so Mark Zuckerberg, he's built a house.

Speaker 2 20:59

He built more than a house. Why are we talking about this on Ziya Book Club? So he built a bunker and I want to start with this quote by Douglas Rushkoff, who's an author and media theorist, who says if anybody.

Speaker 1 21:10

He's talked about him before has enough.

Speaker 2 21:12

That's right. He was in the the billionaire bunkers. Yeah, same author. If anybody has enough money to insulate himself in the damage created for society, it would be Zuck. I didn't know that Zuckerberg had a short name, like a nickname Zuck the Zuck, the Zuck sucks.

Speaker 1 21:29

I call him M-dog.

Speaker 2 21:30

Yeah, so why do we care about Mark Zuckerberg's bunker?

Speaker 1 21:34

First of all, billionaires suck.

Speaker 2 21:39

Have we already established this? Do any of you like billionaires? I'm going to make it like a poll how many of you would eat a billionaire?

Speaker 1 21:47

How many people are like just leave the billionaires alone. Yeah, they didn't do anything. They're the only reason that our society is worth saving, Anyways. So yeah, Mark Zuckerberg is building an underground bunker. Let's talk about this bunker, because we've talked about billionaire bunkers before.

Speaker 2 22:07

We got a lot of good details on this one. Now, honestly, I'm pretty sure that Zuck the suck was at this conference that we talked about in the billionaire bunkers episode. What I want to know is is he the one who suggested that you should put your security guards with shock collars to control them in the event of an apocalypse? I think it might be.

Speaker 1 22:25

It might be, but that feels like a Jeff Bezos thing.

Speaker 2 22:27

Either way, I bet you that Zuck was nodding emphatically.

Mark Zuckerberg's Secret $270 Million Bunker

Speaker 1 22:30

Definitely he's just like yeah, let's hear more about that.

Speaker 2 22:33

So, basically, there's a secret construction project so, without that secret, because we're talking about it that is taking a place on the northeast side of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, which I've been to. It's a really beautiful place and it's a compound located between Kapa'a and Hanalei also two beautiful places. That is, quote unquote, shouted in secrecy. It has a six foot wall, walking visibility, security guards yeah, you're right enforcing strict measures, and the project involves over a dozen buildings, two mansions, 11 tree houses. I guess that's kind of cool.

Speaker 1 23:04

I love that there's tree houses.

Speaker 2 23:06

Yeah, a gym, pool, sauna, hot tub, cold plunge, tennis court and here's what's relevant to us A 5,000 square foot underground shelter. How many square feet is our house?

Speaker 1 23:15

I don't know, but I feel like that is like two of our houses.

Speaker 2 23:19

At least our house is 1,700 square feet. Yeah, that's a fucking huge bunker.

Speaker 1 23:25

Yeah, it's a 5,000 square foot underground post-apocalyptic bunker with a living space, a mechanical room and an escape hatch for escaping.

Speaker 2 23:33

That is ready for anything and it's self-sufficient. It has a water tank with a pump system. It has ranching and agriculture, so this guy's ready to feed himself and all of his minions.

Speaker 1 23:42

I assume the ranching and agriculture is on the surface.

Speaker 2 23:45

Probably a little bit of hydroponic downstairs. We're probably something going on down there.

Speaker 1 23:49

I kind of imagine.

Speaker 2 23:50

At least weed.

Speaker 1 23:51

You got to have the weed downstairs.

Speaker 2 23:55

Definitely. And you know what's wild I think when we talked with this a little bit in the last episode, it's like what? Is it Like a $2 million project?

Speaker 1 24:00

No, yeah, it's what? $270 million? Yeah, you know, all the articles say $100 million, but then in the article they're like $270 million. I don't know why they're understating it.

Speaker 2 24:15

Yeah, and here's what pisses me off. I'm going out of order from our notes. He's selling $270 million on this, the local Hawaiians. He's donated 24 million to placate them.

Speaker 1 24:27

Yeah, that sounds like just enough to not have to pay any taxes. The fuckface, yeah. I wonder if the reason that they're saying 100 million is because there's $170 million worth of tax write-off. So he's gonna get back next year.

