1. Billions of global interconnections. My toilet paper production is dependent on x's bank account, which is dependent ...

2. The fragility of systems has been demonstrated many times.

3. Late start of fixes.

2. Corporate greed and governmental inefficiencies.

3. Denial is a normal human trait. The greater the potential threat, the deeper the denial.

4. The thundering silence of the media and biggies in charge. There are no rational public debates about the potential impacts.

5. Statements made by my power company, bank, insurance, etc. The contingency plan by my bank: "We have purchased solar and battery powered calculators... We have designated alternate spaces to do operate in..."

6. I've already survived years of 10+. A civilization can disintegrate very rapidly. The greater the denial and lethargy on part of the people, the more intense the disintegration.

5. Because ball games are now more important than (fill in blanks)....

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 27, 1999

Answers

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00193P

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 27, 1999.

One of my few avid academic pursuits has been history. One factor in all the great historical disasters of the past has been the seeming blindness of the participants to the trouble they were really in. For instance, in 1789 how could the French government have so grossly miscalculated the depth of their institutional failures and the discontent of the people? All the signs were there. The same goes for the first and second WW's, etc. I always wondered how these people missed the signs that were so obvious in retrospect. Well, thanks to y2k I am now getting a first hand lesson in what I will call "ostrich syndrome". I don't know whether it will be a 2 or a ten. But the scary part is no one else does either, which if one thinks about it is a stunning phenomenon in itself. We all know what wars, depressions, hurricanes etc. will do, which provides a context for asessing probabilities and planning responses. For these emergencies, society has plans and mechanisms. For instance, living in Florida carries a hurricane risk, so people will stock up for a hurricane as a matter of course, even if they are not sure the storm will pass over them or 100 miles away. People in Tampa aren't ridiculed for preparing because Miami is considered a greater risk. We have civil defense procedures in effect for storms. Even if y2k is a 2, that is still a serious enough situation that we should have some sort of public civil defense program for it. It would not be irrational to prepare as a society just because it might not be as serious as some think.... no one knows, remember? Yet this doesn't happen. The political and social inertia is just too great. Despite polls showing that such and such a percentage of people are planning to prepare, the truth is, very few Americans have done anything at all, and what planning our governments etc. are doing is being done secretively, furtively, and generally speaking, in a half assed manner. This seems to be human nature. After all, the Albanians in Kosovo had a pretty good idea what was going to happen to them, but only a small number got themselves and their families out in time. When hurricane Fran came through here, in knocked out the power for 11 days. We had no water and little food, and there were fights and other wierdness in stores. Everyone was stressed out, and if the power had been out just a few more days, it would have required a serious military presence to restore order. Our society is much more fragile than we think, it takes very little to rupture the seams. That is why, IMHO, the actual y2k events will have consequences that are not forseen at all really, and will probably be more serious because they are exacerbated by each other and by the tendency of people to eventually lose it under stress. The hurricane sure convinced me that even a y2k 2 or 3 could mean big trouble for me and my community. Fortunately, y2k prep and huricane prep are almost identical. Whatever happens at New Years, I am assured that there will be another hurricane sometime- they call this place Hurricane Alley for a reason. Cheers

Forrest

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), July 27, 1999.

Not Again

I'm not familiar with your numbering scheme.......

1 2 3 2 3 4 5 6 5 ??

Just how did you manage a 10 anyway??? :-)

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), July 27, 1999.

Not Again!

I will understand if you do not want to answer, but what part of Germany were you living in when Hitler came into power? Where did you end up when the war ended? You have probably already read it in German, but I was wondering if you had a comment on the recent published translation of the diaries of the German professor who somehow survived the entire war, even after he was put in the ghetto. Ironically, he was not sent to one of the camps because the Nazis became disorganized after the Dresden bombing.

Thanks for your insight and perspective.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), July 27, 1999.

I have to put forth that the opinion of y2k being a 1 or a 10 allows me to see the extremes in all of this conversation. 'Seeing' the extremes almost enables me to envision some boundaries....an outer fringe, if you will.

I applaud Forrest's rendering of history, for I am a student of history, as well. His points are well taken, but the necessity to look at late 20th Century american culture is also appropriate here. Have we not become the type of people who are increasingly wary of ALL things. I am no psychology professional, but it seems more and more clear to me that good times always have us on the anxietal edge, worried that some malady is bound to befall us, that it's all too good to be true.

