Often quoted is the unprecendented development and progress of computing in post-industrial civilizations. Technological innovation is rapid and frequent; technical barriers are razed at an increasing pace. Storage capacity and processor power double within a matter of several months, while costs remain steady and sometimes decrease.The point to this slew of evident observations is that if the technology has grown at an unforseeable rate, is it not possible that we are unable to accurately forecast the degree and severity of it collapse? Science is based on observation, hypothesis, and revision based on experimentation and continued observation. We have no experimental cases by which to justify our hypotheses (for better or worse) on the effects of the CDC. Science, thus, applies just as inappropriately as baseless optimism. Could it be that just as we grossly underestimated the celerity of the advance of computing technology, we are low-balling the effect that its loss of integrity will have on the societies that have come to depend on it? What basis have we to trust our estimates of the effect of the CDC (century date change) problem if this is a event without precedent?

-- Razsn Robinsun (robinsun@netscape.net), November 10, 1999

Answers

idRazon,

Not only is the CDC unlike anything we have any type of model or hypothesis preceeding that would apply, we lack the most important ingredient in scientific research and theory. Accurate data.

We have no idea the veracity of self-described compliance. We have no standards of what compliance is. There is little outside verification going on. IMHO, science has little to offer without accurate data on which to hypothesize or theorize.

-- Leslie (***@***.net), November 13, 1999.

sorry for the name typo.

-- Leslie (***@***.net), November 13, 1999.

Razon,

you have hit the core question:

...has mankind exceeded its grasp...

have you researched the Infomagic scenarios?

pursue, please!

-- Perry Arnett (pjarnett@pdqnet.net), November 16, 1999.

I have often thought that our potential impact upon natural systems has reached a level that outstrips our ability to both understand those impacts and harness information to assist in management decisions.

A hundred years ago we used massive hydraulic giants to wash down hillsides in order to extract gold. We diverted entire rivers to bare river bottoms so we could expose placer deposits. This was the age when technology was a tool to extent our impact and control over the physical world. The massive changes wrought are still impacting Western watersheds. This frontier of the physical tool still exists most noticeably in medicine and space and gives rise to the moral question - just because we can, should we?

UNIVAC and its like ushered in the era of MIS. We try to extend, refine and standardize our sensory powers by defining change in terms of measurable units, baselines and reference systems. Reams and reams of data bits are assembled and arrayed so that we can navigate through decisions without reliance on our own two eyes and ears, nose, etc. But there is so much, we have to select what to measure. We use "indicator species" and "identifiable limiting factors" and the like. Take Global Warming. Much of the theory is predicated upon the use of computer modeling. Our technological capacity can accommodate consideration of only two of the 14 components that are currently speculated to make up the climatic system. Information Systems are created through a subjective process, riddled with good and bad assumptions and decisions opened to political bias and all the motivations of human beings. The question arises, how much "junk" has crept into this "science?" Are we substituting knowledge of the model for knowledge of the real dynamic system? The moral question arises whether our human actions and behaviors should be regulated to conform with decisions made by some output from a model or statistical analysis on the basis that it is "science" and must therefore be real and true.

So what is y2k? Perhaps it is God or our own collective subconscious taking the keys away from an arrogant humanity, too drunk on its own elixir of extended powers to understand that its power to impact has outstripped its maturity of judgement, driving experience, soundness of vehicle and knowledge of the road.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), November 17, 1999.

i thank you for your excellently-written response. i think this series of development epochs is almost inevitable, that which finally results in the age of computing. if we are to survive as a species, a return to self-reliance is imperative. as in frank herbert's 'Dune', no machine should be created that imitates the human mind. our technological and scientific efforts should be expended to improve mental ability and capacity rather than allowing calculating machines to atrophy our minds.

-- RZN (robinsun@netscape.net), November 18, 1999.