Speaker 2 24:42

Who knows. I remember when he bought that land years ago and there was a big kerfuffle, because I mean, in general, a lot of Hawaiians are saying, please don't come, please let us live here in peace. We're a colonized place.

Speaker 1 24:55

And I'm sure that he was very respectful of the wishes right. He was like I understand, you know what? I should give this back. That's what he said.

Speaker 2 25:05

So respectful. Somebody died in his construction site.

Speaker 1 25:09

I think that's the opposite of giving them their land. Yeah, someone died during construction.

Speaker 2 25:15

All the workers on the project have to sign nondisclosure agreements and it's basically like an unprecedented level of secrecy and security. So things that we do know. We know because you have to submit plans for permits and things of that nature, but they have different crews working on different parts of the project. Nobody, actually who's worked on it has even seen the entirety of this thing. It's very deliberately made to be extremely secret, which leads me to the question of why is Mark Zuckerberg making a $270 million stronghold and bunker for himself? I think you asked the question, Dan, like what does he know?

Speaker 1 25:51

Yeah, what does Mark Zuckerberg? What does?

Speaker 2 25:53

he know? What does he know? He is actively involved in destroying the world and then creating himself a little fucking paradise for him.

Speaker 1 26:00

You know, I guess when you have a hand in destroying the world, he kind of know when it's going to happen.

Speaker 2 26:05

Yeah, yeah. And you know what, in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I would say that Hawaii would be one of the more isolated places that would probably go to last, don't you think?

Speaker 1 26:16

Hawaii.

Speaker 2 26:17

Yeah, I mean there's flights going in and out, but it is a very remote island. Oh, yeah, a set of islands, I should say.

Speaker 1 26:24

I mean, I think a lot of people might have that idea, though, but it's also so remote that it would be difficult to get there if there's no like planes flying.

Speaker 2 26:33

Well, what's amazing is that Hawaiians themselves, the way that they found Hawaii, was from another island in Polynesia, I forget where, and they used the stars and birds' migration patterns to find it, because they knew these birds were going somewhere for land, and that's how they even found it. So it's possible to get there in a fucking canoe. Yeah, they went in canoes.

Speaker 1 26:52

Yeah, they're like birds are going that way. Let's get in our canoes and paddle yeah.

Speaker 2 26:58

But indigenous people specifically, who have maintained their traditions, are so much more likely to survive than the rest of us, oh yeah.

Speaker 1 27:04

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 27:06

Speaking of indigenous folks and native Hawaiians. They are not happy with the zuck at all. Oh, you'd think that they'd love this, yeah.

Speaker 1 27:16

Why would they love it, Dan? Oh, I mean, it's just adding so much to the natural order of Hawaii.

Speaker 2 27:23

Yeah, I mean they definitely want one more white person who's super rich to kick them off their land.

Speaker 1 27:27

That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 27:29

And make them indentured laborers, basically.

Speaker 1 27:32

Yeah, so you're saying that there might be some criticism surrounding this?

Speaker 2 27:38

A little bit For folks who don't know a lot about the history of Hawaii. Just a little bit of a backstory. So, like all the rest of the United States, it was colonized forcefully and there was an entire kingdom, monarchy and cultural and social and political systems that existed on the islands of Hawaii. That was forcefully taken over About 100 years ago. I want to say I'd have to go back and look at the exact dates, but Hawaiians have always maintained sovereignty in terms of like stating that they have sovereign rights and they have a whole bunch of cultural traditions that are very cool. One of them is called Kuliana rights, which are considered ancestral land rights that still exist in state Hawaiian law, which basically gives native Hawaiians and their descendants access and use privileges for, like, very specific familial parcels. These rights have cultural significance. They still have legal recognition, which I think is great and is deeply connected to their culture. But Zuckerberg basically just pressured local landowners with those Kuliana rights to leave.

Speaker 1 28:39

Yeah, just fuck you.

