Ego's, Y2k, pollys and doomers

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for the record, i would probably be categorized as a doomer. my belief is that if one is prepared for y2k, it doesn't matter what happens. the only people who have anything to worry about now, are those who are unprepared.

It seems at the beginning- (for me in early december 1998), the pollys were the ones filling heads with propaganda, and smiley face stuff with no evidence to back things up. now it seems like it's come around 180, and it's the doomers with unhappy face stuff, and the evidence seems to go against them.

some of the so called experts have pulled out of y2k for various reasons, i think ego being part of it(you start to lose credibility when predictions fall flat) and the fact that most people have made up their mind to either prepare and be safe, or follow the herd and take a risk(however high or low).

Do you agree that we're all in this together, and that we all want y2k to be nothing at all? If you have kids like i do, i think you do. this once meaningful debate seems to have degenerated. It was obvious from the start that somebody would be right, and somebody would be wrong-- but not totally. i think the ultimate goal is that we get through this, and do it together.

i guess the point is that if on january 2, one person is thankful they prepared, the doomers were right. if one person is thankful they didn't, the pollys were. & you know there will be at least one of each. --- post the truth & remember the goal....

later...

-- SuperLurker (Fls@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999

Answers

I'm glad I'm prepared NOW! We are saving a lot of money on food because we don't shop every day. We spend time on things that are important to us long term...gardens, people, church etc. Our life is better now than all those years in the rat race.

-- seraphima (seraphima@aol.com), July 09, 1999.

Superlurker:

I'm amazed that you can take such a complex subject and reduce it to such a simple issue -- whether or not we should 'prepare'. This is like describing the entire subject of meteorology as being a question of whether we should board up our windows, or just carry an umbrella!

Following this metaphor, most of the debate hinges on trying to predict (in some detail) changes in global weather patterns as a result of global warming. First, does global warming really represent a threat to weather? If so, will it lead to droughts or storms? Where? Will there be better weather in some places and worse in others? Should different crops be planted? If so, which crops should be planted where? What activities (burning fossil fuels, etc.) are contributing, and how much of a contribution is each activity making? What (if anything) can and should we do to prevent global weather patterns from becoming worse, or to make them better?

The y2k debate is similar. Will there be large impacts? If so, what kind? Are we reducing these impacts through our remediation efforts? If so, how much? What sorts of problems might result, and how serious and long lasting will they be? Will problems be spotty and localized, or will there be macroeconomic impacts? Just how much *do* we rely on compters anyway, and exactly what is the nature of this reliance? Just how pervasive and critical are these date bugs? Do they affect some activities more than others, and if so, which ones and how much? Just how real is the threat of public overreaction, and what forms will this threat take (if any)?

I use a weather metaphor because y2k appears to have similar characteristics. It will be different everywhere, and will likely help almost as many (and as much) as it hurts in the long run. It's something we may all need to adapt to in one way or another. Every potential implication of y2k leads to different scenarios, and every one of them is highly debatable. Please don't oversimplify.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 09, 1999.


Flint,

Letting Yellowstone burn in '88 may have helped the ecology in the long run. Can't imagine that being much comfort to the native species there at the time.

If you would, I'm interested in what industries, countries, peoples say a 5-7 would "likely help".

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), July 09, 1999.


Hi 'SuperLurker',

Even though I'm not a doomer, I'm still glad I prepared.. Yes, I have kids. I read Ed Yourdon's book, and I thought.. You know, after all the money I've made working for fifteen years, it would be PRETTY DA** STUPID to not have any preparation for an emergency at all. Our grandparents are still alive, they tought us about the Great Depression first hand. My parents were in Chicago during the riots in '68 (in a bad part of town) our doorman was shot in front of our building. Bad stuff happens.

I believe in being prepared. I don't see any reason to believe this will be any more than a 'level three', but I still believe in preparedness.

I won't be jeering if nothing happens, I won't have to worry about reading your doomer posts if something does happen :-)

Bryce

-- Bryce (bryce@seanet.com), July 09, 1999.


SuperLurker seems like a troll. Anybody emailed him/her/it to find out?

Is your email address REAL, SuperLurker? If it is there may be "giants" on this forum who can confirm or deny your opinions. Privately.

-- troll (possible@be.prepared), July 09, 1999.



Carlos:

You should try taking a longer view, if only for the exercise. We probably learn more from our mistakes than from anything else, but that doesn't make our mistakes any more pleasant.

And most of these lessons are barely visible. A great deal works correctly today because we learned by doing it wrong in the past. But we only see the errors, unless we're historians. It isn't easy to look at our processes today and understand they work as well as they do because we got them wrong many times before getting them right. And they're improving all the time.

Almost surely y2k will lead to better programming practices, improved systems, more-aware management, more comprehensive testing procedures generally. We'll have a clearer understanding of how things really are tied together, and what weaknesses need to be addressed to make these systems more robust. And as ever, we won't see the improvements directly. We'll see the suffering we had to go through to learn what to improve and how. Only ecologists can see the improvements at Yellowstone, but everyone could see and remember that fire. We need to remember that fire has always been one of the important factors that allowed that ecology to develop as it did.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 09, 1999.


Am I preparing? Of course! When you are told that a potential major hurricane may be developing well offshore and 'if it comes ashore, you cannot avoid it', only a totally egotistical and overtly ignorant individual would stay at home and watch tv. I see the attitude in so many people "It wouldn't dare disrupt my nice comfortable life". (This applies to many other situations beside y2k).

Do I want anything to happen? I have a business my wife and I built from nothing (literally 0 ) in July 1997 to an annualized gross of $750,000 estimated for 1999. I have a mother in law and a grandmother in law both with cancer and need ongoing medical help which is currently available. We have a rather productive horse farm that is making a tiny trickle of money instead of costing me each month. We are able to go and do as we please for the first time in 23 years of marriage. Why in the world would I want to give up any of this?

Question answered

.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.


I fail to understand how Ed Yourdon's departure can in any way be used to question his integrity on the Y2K issue. Anyone -- regardless of whether they are a polly, or a doomer -- can surely understand that PERSONAL PREPARATION takes A LOT of time. Yourdon said that he needed to be proactive on this prior to Y2K. Further, he pointed out -- and I have not seen anyone dispute this -- that he simply had concluded that there was nothing that he could say or do in convincing anyone about the need to prepare for Y2K that he had not ALREADY said or done.

It is a "low blow" indeed to in any way try to use Yourdon's departure as some kind of "evidence" that Y2K is anything but the serious problem that it is.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 09, 1999.

See what I mean? most people just want to argue. If i'd posted some assertion about how stupid pollys were, i'd have had tons of responses.

Another point--- just because you're doing the same thing as the masses, doesn't mean you're right. for example- "dressing up" to go to church is something that tons of people do. and its absolutely silly. think about it-- if you created something, and it covered itself up when it came to see you, how would you feel?

if you're really trying to make God happy, show up naked..... and i'm not kidding.

-- SL (fls@yahoo.com), July 10, 1999.


Naked? Yikes! There speaks a person who's uninformed about Minnesota winters. I'm almost certain God doesn't mind earmuffs.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 10, 1999.


I'm convinced God never intended Minnesota to be lived in, though.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 10, 1999.

Flint:

What does that say about Canada then? [g]

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), July 11, 1999.


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