This board serves me well as a place where I can go to hear both sides of the Y2K issue and submit questions to an intelligent forum. Well, mostly intelligent. Which brings us to Jeremy's deleted post. I'll give Jeremy the benefit of the doubt and assume he was victim of the misperception that I'll try to explain below.

Jeremy

You asked " Why is it that GI's are some of the most intelligent, beautiful, sophisticated, articulate, wonderful, astute, prudent, calm, loquacious, thoughtful, delightful, amazing, selfless people on the face of the earth while the pollys (at least the ones who post on this board) can not be classified with such glowing terms."

While most doomers here are farsighted, responsible and well mannered, we (meaning those of us who at least believe we should prepare just in case all the way to those who are certain that Y2K is TEOTWAWKI) certainly have our share of cretins.

Here are my observations. This board attracts two kinds of people. Those who want real information and/or the opportunity to discuss the Y2K issue with others to gain maximum insight, and those who want to argue. No. Not argue. Those individuals don't present arguments. More accurately, those who have picked a side in the Y2K discussion and will now defend it blindly. I think the word for that is chauvinism. It is probable that those who don't think that Y2K will be a problem but who aren't afflicted with chauvinism and a lack of debating skills (and a complete disregard for courtesy) are less likely to come here to discuss Y2K because, after all, the board is here to discuss preps and track the Y2K event. So we get a smaller selection of the civilized polly community. But we get the full dose of the Polly chauvinists because, after all, why be annoying if there's no one to annoy. Now, of course, we also have a roughly equal number doomer chauvinists here, for the same reasons mentioned above that the polly ones are here. Not much sense hooting and cawing if there is no one around to pester. (At least mosquitoes are annoying because they are genetically programmed that way.) But, all of the doomer civilized debaters will be here because this is where is where Y2K is debated.

In conclusion, the perception that more pollys are rubber heads than doomers is false. It's simply a matter of having a skewed sample of both pools.

Addendum: Since there are doomer chauvinists here, some otherwise well versed and intelligent people do get drawn in to cat-calling and braying and add to the false perception that most pollys are drooling simpletons. For instance, doomers@suck proved to be capable of intelligent discussion while we were observing a "truce" despite the handle he choose to use on this board. I, for one, miss the contributions s/he made during that period. And I am sure the reverse is true some doomers reacting to polly chauvinists.

Oh well, I just hope the chauvinists don't ruin it for those of us trying to use this board as a way to keep an eye on Y2K.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 13, 1999

Answers

BTW confidential to Eyes Open: Jeremy's post was deleted because it was phrased so as to get the maximum response, rather than the maximum considered response.

Thanks for pointing out that the Y2K Understanding is a bell curve, and not a binary equasion.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 13, 1999.

Is Y2K a red herring?

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), August 14, 1999.