Speaker 2 28:41

Yeah, actually a great TV show, white Lotus. The first season, where the White Lotus Hotel is based on one of the main characters, who's a native Hawaiian, says like that's his family's Kuliana. Those were his traditional lands that had been taken over forcefully. So, yeah, local reactions they don't love them. In fact, there was a petition of 100 million people saying please fuck off Mark, which was obviously not all native Hawaiians, but anybody who's an ally to them as well would say like go fuck yourself. But yeah, the thing that they did to try and make everybody like them a little bit more is they created the Chan Zuckerberg Kauai Community Fund and donated over $20 million to local nonprofits since 2018.

Speaker 1 29:22

Aren't they so great and charitable? Yeah, so did Mark. Was he just matching? No, this is Mark. Oh, I thought you were Okay.

Speaker 2 29:31

Mark is the fun. I'll delete that part, the part where you just, yeah, but yeah, they're not the greatest, but it really does concern me that people like Mark Zuckerberg are genuinely concerned about the apocalypse happening.

Speaker 1 29:48

I mean, part of it is like is there a possibility that they just have so much money? And it's kind of fun to think about the end of the world now and they're like, oh, I'm going to build a cool treehouse that's like off grid and it's also underground, and I'm going to it's a zombie bunker. Or are they like the end is nigh and we got to go underground? See you later, guys.

Survival Plan

Speaker 2 30:11

I don't know. My pop psychology interpretation is that to be a billionaire you must have such a sense of scarcity in the world that you have to hoard everything to survive, like you got to be, like stuck in your root chakra of fear and paranoia. That's my weird hippie spiritual pop psychology comment, because it's just really wild the thing that you need all of this but actually contributing to the end of the world at the same time. That's Mark.

Speaker 1 30:40

So I've done some research into this myself and I came up with a plan to take Mark Zuckerberg's stronghold After the zombie apocalypse. Do you want to be part of my survival wasteland crew? I?

Speaker 2 30:57

mean, I thought I already was. Do I have to apply? Yeah, you have to apply.

Speaker 1 31:00

What kind of marketable skills do you have?

Speaker 2 31:01

I thought I had like nepotism on my side, as your partner for life.

Speaker 1 31:06

No, this is, you have to have the skills for the job. What kind of skills do you have for my road-borey or gang?

Speaker 2 31:13

I'm an excellent diplomat.

Speaker 1 31:15

Okay, diplomacy is third, but you know what we do need to get the. You need it.

Speaker 2 31:20

Later I'll be on the back lines, not the front lines.

Speaker 1 31:23

Okay.

Speaker 2 31:23

Yeah, I have rage. It was towards billionaire.

Speaker 1 31:27

Oh yeah, yeah, I have a lot of suppressed rage that I would like we're definitely like Robin Hooding, this, we're going after the people who have everything because, like I mean, let's be honest, if you're Robin, people that have nothing on the road like you're also going to have nothing. It's a zero-sum sort of.

Speaker 2 31:45

Just trade, nothing around.

Speaker 1 31:47

Go after the people that have the shit, yeah, and all the people that don't have anything. You just absorb them into your crew. But anyways, I found out that Mark Zuckerberg spent $43 million on his personal security in 2023.

Speaker 2 32:00

So double the amount that he's donated over five years he's spent in one year on personal. Like I said, this man has a lot of fear and he's got his root chakra.

Speaker 1 32:08

He's reported to have no less than 16 bodyguards at all time. I hate this.

Speaker 2 32:13

That seems like a lot.

Speaker 1 32:14

I feel like the president doesn't even have that many bodyguards.

Speaker 2 32:17

I wonder if the president spends a year.

Speaker 1 32:19

It's probably a fair amount. I think there were reports about Trump's spendings which were considerably high because he wrote in a helicopter to a golf course every day.

Speaker 2 32:29

I think Mark Zuckerberg sees all of us plebes as zombies.

