This is why you should always ALWAYS have access to a radio, radio is the most reliable form of communication. If the government ever stops broadcasting then its over, its every man for himself.

When the military handles the outbreak in the first week but I’ve already finished building the Femur throne

This is a VERY interesting question. My personal take is already pretty well depicted in the TV show. Once the military is gone, places like the CDC have admitted "defeat," and no single group is actively "taking over" the country to establish some kind of new order, it's basically a free for all and it's time to accept help isn't coming.

The only sticking point for me is that I think morality would last way longer than "hope." I don't think people are suddenly going to start eating each other or violently clashing the second their hope dies. Most people would need some kind of justification, prolonged pain or personal tragedy to meaningfully change their humanity.

Again, that's a ladder though. People will be breaking laws like "hunting without a license" far before "premeditated murder" LOL.

I always say one year. If in one year things aren't being handled you have to assume this is your new reality.

Man I immediately thought of The Mist with this sort of question. Such a great movie, I’ll never forget how I felt after watching the first time lmao

I would wait about a month or two before thinking the government will not going to respond. But it a good idea to have a radio so you can hear what’s going on and that there might be some places or people that can tell us what happens.

Even in the Last of Us the Government and Military are barely holding on. They lose more ground over time than they gain. When do you ask yourself: "Should I start actually just rebuilding or are we just keep waiting?"

I'd love a drama TV with this premise: Some type of disaster (not zombie related because that already exists) shuts society down for like 2 years. Think like an EMP, limited nuclear exchange or supervolcano eruption. During this time the protagonists of this story and the small community they formed had to do a bunch of morally dubious and even downright evil stuff to survive, until 2 years later the army rolled in, re-established order and eventually got society working to almost pre-disaster capacity. And this drama show would show the fallout of how hard it would be for people who had been fighting to survive to just re-intergrate into normal society.

I mean imagine having to go to work and your co-worker used to be some bandit leader who spent years trying to kill you and your friends.

Having to do taxes while you and everyone around you is dealing with unimaginable lvls of ptsd

If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend the show Jericho (2006). It involves a small community dealing with the immediate aftermath of multiple bombings targeting all the major cities in the U.S. It tackles a lot of this stuff: When will help come? Should we accept foreign aid? Can we trust people from the outside? Feuds with other neighboring towns, etc. I think you'd like it 👍

Honestly me personally with movies/shows I've seen that (I'd say) accurately depicts how chaotic it would be between people and the inability to truly rely on the military (or like how in The Walking Dead it was depicted that basically all the military run bases and safe zones were destroyed/overrun by the first 2 months) I wouldn't wait around for help.

I would hold out hope, but in terms of actually staying put in a not so fortified "safe spot" or looking for help, I wouldn't. I'd be focused first on finding family/friends and building community.

I think about this all the time! Because in movies like shaun of the dead and world war z the outbreak is contained after a while, but in many others it's just "survive until you can't anymore"

I think that if something like an apocalypse happens you do what you need to do in the moment in order to survive. However I think you should also try to hold on to your morals as much as possible. You should always try to hold out hope that even if you don’t think society will ever truly go back to the old world you should always hold out that as a species we’d be able to band together enough to at least make some sort of safe communities that have fair trade between them.

The yellowjackets handle this really well. It takes them around 3 days of rationing to decide they need to take things into their own hands to survive until they are saved. A week from that to send people out to see if they can find society. And after that fails they give up hope, have a party out in the wilderness using anything they can as theyve accepted their fate.

I think the answer is stay put for as long as you have communication with the outside world. Otherwise, you need to move to a location with functional long distance communication, or bring the communication tools to you. If you have functional radio or satellite phones or whatever? You can stay put for longer so long as you are still getting updates. If\when communication breaks down, its time to get moving.

I've always thought "plan for the worst, hope for the best"  and that very much applies to these scenarios. If this starts, prepare for the long haul, but wait as long as you can.  Do not kill anyone unless you have to, that's the biggest mistake made in the mist. He should have waited until they were at the point of dying or suffering before pulling any triggers. Also, a physical book containing survival information (trapping, fishing, farming, knots, water purification, etc.) is soooo important here.

I think about 2 weeks in, I start preparing to accept that reality, but it would take up to a month before it actually happens.

This is a really good question because humanity has gone through events that result in losing power and generally bad events that didn't end up apocalyptic. So if something were to happen, there would be concern but enough to think it's the end of society? Chances are so low our rational thoughts will continue as if it's temporary. Then time will reveal more and slowly paint a picture steering you in whichever scenario is likely day by day.

It's also why I wonder how much Kirkman's background lore for The Walking Dead saying zombies don't even exist in their fiction actually matters to the characters confusion and panic. It definitely does matter to some extent if we were in that scenario. By the time we can conclude what's going on around us, we can cross off a checklist of traits and weaknesses of the threat because of already existing ideas of zombies, potentially adapting faster than those in that fictional Earth. But when would we conclude that's the case? That concept is so unlikely the average person wouldn't initially believe it was real if it started. Maybe we'd conclude fast depending on how bad things get in a short time frame but it's too unlikely for it to be your first conclusion. Fear The Walking Dead shows some early reactions to footage of walkers from the public. The first episodes take place at the beginning of people reanimating. I think we wouldn't be so far off initially.

I feel like in a month with no organized response then just assume you are on your own and start acting accordingly.

Honestly the most realistic disasters (even zombie ones) would probably be handled real fast and people would know what's up.

Even if some places feel cutoff, there's usually a disaster relief somewhere near the community anyways and most people tend to want to group up and not choose anarchy and theft as their first choice.

I'd say 6 months in people will start to see anarchy, but even then that is the worst case scenario, most times people would effectively create neighborhood watches, I know my countrymen do it so some countries could probably relate

I think in general the policy should always be to invite rescue by being aware of any ongoing efforts and make it clear you’re there to be rescued, but just assume it won’t happen. Like even in a basic situation like a hurricane, be aware of ongoing rescue efforts and make it clear you’re there - but assume you’re on your own.

To make it zombie related - the dawn of the dead mall crew put SOS on the roof but then still planned out their own escape.