TEOTWAWKI Isn't What It Used To Be ... Or Is It? (Part One)

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I (and many others) noted over a year ago that 1999 was bound to see lots of good news about Y2K. And it has. The point is, when I scenario-ized TEOTWAWKI for myself in 1998, it was in the EXPECTATION that there WOULD be lots of good news. All them bucks were obviously going to make a difference.

The question then was: would it be possible for enough Y2K work to be completed between 9/98 and 12/99 given what we THEN knew about remediation status and what we have ALWAYS known about software projects.

The answer was: no way.

The follow-up question became: what then will be the consequences of not finishing in time?

We're on the cusp of learning the answer to that question.

Before I add another thread updating my personal take on TEOTWAWKI, here is what I have learned over the past year:

1. It proved to be far easier for government and biz PR to keep folks from preparing than I anticipated. That said, enough facts were disclosed about Y2K exposures that the fundamental responsibility rests with citizens for their failure to prepare.

2. Almost all progress has been self-reported. This doesn't necessarily mean it is invalid, but I expected a significantly higher percentage of independent IV&V and public disclosure. Apparently, the law boys aren't too worried.

3. A wall of silence began to surround warranted public speculation on the subject following the release of the Senate Report (ironic, given its contents) and has increased steadily throughout the year. I expected the reverse -- increasingly public debate about Y2K's likely impacts.

4. A surprising percentage of computing entities (from countries through counties through SMEs) decided to punt altogether.

Most of the lessons have been with respect to the way government, media and citizens inter-relate circa 1999. They haven't been pretty.

Do I have one more lesson yet to learn?

Apparently, the laws of software projects have been repealed in the past year while I wasn't looking. Precise distinctions can now be made between mission-critical and other software systems. Accurate measurements of intra- and inter-organizational completion percentages can be calculated. And, even more wonderfully, entities that were 40% complete in May became 90% complete several months later (I'm hoping to find jobs at these amazing places after Y2K proves to be a BITR).

And, finally, it appears that although the vast majority of embedded systems have not been touched, let alone tested (even type-tested), they won't be a problem either.

I hold open the possibility that, despite the hundreds of millions spent on remediation by single organizations (eg., Citibank, GM, others), Y2K was actually rather trivial. Hey, what do I know?

But, err, umm, as I said in the beginning, I EXPECTED authentic good news this year WHEN I anticipated TEOTWAWKI.

So, why did I consider TEOTWAWKI an authentic possibility? And should I stop considering it a possibility today?

(as Drudge says .... "developing hot")

Did I miss any other lessons from this year?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 13, 1999

Answers

I grotesquely overestimated people's response to Y2K. I never would have believed the market would be up at this point. I never would have believed the world would be almost totally DGI at this point. I grotesquely underestimated the magnitude of the chasm separating my (our) view of Y2K and the majority's view. While my convictions about the outcome are not shaken in any fundamental way, it has been more surreal than I expected. The scarey part is that 01/01/00 is not the answer, it is only the beginning of the answer. I am hoping to hear that "it is time for this turtle to come home." Not likely.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 13, 1999.

Like Dave, I grossly overestimated people's responses - never in a million years did I expect that there would be so few GI's. [Not that I really thought I had a million years . . . . ;-)]

I think one of the difficulties is that virtually everybody reads TEOTWAKI as the end of the world (for most people these days, both a practical and theological impossibility), without thinking about what the end of our present way of life might be like.

The world as we know it right now is prosperous America. High stock market, everything readily available, everything easy and convenient. No thought for tomorrow.

Therefore, anything more than the tiniest BITR really brings on the end of the world AS WE KNOW IT for the people who have taken no thought of how they might make do without some of our technological wonderland. I know a lot of people for whom the first thought would be how in the world are they going to fix their hair without power or water. Even a recession would devastate many people. Anything that makes life any less easy and convenient, that makes any product or entertainment or service even temporarily unavailable will bring the cry-babies out in force. Seems as if today almost everybody believes that not only IS the world operating for their ease and pleasure, but that it both ALWAYS SHOULD BE and ALWAYS WILL BE (how the heck did we get here, anyway????).

I fear for the people who take so little thought for tomorrow that they haven't bothered to prepare. And I pray that IF y2k is a biggie, and that a lot happens at the beginning, that there will be a ghastly stretch of Very Cold Weather so that the ones who would otherwise starve to death will be spared that hideous death. I wouldn't relish dying of the cold, but I'd greatly prefer it to starvation or dehydration! Ugh.

I doubt that we will see it all the first few days of January. I'm undecided on exactly what I expect to see at that time, but I think that whatever it is, it will go downhill from there for quite a while before it starts getting better.

Big Dog, I can't see any reason why you should stop considering TEOTWAKI a possibility. But I don't know if you've missed any lessons. I'm sure I have.

I must admit, however, whether I've missed the point entirely and it really is trivial. And if it is, won't *I* ever be surprised!! But I won't have to do much grocery shopping for quite awhile . . . .

-- peg (peg@futureandahope.com), November 13, 1999.


I wouldn't say you missed any lessons, but to put it a different way than you've said so far: Nothing has changed. Theres been talk and lies, somethings not as bad as suspected, some worse, most still unknown.

The rest has all been "feelings", hopes, emotions, greed, fears, delusions and so forth. Even your statement about embedded systems will be hotly debated --- as you and any other regular visitor here knows.

So for me it comes down to what Gary North has said: either Y2K NEVER was a problem and we've all been hoodwinked, or its not fixed and we're going to suffer for it.

Summary of lessons learned: 1. People are absolutely amazing. 2.Most People are unprepared for ANY upset to their rich and soft lifestyle, which will end one way or the other sooner or later.

and 3.We'll have to wait and see about Y2K.