Speaker 1 32:32

Yeah, well, and you know what that's going to come in our favor when we roll up. Yeah, tell us the plan, dan. We're going to have an unlikely, scrappy doomsday road warrior gang made up of a combination of tourists, soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii who survived the first contact with the undead, and also native Hawaiians. We're all going to show up hungry, dirty and ready to eat the rich. No, no, no, no, no, no, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. We're going to be riding on top of heavy machinery blasting heavy metal music as loud as possible. That's amazing. There's going to be geysers of flame shooting out in every direction and whirling blades down at the bottom that just shred zombies to bits. And then we get to work by.

Speaker 1 33:27

We start excavation of the entrance to the shelter Hmm, I talked about this in the billionaire bunkers episode. But you know, underground it's all just reinforced concrete. And like you got to get a good excavator, you cut through that like hot butter. Wow, just smash right through it. And what if it's steel? Oh, it won't be steel. The door on the outside will be reinforced steel, okay, but underground is all going to be reinforced concrete. If it is steel, we just keep on hammering away. We bring out plasma torches if we have to cut holes in it.

Speaker 2 34:04

We have time on our side.

Speaker 1 34:06

Yeah, that's true Time and anger yeah, like they can't go anywhere. We got. We got them boxed in. So we created a defensive cone around the hole and we blast nursery rhymes into the shelter at maximum volume for weeks on end.

Speaker 2 34:22

Which nursery rhyme.

Speaker 1 34:24

You know, I don't, I haven't chosen, but it's going to be the same one on repeat, over and over again.

Speaker 2 34:29

Could we record? This is what I can contribute is my dinosaur song.

Speaker 1 34:33

That might be too fun and too nice. What we want is like an earworm that, just like after weeks of listening to it, will make you physically ill.

Speaker 2 34:42

I mean, you don't think that listening to a song about stegosaurus is over and over again that's exactly three lines Wouldn't eventually make you wild Maybe?

Speaker 1 34:51

I don't know, but I'm going for something classic like twinkle, twinkle little star Like that one gets into your head Like it'll drive you fucking crazy. Yeah, so you know, blasting this music, we, every zombie that comes along that doesn't run right into our whirling blades If they go through the opening in the hole, we just let them go in, and the security forces inside, they deplete their ammunition and then we just wait for the shooting to stop. And that's when, after a certain amount of time, we start broadcasting through those giant speakers in the hole. Okay, and then we start to see that those security forces that are inside they're welcome. They're welcome additions to our road warrior gang. We recognize their valuable skills.

Speaker 2 35:36

This is where my diplomacy in apple pie comes in.

Speaker 1 35:39

This is where you come in. Yes, you got apple pie. We start wafting the apple pie sent in the nursery rhymes go away. Chocolate or cookies we start playing. You know, we start playing like familiar sounding TV shows outside with a laugh, track Off our complimentary mushroom incense holder.

Speaker 1 35:59

Yeah, we got incense, we got apple pie. We're having a great time. Come to the cookout guys and we tell them the security forces, they're welcome with open arms. We just want the billionaire that's inside. That's all we want. That billionaire is probably being a total prick to these guys.

Speaker 2 36:17

Probably there's really maybe even be a couple billionaires.

Speaker 1 36:20

There might be. There could be a few of them, and the more billionaires you have in one spot, the bigger the barbecue. Well, the bigger the barbecue, but also the more that they're going to piss off everybody who's not a billionaire inside. True, those people are going to be ready to make any kind of deal. So we just sit and we wait for the problem to fix itself and those skilled bodyguards eventually join our ranks after they drag their billionaire kicking and screaming out the, out the front, and we repair the fortress as best as we can and we return the land to the rights holders, and we don't actually eat Mark Zuckerberg. He probably wouldn't taste very good. He wouldn't. He'd be stringy, right, jamie.

Speaker 2 37:04

Does he have chronic wasting disease?

Speaker 1 37:06

He might at this point, if he does it can we give it to him. We can give it to him Perfect. But the most important thing is we're going to put him to work rebuilding the internet so we can get back to watching videos about cute puppies.

Speaker 2 37:18

I think that that's fair.

Speaker 1 37:19

Yeah, and then, after we've watched a sufficient number of puppy videos, we're going to pick a puppy, the cutest one and we're going to make that one the mayor of Zuckertown.

