http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/201/business/The_real_Y2K_problem+.shtml

Amazing. A Boston Globe article titled, "The real Y2K problem" does NOT blame those people making preparations as the real problem.

Instead it says, "Our interdependent world, which enriches us in so many ways, is the real Y2K problem."

It describes compliancy claims as "fantasy documents," based on best-case scenarios.

It's an excellent article, and nice to see that panic-stricken doom n' gloomers are not the scapegoat for a change.

-- ace (x@y.z), July 20, 1999

Answers

Here's the link; great article. Thanks.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), July 20, 1999.

ace:

Nice catch. I dropped the author a quick email thanking him for a well balanced article.

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), July 20, 1999.

Now if more mainstream newspapers, tv networks, and tabloids would only follow suit... Fat chance of that... The spin requirements were not followed... I wouldn't be surprised if the person that wrote the article actually got in trouble for his "lack of spin"...

Not having any concrete information on either side of the coin, (doom/polly) makes for exasperation and much hand-wringing on my part. Not knowing makes people want to either panic, or simply blow it off as a non-issue.

When I found out how unprepared I was for any disaster, I got motivated. If nothing else beneficial happens due to 010100, I will at least have my butt covered regarding natural disasters and power outages.

I feel sorry for anyone stuck in a major city during the rollover. Just unforeseen circumstances, on a normal weekend, in a large city has the potiential to be life threatening. Rollover weekend will NOT be normal, by anybody's definition of the word.

sleepin' under the kitchen table...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), July 20, 1999.

This article is outstanding.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 20, 1999.

I agree with KOS (!). This is an excellent article. The conclusion is:

"I think it is most likely that the relatively rich throughout the world will experience minor disruptions while the relatively poor are at a higher risk for serious suffering. That's generally how the world works anyway."

Ain't it the truth.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 20, 1999.

The real Y2K problem
By Lee Clarke, 07/20/99

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/201/ business/The_real_Y2K_problemP.shtml

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

The dreaded Y2K problem could be a disaster or it could be a huge dud. It's hard to tell. We'd better hope it's a dud because nobody really knows what a worst-case scenario would look like and it's hard to prepare for something you can't predict.

We expect cranks to predict doom and gloom. But serious people who have been dealing with the problem for several years acknowledge at least the following:

The Third World is impossibly behind, without any hope of making much progress. Literally billions and billions of lines of computer code in mission-critical systems around the world haven't been fixed. The US government is ahead of most of the world's governments but even many of its agencies haven't completed Y2K assessments.

Even if an individual company is Y2K-compliant, it still won't be safe because its suppliers and customers may not be. Besides, there's no standard for what compliant means - one person's compliance is another person's complacency.

Because of ambiguity in definitions of compliance, and because we don't know what a worst-case scenario is, many Y2K compliance statements and a lot of Y2K contingency plans are fantasy documents.

Fantasy documents are based on best-case assumptions, and overstate how much safety they can deliver. For example, in 1989, in Alaska, the oil industry's contingency plan promised an effective response to an oil spill larger than the one from the Exxon Valdez. It was a fantasy: There has never been a success story for a gigantic oil spill.

One important problem with fantasy documents is that they can lead to a false sense of security, setting the stage for a crisis in confidence when an accident or failure happens. Our interdependent world, which enriches us in so many ways, is the real Y2K problem.

Let's say Corporation X has hired its consultants, fixed its computer systems, and declared to stockholders that it's ready.

Is it?

Imagine the larger system that Corporation X lives in: suppliers, phone companies, electric companies, purchasers, bill collectors, insurance companies, banks, universities. Now think about all of the networks those companies are embedded in. The complexity is mind- boggling. The potential for Y2K catastrophe is not from individual computer chips failing but from the unpredictable interactions of multiple failures.

Managers should be extra careful because the same people who are experts in computer failures may not be experts in organizational failures. Given the urgency of the problem, and a real ignorance of how a lot of systems commingle, we are likely to see a lot of self- proclaimed experts unwittingly over-promising their real capabilities. That tends to happen when there's a lot at stake.

I'm no doom-sayer. I think it is most likely that the relatively rich throughout the world will experience minor disruptions while the relatively poor are at a higher risk for serious suffering. That's generally how the world works anyway.