Since I have seen what happens to people who eminate from camps, let me state that I am firmly in the middle on this one, that I have no clue what will happen, that I've done a helluva lot of reading and conversing and that I've done my basic preps. IMHO, the term 'perception is reality' plays out closer and closer to y2k renderings each day. Prognostications are nice for conversation pieces, but amount to pure folly in the end.

I would submit to Forrest that this era is unlike any other in the history of American culture. Quite simply, there is no yardstick to measure the collective consciousness of the American public: on one hand, we worry about the negative even in times of great prosperity and drive the sale of Prozac through the roof and on the other, we'd rather watch the ballgame or 'ER' than read about y2k efforts or the need for preparation. Talk about being 'comfortably numb'!

Jeez, what a mess.

Mr.Badco

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), July 27, 1999.

See also...

OT?: William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defense: Preparing For A Grave New World (USIA)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 0018ov

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 27, 1999.

Diane, thanks for the link and as you may have imagined, I am somewhat in awe with regards to the discussion. However, one question I've always asked people who see some conspiracy transpiring and one that I've never had a sufficient answer to:

just why, if some underhnaded, evil agenda was about to be foisted upon all of us, do you feel that evidence about it would be so readily available in print? (And Diane, I don't mean 'you', per se)

The power-brokers in charge are smarter than to allow a paper-or-print trail that will tip off their actions. Such conversation tends to leave me cold. I always have tried to remember the old line, 'a conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words.'

Mr.Badco

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), July 27, 1999.

Shortly after I was born, I spent 28 days in hospital with diphtheria. Still have receipt for my stay there. Was a good place to be because our apartment went up in flames. Regensburg - Messerschmidt factories.

After war we traveled for seven days in cattle and coal cars to the Dutch border to get food. Yummy stuff.

An example of denial: My brother also suffered greatly. He has a Ph. D. in history. He's PC-phobic. When I informed him about what I find on the Internet about y2k he said: "Everything on the net is garbage. You know what people were worried about in 1492? They were worried about paying their taxes."

GROAN!!!

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 27, 1999.

Another example of denial:

On my job I was transfered to a lab. The technican working there wore no rubber gloves and repeatedly spilled a volatile, carcigenic chemical on his hands.

I told my wife: "Sam will die of cancer."

A few years later he died of bone cancer.

My reward for pointing out to my boss the dangerous situation in the lab: I was transfered to a different department and was discriminated against from then on.

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 27, 1999.

Not Again, you seem to have your mind made up on this issue. While I have high regard for your own personal history, the correlations you paint here are fallacious. The y2k issue still entails a lot of speculation, references to real-life scenarios notwithstanding. I know all about hard times and my family's own personal history---going back to the times you speak of---1920's, 30's and 40's----and living in poverty with many mouths to feed---also give me great pause. I also pray that it's a 'not again' situation.

y2k is not in itself comparable to cancer's cause or the ramifications thereof. Fearing the worst is part and parcel to our psychological make-up in today's world in a collective sense, but I am sorry to say that interspersing emotion-laden rhetoric and 'factual' reporting is part of the problem with attempting to see the y2k problem in its purest form. Stories like this don't appeal to the intellect, and don't give the individual riding the fence a feel for just what is going on.

Regards,

Mr.Badco

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), July 27, 1999.

BadCo said: " While I have high regard for your own personal history, the correlations you paint here are fallacious. The y2k issue still entails a lot of speculation, references to real-life scenarios notwithstanding."

It is impossible for correlations to be fallacious AT THIS POINT. Y2k has not happened, as yet, so the worst you can honestly say is "the correlations have not been DEMONSTRATED". In fact, by saying the sentence following, you confirm that we are still speculating about outcomes.

NotAgain has had a life of trials and has DEMONSTRATED the capacity to overcome these difficulties -- even if such 'overcoming' consisted of merely enduring the hardships. THIS IS THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE.

Instead of quibbling over how bad we can imagine the y2k scenarios will be, why not look at those time periods in history where "the unexpected" happened? An example was given of the period of the French Revolution -- unexpected, and terrible, yet all the signs were clearly in place. How about the Blitzkrieg in Poland -- a country that was still using cavalry, wielding sabres, against Nazi tanks, at least for the couple days the resistance lasted? Unexpected, but all the signs in place -- Polish aristocracy discussing their military readiness and superiority right up to the moment they capitulated.

