Post Y2K

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I am interested in any plans you are making for the post y2k world - having just read Ed's "I'm back - sort of" it prompted me to ask you-all. In my work and in my other life we are pretty much resigned to what is going to be, and are trying to prepare as best we can for the environment after y2k -

what are your thoughts on possible scenarios

s

-- Sharon Schultz (shalom100@aol.com), July 23, 1999

Answers

My expertise is in music, the classical sort that is, and education. If the Internet goes out, my solution will be..... Books. My wife and I already have a large assortment of excellent reference books on history, science, literature and writing, and of course music. Even traditional conservative educators have, I think, used books in their pedagogy the wrong way- question/answer type textbook approaches as opposed to experiencing a book in the 19 century scholarly sort of way, but that is another issue too long for this message. If the everpresent electronic media goes down for awhile, than actually being able to play an instrument well will have value again. Although computers are highly useful for composing, (I use one myself, have used them since the mid-80's) the computer has actually downgraded the actual thinking processes of musicians. I learned to compose on paper, which requires detailed foreknowledge of what you intend to write, abstract organizational skills, and a constant view of the big picture of the piece, especially if it is large, such as an orchestral work. Composers now do a lot of cut and paste on their computers, and it shows in the bad forms, tepid tonal progressions, unimaginative transitions and other flaws, although they are dressed in dazzling synthesiser sounds. In short, a failure of computers might restore actual thinking power to a prominent role, seperating the wheat from the chaff and rewarding intellectual discipline. At least that would be one positive outcome of this mess.

Forrest Covington

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), July 23, 1999.


Regarding possible scenarios after 010100, if TSHTF, there will be a mass of electronically UNDERstimulated people bored out of their minds... Good... The problem is, it will take a lot of time for the "unwashed masses" to begin to have original thought processes again after the BOOB TUBE spell is finally broken. Some will simply "go- off" and rampage around looking for "artifical stimulation" to fill the dearth in their psyche left by "cathode ray tube stimulation" removal.

There will be other ones who will simply cease to function due to their lives being completely destroyed by lack of electric civilization, and the convienience of modern life. Catatonia will happen.

Then there are the "one percenters"... The people who were ready for disruption and are now "activated" by a sense of purpose to help, and to survive. They will have to deprogram the people around them and bring them around to a new reality. They will step up to the plate and bring things back together, hopefully...

IMHO...

growlin' at the salesman....

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), July 23, 1999.


I'm a writer. I don't anticipate a market for my goods.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWAyne@aol.com), July 23, 1999.

I'm back ... sort of <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), July 23, 1999.

I work for two non-profit membership groups. Already been told by one that if y2k is a biggie, I will not have a job. (Probably wouldn't have the gas to commute, anyway.) In such case, I would move operations for the other, (if telecom/electrical survive,) to my home base. If both fold, would try to live stored goods and productive capacity of my homestead until things are restored or the bill collectors yank me out on the streets. Actually, think I might enjoy it. The (eventual) retirement homestead was one of the original purposes that motivated me to move here in the 1980s, anyway.

Maybe I'll go into local politics - lol. All I need is a good horse.....

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), July 23, 1999.



Mara

i too am a writer, and i disagree on the lack of a market post y2k.

the market may not look the same, but people still crave news, entertainment and education as they have for the thousands of years before electricity.

i may end up 'translating' Shakespeare for the local community theater, or helping someone who knows a survival technique unambiguously put it down on paper in order to reach others, or interviewing drifters for news of other communities, but a market will exist.

keep up that 'willing suspension of disbelief.'

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0000@hotmail.com), July 23, 1999.


I'm a 14 hr a day keyboard kinda guy. I think I'll be busy tryin' to wash off all the tar and feathers. Other than that I like to read history. Maybe I'll find that old harmonica I've had since high school.

Then again, the only thing I could ever play was "Taps". That might hit a little to close to home.

-- Mike (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), July 23, 1999.


I am a farmer who is getting back to subsistance living. Hope to get a cow next month, some hogs, have lots of chickens, need to get some type of "motor" for my grain mill so I can mill flour for the community, and gennerly, will live the way my grandfather was raised. Wish my wife would let me get a couple of draft horses too.

Yesterday we moved all our IRA's out of high tech stocks into gold. This morning I picked twenty pounds of blackberries so my wife can make blackberry jam tonight.

We will survive. We may even put on a few extra pounds with all this good food. No freeze dried MREs for us.

-- chicken farmer (chicken-farmer@ y2k.farm), July 23, 1999.


I just don't know. *sob* *bawl*

Father

-- Thomas G. Hale (hale.tg@att.net), July 23, 1999.


I saw a tongue-in-cheek advertisement for a book called: How to Play Solitaire Using a Deck of Cards. . . 8^)

-- Gypsy (GypsiGold@aol.com), July 23, 1999.


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