I have just begun reading this forum as part of my weekly digest of Y2K mental preparation, and although I appreciate the battle between the doomers and the pollys, i also believe it is a waste of time. you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink; you can show a man the facts, but you can't make him think. we have little to gain from browbeating hard-headed DGIs. Just keep posting news and sharing ideas and leave the pollys to their own devices. the truth will come to light soon enough, and the cards will fall, hopefully in a favorable way for some of us, but certainly not for all of us. there is some much afoot in these last days of the next-to-last year of the millennium: international conflict, foreign unrest, millennium fever, hate-groups, militias, radical christian groups, threats of terrorist acts of all kinds (biological, chemical, cyber, nuclear), solar flares, meteor showers, UFOs, NWO, and more. ENOUGH ALREADY!! let those who will listen, listen. let those who wish to live in denial continue to do so. with approximately 7 weeks until the BEGINNING of Y2K, there's not much time to waste in useless quibble. of course there are those who straddle the fence, and that will use the forum to decide one way or the other, but this is not CONGRESS; it is a discussion forum, not a boxing ring. if we don't feed into the ostrich mentality of the pollys, they lose their power. if we give them ammunition by arguing, we only waste time. PLEASE.

-- RZN (rzn@altavista.net), November 12, 1999

Answers

That would be nice, if we could just hide in a little Y2K bubble and be unaffected by everyone else, but for most of us that won't be possible. Real issues need to be confronted.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), November 12, 1999.

Ageed! & WGAS!

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), November 12, 1999.

RZN

You must be pretty new to the Y2K debate to expect closure of the polly - doomer debate. Some of the "polly" types do expect some kind of disruption, but to a lesser degree.

IMHO Optimists do have their place if they can come up with reasonable arguements, some have extencive experiance with computers and Y2K remediation. One such area is power generation, from predictions of nation(s) wide blackouts to what is understood now as a minimal problem, power generation is not seen as a date dependent industry (Billing on the other hand..).

I think what the optimists are against is the idea of TEOTWAWKI, and this is a reasonable goal as there is little likelyhood of this happening. But there is little consensous of what the middle ground would look like.

Some would put me in the "doomer" catagory but I have expectations of having a dial tone, power, water, and my bank will be open for business.

But I wouldn't want to be in a hospital, travelling, a big city or many other positions (like seriously in debt).

So it is a matter of degree on how much the disruptions will effect you personally depending on your situation.

There are alot of "doomers" that I disagree with as well as the optimists but everyone has their opinions. Education on the matter is first and formost the best way for anyone to judge their personal exposure.

But it is a massive subject and 6 weeks is just not going to cut it for anyone to learn and navigate understanding the problem. So we are stuck with the speculations of the folks looking into the problem.

It is like looking for needles of relevent info mixed in with mountains of speculation.

Best of luck in your search for the truth. If you find it let me know.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 12, 1999.

there no truth to be had until after 1//2000. i've already taken my position and am trying to show the pointlessness of this republican- vs-democrat-style bickring. most of the bickering is from people who are looking for pats on the back and congratulations for crushing a polly's argument when they might better spend their time scouring the web for evidence to support their beliefs.

-- RZN (me@home.org), November 12, 1999.

RZN:

Interesting that you speak of scouring the web for evidence to "support your belief." NOT evidence to form an accurate picture, mind you. Evidence to SUPPORT YOUR BELIEF!!!

One critical difference between the less and more pessimistic posters here is, the less pessimistic prefer opinions based on ALL the information, wherever it leads. The more pessimistic prefer to find ONLY the material that supports their belief. NOT their "opinion", you notice. Their *belief*. By Jove, you have nailed it!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 12, 1999.

Flint- Have you found a way to do a keyword search of this forum, in your search for ammunition? Or do you simply have too much time on your hands? Enough of the anal retentive psycho babble pedantics...

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), November 12, 1999.

Ahem, AHEM! It is a tragic circumstance alone that the New Year has to be rung with such uncertainty. It occurred to me that this entire debate could have been solved ages ago with a few simple demonstra- tions. Why don't the pollys believe anything will happen. They haven't seen any proof. Where do they find it, it certainly doesn't go looking for them. To the last man and woman neither should the pollys believe in a supreme being because there is no direct proof there either. In other words they need a miracle or better yet a simple demonstration. There is a childrens program with somebody the science man. Why he hasn't done an experiment with the date field problem and cast it on prime time television and erase everybodys doubts, I don't know. But even without the science man I know hardware and software is finicky and the code has to be perfect or what happens - garbage in, garbage out. Pollys, you must have learned that in Data Processing 101.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), November 12, 1999.

Gia:

RZN spoke of looking to "support his belief". You talk in terms of "ammunition". Ah, isn't the search for truth glorious? I guess it doesn't matter if you cheat, so long as you *win*, right?

Guy:

I don't think anyone is claiming there are no problems. There are millions of problems. There is substantial debate as to the impact of those problems. Just how resiliant is our system of systems? I think the most pessimistic people here vastly underrate that resiliancy. They'll have no difficulty finding examples of date bugs when the time comes, nor will they tire of pointing them out. But how many will suffer personally from those bugs, and how badly? We'll see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 12, 1999.

You know what this forum provides, info and courage, enough to forge ahead. Just told a family member and indirectly told to pass along to the other non-prepping family members that there's enough evidence out there now for preps to be made, even to a small extent and even at this late date. Basically stated that they were on their own. Know I will still I will get them all at some unknown potential date, but at least they may come bearing some substance when they enter since I'm ready for my family but not an entire group of family members. Will be here till I can't, collecting info and support. Thanks!

-- claurann (claurann@aol.com), November 12, 1999.

I must agree with Hawk on this one. I doubt that most folks that visit this forum would bother if not for the diverse dialog and wide spectrum of views. Even in the heat of disagreement knowledge will be available to both sides.

-- Truth (at@the.ready), November 13, 1999.