NotAgain gave another example of "signs being in place" -- the worker with the carcinogenic chemicals. This kind of incident is so common is business that we could ALL probably think of an example....yet, the blindness, denial, refusal to "see the signs" is clearly there, too.

The thread started with "signs". Are there others? Are there contradictory signs that clearly indicate a positive outcome?

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 27, 1999.

Dear Mr. Badco,

Thanks, you are good company.

>but I am sorry to say that interspersing emotion-laden rhetoric and 'factual' reporting is part of the problem with attempting to see the y2k problem in its purest form.<

That's my point. I pointed out one simple fact. It caused such an emotinal reaction in everyone that they instantly went into denial about it. I was mad and disgusted about their lack of facing reality.

"It will go away. Or die off."

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 27, 1999.

Bad Company,

Ponder the comment...

The future is transparency.

-- Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Project Director of the Naval War Colege (barnettt@nwc.navy.mil)

See also... Naval War College...

http:// www.nwc.navy.mil/dsd/y2ksited/y2ksite.htm

Mirror site by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Project Director

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Thinktank/6926/ y2ksite.htm

Some related threads... (just to list a few)...

***FIRST DRAFT NAVAL WAR COLLEGE'S FINAL REPORT RE Y2K INTL. SECURITY DIMENSION PROJECT

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 00188W

Y2K descriptors much better than "scale of 1-10"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 0018Ft

Synopsis of Naval War College Y2K scenarios...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000vbT

Repost of the Navy War College Transcript: A Must Read.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000uyb

Navy War College (part Deux)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000uyd

Help me understand the Navy War College site!

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000uyX

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 27, 1999.

Diane, Anita, Not Again...thanks for your words of wisdom. it seems I now have much to read and to think about.

Mr.Badco

(and Anita, thanks for your correction of my 'fallacious' comment, too)

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), July 27, 1999.

"The political and social inertia is just too great."

This implies that the mass of people just hasn't gotten quite enough information to persuade them to move from their comfortable routines and make plans for uncertainty ahead. That certainly is a large part of the current calm (before the storm?). It took me 6 or 8 months of research a couple of years ago before I so thoroughly convinced myself that there was a problem (and overcame my reluctance to read about geek matters) that I was ready to try and convince family and friends.

But there is more than just inertia at work here. There is an opposing force. Perhaps there always is (i.e. in the examples you give from history). In the case of Y2K we have seen "it" cause KIA and Polaroik ads to be pulled, and a Y2K movie to be scrapped. "It" has caused Koskinen to urge media to be "responsible" so as not to cause panic. "It" caused Sen. Bennett (or was it Dodd) to back off his prep recommendations when the March Senate report came out. "It" made it ILLEGAL for banks to release info on their FDIC audits.

"It".. the opposing force.. is the fear of bank runs... and market collapse. It is a great and powerful force pushing back against the reality that not enough has been done. Pushing back against the reality that if communities were prepared they could better weather Y2K or any other storm. In New Zealand they are worried because ONLY 75% are making preparations. Here we are warned that there is nothing to fear but fear itself... 2 -3 day storm.. don't worry, be happy.

Mountains of reports have piled up showing the risk due to interconnectedness.. the risk due to too many lines of code and not enough programmers or time... the risk due to embedded chips.. the risk due to programming errors introducted into Y2K "compliant" fixes... the risk due to people, companies, agencies and government departments LYING about their level of progress... the risk due to litigation.. the risk due to J.I.T... on and on the reports pile up.

They are being held up... kept from their potential to MOVE people.. by the gorilla of the financial system. Can the gorilla keep back the tide forever? And is it better or worse for the situation to stay status quo for as long as possible?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 27, 1999.

Reasons for a 10 (cont.)

8. Disgruntled cubicle geeks that have been mistreated, ignored, underpaid and belittled by management.

9. Pervasive lying, deceit and criminality.

10. Fix on failure. With a candle, bicycle dynamo and a hobo stove?

Not Again! (If you don't live within walking distance of a farmer's manure pile, you'll be hungry.)

-- Not Again! (Seenit@ww2.com), July 28, 1999.