Speaker 2 37:30

Oh, are they like a symbolic mayor? Well, kuliana, rights holders have a final authority, but this puppy is sort of like comes to special events.

Speaker 1 37:37

You know we'll have to negotiate that, but I think everyone's going to come to a mutual agreement that a cute puppy is going to do a better job governing all of us than any of us would.

Speaker 2 37:49

That's what I'm kind of wondering If you had a choice between voting this year for president like a cute puppy versus any of the options would you?

Speaker 1 37:58

vote for the cute puppy Cute puppy, better policy, a puppy for president, and yeah, so we build Zuckertown to be a bastion of safety for all Hawaiians and we all live happily ever after.

Speaker 2 38:12

I like that idea yeah.

Speaker 1 38:14

I think this is a solid plan.

Speaker 2 38:16

I hope one day to go back to Hawaii. If it's an okay thing to do and participate in this plan yeah, because it is paradise. Like I get his desire to also hoard 4,200 acres of paradise.

Speaker 1 38:28

Yeah, and if you're going to survive anywhere after the world ends, might not be paradise where everything is plentiful, because not only is it just paradise, but also it's a place that will sustain you just by what grows there.

Speaker 2 38:47

If it's not being taken over by fuckfaces, which currently most of it is. That's the sad thing is that a lot of well, most, I shouldn't say most, but a lot of Hawaiians live in poverty in paradise, and after we, eat them.

Speaker 1 38:58

Then the plantains will grow back. Yeah, the pineapples will be plentiful. The fish will return. That's true. That's true. Leah horde shoutouts.

Speaker 2 39:09

This is new it is shoutouts from the horde. How does a horde shout? Is that the beginning of our song intro or the end of it? Like that's the horde shoutout sound. Yeah, I can't imagine. Every time I get a message from anyone, I picture them as a zombie. Yeah, and sort of like flurring words as I read it.

Speaker 1 39:34

So what did Megan groan at us?

Speaker 2 39:39

It was a groan. It was a fair groan, I feel. Megan. Thanks so much for reaching out. I appreciate what you had to say. I'm going to read your note, which I think is worth it.

Speaker 2 39:48

So our last book that we read, just as a reminder if I was with Clay Zark, which was very divisive between Dan and I and apparently also from our readers. So Megan is one of a few, but I wanted to highlight their specific comment. They said they still loving the podcast. Just finished your recent one with the zombie alien cat boys. Lol.

Book Editing and Admitting Mistakes

Speaker 2 40:06

I'm glad that that name got a laugh because I was very proud of it and had a small thought about Octavia's editing. While I agree a book written to a dying friend might be painful, to return to the fact that the book isn't a quote unquote trunk story which I had to look up, I think that means when somebody's already died and they can't edit it, and was published in Octavia's lifetime, means it was edited. So while I agree with Leah that it would be difficult, obviously has she had to do some editing to get it published. If it was previously unpublished that'd be different, but since it was published, I don't think the situation behind writing it can be justification for lack of good writing. So, dan, you're getting a point on Right Mountain.

Speaker 1 40:41

Yeah, it went Because Megan wholeheartedly agrees. Thanks, megan, I am a winner now.

Speaker 2 40:46

I think Megan needs cutting down and actually I'm just paraphrasing here. They did not finish the book, also because of the sexual violence which we agree. Like that was unexpected.

Speaker 1 40:56

Yeah, it came out of nowhere I did. It was expected, but also very surprising. It did.

Speaker 2 41:03

So here I am on record saying officially Dan and Megan, you're right. I think my extreme positive bias for Butler and overall enjoying the book positively biased me towards it and, like, made me kind of oversee the and forgive some of the problems of the book. So now that I've had some time to think about it, I agree. I mean, you can always pay for there to be an editor for one. Give some time and space, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 41:29

You could even pay for somebody to just do all the edits, like somebody to suggest the edits, and if you just want to be like, yeah, just fucking do it. I don't look at that anymore.