But the truth is that for many problems, including the Y2K bug, there is no such thing as adequate preparation because we can't anticipate enough of the important things that can go wrong.

Fantasy documents sometimes lead us to think that we're smarter than we really are. Better to admit the limitations of our knowledge. It's more honest, and it may even be safer.

Lee Clarke is associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University and author of ''Mission Improbable: Using Fantasy Documents to Tame Disaster'' (University of Chicago Press, 1999). Phone: 732-906-8475; e- mail: lclarke@rci.rut gers.edu.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 20, 1999.

Flint, again I totally disagree with you in what will probably be the biggest moral of the y2k story. No, Flint, no way that the relatively rich will swiftly avoid a major upheaval of their current well-being come Jan.2000 because if Y2K strikes hard it will impose a major paradigm shift, including a redefinition of wealth, power and security. And if Y2K strikes soft, then the poor won't even notice it.

When you assert things of this sort Flint you loose consistency and no longer make sense. I can't see your intelligence any more. Sorry.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), July 20, 1999.

For a map of interdependencies, see

http://www.bicomnet.com/biy2k/pages/dependency.htm http://www.bicomnet.com/biy2k/pages/ecomeng.htm

I'd be interested in hearing whether people find these graphics useful.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 20, 1999.

Hmmmm..

That was two separate url's.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 20, 1999.

Thanks, -bw-, for the links. There WERE two, but the second one jumped up to the line above when I backed out of the first link. Must be a gremlin somewhere . . . I'm sharing the charts with my family. My first impression is that the Y2000 Dependency Map is simplified for easier viewing - doesn't include cross-links between industries, such as Trucks to/from Manufacturing, or Electricity and Water to Farming. A thought-provoking chart.

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), July 20, 1999.

George -

You're actually disagreeing with the author of the Globe article, since Flint's comment was essentially a direct quote. Major upheavals do tend to hammer the relatively poor far harder than the relatively rich, since the wealth acts as a cushion for the majority of those who hold it. There may have been a few "rich suicides" during the Great Crash, but a far greater percentage of middle-class and working-class families bore the real brunt of the decline.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), July 20, 1999.

Mac and George:

It was a direct quote, cut and pasted from the fourth paragraph from the end of the story. I even put it in quotes, and described it as the conclusion the author drew.

George's attack-before-reading technique trades accuracy for, well, whatever he gets out of it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 20, 1999.

Mac and Flint, of course it was a direct quote. Still moron Flint agrees. Furthermore, neither of you seems to know an iota about y2k's impact, but both of you sure deserve them. Flint, you just keep reading your Hamlet (French version) and stop making a fool out of yourself talking about y2k. What's happened to you Flint? Are you sick or something? Take a rest guy, you need it.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), July 21, 1999.

Margaret,

Yup, definitely went for simplicity. My rule was to never cross one line with another. There are thousands of lines that could have been added, but I figured once someone gets the general idea, connections will start to occur to them.

Glad you liked it.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 21, 1999.

Let's see if I can do these linky thingies ...

Dependencies

Techno-Economic Engine

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 21, 1999.

Hmmm ... this is fun ... try it again ...

Dependencies

Techno-Economic Engine

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 21, 1999.

Wheeee!

-- bw (home@puget.sound), July 21, 1999.

Should the outcome be a great depression, such as the one that began in 1930, I'll bet my hat that formerly lower and middle class persons begging on the streets for food will outnumber formerly rich persons by several orders of magnitude. In fact formerly rich persons will be conspicuously absent from the breadlines.

George probably doesn't remember much from those years.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 21, 1999.

Geez, George, have things gotten that nasty down Argentina way that this ad hominem stuff is the best you can manage? I don't recall insulting you in any way, yet now I "deserve" Y2K's effects? Flint did not "assert" the statement about Y2K's relative impact on rich, he simply agreed with and supported it, as do I. Or do you think most of the rich folks in BA will be in worse shape than the poor, oif things go seriously sideways?

And you're right, I "don't know an iota about y2k's impact", but I have come to some conclusions based on current data and acting accordingly. How are your preps coming along? My garage is still a mess - not enough storage, yet.

Chill with the adjectives, OK? Argue the proposition, not the speaker.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), July 21, 1999.