Why do the majority the the population belive the Government happy face diagnosis of y2k? Most people don't trust the Government and generaly don't belive it till I see it, so why the running to fall all over themselves to belive the happy face lie? I'm in paradoxical exasperation!!

-- Army Girl (aGirl@ag.com), July 18, 1999

Answers

Lies are perfectly acceptable in this country as long as they are about SEX or anything we don't actually want to examine and put forth any effort to deal with!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 18, 1999.

Something must be in the air. Check out the following website and then sit back and wonder...

http://www.xld.com/public/center/center.htm

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), July 18, 1999.

What you are seeing, up close and personal, is actually the psychological makeup of most of the population. I have a daughter who is studying psychology in college and I have asked her if there is any talk or interest in this Y2k situation or the public behavior that is unfolding right before their eyes. Nope. No interest. No mention of it in any study courses on public behavior patterns. Weird, huh? This self directed avoidance of the issue is very puzzling, but there it is. Of course, later on, there will be umpteen studies and books written about it all. But while it's happening, the "professors" couldn't be less interested. Of course, the professors are a part of that general population and I suppose they are only acting in the same way as their peer group.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), July 18, 1999.

This thread is stupid and your all morons cause I say so.

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 18, 1999.

I apologize for myself and all the trouble I've been causing the forum lately. I'm not even a polly.

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 18, 1999.

This thread is stupid and your all morons cause I say so.

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 18, 1999.

As stated earlier it is "you're or you are" not "your all morons".

Don't believe this is doomer suck talking.

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), July 18, 1999.

I am too a polly, and I don't apologise at all, except of course for my butt, which smells.

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 18, 1999.

Did I mention that I like to smell my own butt?

-- (doomers@suck.com), July 18, 1999.

Doomer suck (fake),

Please take a bath and wash out your eyes, ears, mouth and the other problem areas of your body...and mind!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), July 18, 1999.

Army Girl.. I think it is the power of ridicule. Early on the "meme" that Y2K was hype was released and promoted heavily. Anyone who was making preparations was portrayed as a machine-gun toting, fatigue-wearing, head-for-the-hill whacko. This served to make any serious discussions about Y2K about as socially acceptible as serious discussions of strange things people see in the sky. Since most people are way too concerned about not appearing crazy to their coworkers and peers, they feared bringing up the subject. And if anyone was brave enough to bring it up, you could count on someone in the group to ridicule them, and joke-threaten them with the not-very-funny to G.I.s "Well, if everything DOES crash... I know where you have your stash."

So those who "get it" learned to keep their mouths shut (except among other GI's here on the web... while Koskinen was telling the media they must be "responsible" and not cause panic (i.e. put a "Don't Worry Be Happy" headline on what few articles you do write, and hide the bad news a few paragraphs down, cause only those whackos will read that far anyway). Since most people seem to get their news from the evening news report on TV, and since Y2K has mostly been ignored for the last few months by major media, and since all of us have gotten tired of trying to convince our DGI friends and relatives... I'm sure the Joe Sixpacks of the world have come to the conclusion that it really WAS all hype and has totally gone away. Bring on the dancing bears.

This is a very complex subject, and doesn't fit into the sound bite news format. And there is great incentive on the part of companies to paint a rosier picture than is reality. And the gov't fears panic, so has its own incentive for not telling the truth. And Gore is afraid he will get blamed for it and it will hurt him politically, so has avoided the greatest chance for leadership of his life.

And don't forget that this is a never-happened-before problem. Its just plain hard to wrap your brain around the possibility that our JIT way of life could be taken down by the very technology that made JIT possible.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 18, 1999.

Linda,

"And Gore is afraid he will get blamed for it and it will hurt him politically, so has avoided the greatest chance for leadership of his life."

Al invented all this so he should get the blame!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), July 18, 1999.

Mark Hillyard - "Al invented all this so he should get the blame!"

I think Al's Instant Karma is going to be that the Internet that he "invented" is going to un-invent him.

Mr. Technology to be elected after the crash of technology? I think not.

Maybe he should have invented???? the outhouse? the plow? the waterwheel? Something like that that we might be needing during his administration.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 18, 1999.

It is very unpopular in the US today to say that the future can really be bad. The public doesn't want to consider any of the major potential problems that we may face over the next year. Besides y2k, we are dealing with the most overvalued stock market in US history. Also, there are tens of thousands of loosely controlled biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Russia that we chould be concerned about. Perhaps many of these weapon and the materials and technology to build them have already been sold to enemies of the US. The public doesn't want to hear about these problems.

Just look at your Sunday newspaper. There was a time when the newspapers covered serious world events, but today most of the coverage is focused on personalities. The public probably still doesn't trust the government that much, but they don't want to think about future bad news.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), July 18, 1999.

I don't think the public believes the Y2k spin as much as they're "examining" it and reserving judgement, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It's ironic. The status quo needs to be able to get across a really good lie right about now, but between the OJ trial, the BJ Clinton impeachment, and everything else that's passes for truth these days, TPTB might have their work cut out for them.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), July 18, 1999.