Speaker 2 41:38

Yeah, yeah, I was I. I'm going to say it, I was wrong.

Speaker 1 41:44

Yeah, Are you proud of me, Dan, for admitting I was wrong? Oh, I am so proud, but you know I don't need to be right.

Speaker 2 41:51

Well, I'm working on this.

Speaker 1 41:54

You know, I am above rightness.

Speaker 2 41:58

The thing that will get me killed in the zombie apocalypse is my need to be right for sure.

Speaker 1 42:04

Also a shout out to Greg the writer 83, because because we posted, we posted a very hard to guess screenshot of a movie and asked what it was and he said the dead don't die.

Speaker 2 42:18

It's totally right on. Yeah, yeah, first guess you get a prize, greg.

Speaker 1 42:23

You didn't even have to think about it. You looked at it and he's like, yeah, I know what that is.

Speaker 2 42:26

Greg, I don't know what you look like, but now I picture you as Greg from Succession, and if you haven't read that or watched that show, highly recommend it. But that's what I'm picturing you as is like a very tall man in a suit who is introduced to us by puking through the eye holes of a theme park mascot costume first job. I'm sure you wouldn't do something like that, greg the writer 83. I think you would. Let us know, greg, let us know.

Speaker 1 42:54

Greg, have you ever puked through the eye holes of a mascot costume?

Speaker 2 42:57

I don't know and I'm just going to give one more shout out to somebody who will probably never listen to our podcast, but I think all of us should be following which is YK Reborn exactly like it says I sounds on Instagram, and the reason why I'm sharing about them is because they are a source of inspiration and hope and truthfulness in our extremely dystopian reality right now. So if you're looking to like hear someone's take on how we actually end empire and get the fuck out of this situation and create a more liberated world together, follow YK Reborn.

Speaker 1 43:28

Yeah, or spread a zombie virus.

Speaker 2 43:31

Yeah, that's a valuable alternative at this point.

Speaker 1 43:35

Yeah, so there we go, everybody. Remember that. Now it's going to be episode 35, when we talk about our next book, because we're doing an episode every week, yeah, and, like you know, we need time to read these books. I'm, admittedly, a very slow reader, which is why I often gravitate towards audiobooks, not just because I drive for a living and I can't use my eyes to read them, but, man, you know the combination of ADHD and undiagnosed autism. I look at the page and I just start reading the same sentence over and over again thinking it's the next sentence.

Speaker 1 44:15

Being like this doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 44:17

Which is why I am the audiobook for Sylvester Barcie's Planet Dead. It's our bedtime story, enjoying it very much. Please go check it out and read it along with us. And in the meantime, if you have a burning question, a random question, a thought, a need for a zombie apocalypse tip or life advice, you know what I would really love like zombie relationship advice questions, that could be fun. We might play it on air and respond. If you leave us a voicemail at 614-699-0006. You've got up to three minutes to leave a message. You can also email us at zombiebookclubpodcast at gmailcom. Keep it short. As Dan just explained, we're not exactly good with attention span. It's not you, it's not personal, it's us.

Speaker 1 44:59

Yeah, and don't forget to subscribe, or whatever the button is. You know, follow, subscribe, join. Is there a join button somewhere? Hit it. You should Bread the virus. Yeah, send the one that says send money.

Speaker 2 45:11

Yeah, yeah and go follow Dan's embarrassing foibles on threads.

Speaker 1 45:17

Yeah, you know, I do post on threads quite a bit.

Speaker 2 45:19

Yeah, you can find Dan at Dan the Zombie Writer.

Speaker 1 45:22

I even posted a little bit of my writing the other day.

Speaker 2 45:25

Yeah, and you know what I just realized? We never see what our handle is on our outro. Our handle is at Zombie Book Club Podcast Shopper.

Speaker 1 45:32

Yeah, it's also in the link tree description, the link tree.

Speaker 2 45:36

Yeah, so come and chat with us. We love to hear from you all and we hope you have a beautiful day and you're keeping it casual, yeah.

Speaker 1 45:43

Casual day. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. See you at the end of the night. Au revoir, bye.