I will be surprised if its not TEOTWAWKI, but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), November 13, 1999.


the whole situation today is absolutely surreal. i find myself feeling as if we're all in a fantasyland. for sure, i NEVER expected people to be so taken by government and corp pr spin. wow, did that ever work!

i still dont know whats going to happen next year. but i'm still preparing.

-- lou (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), November 14, 1999.


What is TEOTWAWKI, anyway? A general and profound misery of all (as in a second great depression), anything approaching Mad Max-iness (a la the Postman), and then there is full Mad Max-- as terrifying an imagination as imaginations may come. But you asked a question that only you can answer.

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), November 14, 1999.



As Yardeni put it (paraphrasing) most people seem to think a recession will be TEOTAWAKI.

Let's call Yourdon's prediction (one year of confusion, ten years of depression) a TEOTWAWKI baseline ("as WE know it"). Generally, any really bad Y2K result will show lots of unexpected aspects, so overspecifying the meaning of TEOTWAWKI is unwise.

TEOTWAWKI = "real bad".

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 15, 1999.


One lesson I have learned--much to my dismay--is the emergence of journalism by news release.

Because, I guess, that the fix was in, any efforts at good old-fashioned investigative journalism disappeared on a nationwide basis, from the largest dailies to the smallest weeklies.

That, of course, puts some of the blame for whatever happens directly on the shoulders of the Fourth Estate.

It appears that the gulf that should exist between the "real" newspaper and the corporate world is so narrow as the be non-existent.

"Given the choice between a government and no newspapers and newspapers and no government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter."--Thomas Jefferson

-- Vic (Rdrunner@internetwork.net), November 15, 1999.


Sometimes my corrections in word processing go awry.

The first sentence in my last paragraph should have read:

I must admit, however, THAT I SOMETIMES WONDER whether I've missed the point entirely and it really is trivial.

Not that it was terribly important. . . .

-- peg (peg@futureandahope.com), November 16, 1999.


BD -- missed you, bro! Been away from TB2000-land for my mental health (since about August), and was about to e-mail you for your take on the forum(s) these days.

Y2k is still a black box. Forrest Gump's "box o' chocklits". And people have decided to take its incomprehensibility, uniqueness, and unprecedence as indicators of safety.

They also have not grasped our old realization: "Stakes vs. odds", and they've decided to go strictly (or by default) with the odds (and interpret those almost totally favorably.)

We, on the other hand, have always admitted the black box nature of y2k, though we have tried to probe the details a little more fully (oil industry embeddeds, fractional reserve banking, etc.)

And we have been upset -- though not surprised? -- with our fellow humans for being unable or unwilling to hold a complex and contradicting set of possibilities/ probabilities/ defensive actions in their minds throughout 1999.

Remember, this IS the country with the Crisis (impeachment, Columbine, Di) Of The Month obsession. The OJ trial got to occupy us for 6 months to a year, because that's how long murder cases take, but that really really fatigued the news attention-span capacity of most everyone.

Stakes vs. odds, as you know, was always about: I don't have to precisely PREDICT what y2k will do. For $2000 more, I can buy my way past the 2 or 3 levels I DIDN'T expect on the 1 to 10 scale. (That's also called "investment", "risk/reward", "insurance" and a few other names used normally in planning for our life needs.) For $10,000 I can buy 5 more levels of protection beyond the scenario I would bet to be most likely.

Also: The education I've gotten, the mental and physical (getting in shape) preparation, were worth it for themselves and should have been done in any event.

We don't have to answer the Polly question: "How bad will it be?" That can only lead to an exchange of "I told you so"s.

THEY have to answer the Stakes vs. Odds question put to them: "OK, you've made a PREDICTION by your non-preparation. You've narrowed your range of options in order to save, what, a bit of your money, energy, and worldview. What will you do if events fall outside of that range?"

A few of the extreme doomers we've met around here are people who needed to visualize extreme outcomes in order to prepare themselves for them, or even for milder ones. That's human psychology at work.

Can we say it? In all likelihood, the Pollies will be closer to right about outcomes than the extreme doomers (something of a straw man -- there really are so few North/Milnes.)

But what will non-preparation for ANY scenario say about a person's sense of responsibility? When our near-4 year old was born, we climbed out of our deliriously happy bleary-eyed stupor and bought life insurance for the first time. The visiting nurse taking our blood samples, while we proudly showed off our month-old baby, told us "I see a lot of this."

We were clear and satisfied that we were PREPARING for an unexpected demise, not PREDICTING one. Nobody showed up to debate it with us or try to argue us out of it. Gawd! -- the IDIOTS we've had to endure on these forums! (I'm glad you took this one out of their hands -- I'm just now working out of a general burnout that the early part of this year's y2k enthusiasm only added to -- I'll read this site through pretty carefully in the next week or so.)

BD -- ever wonder it from that point of view? Behavior depends on who the person is and what their station in life is at this time. Like people say about being a mother/father/parent: "You can't REALLY know what it's like till you've been there."

I can't even remember the names of our worst trolls for this next question, BD -- funny -- C-something, there was DoomersSuck recently, but I'm trying to recall ("BLOCKED! BLOCKED!") the one who'd come in with derogatory one-liners on nearly every thread -- I must be nearer recovery at this point to have that GARBAGE out of my mind.

Anyway -- think of it -- isn't it hard to imagine those trolls as PARENTS responsible for the safety of young children? They reminded me more of college pranksters rolling the keg of beer down the frat house stairs to watch it explode?

Why should they have weighed at all on our minds in our discussions about protecting our families? Why, either, should Koskinen, or CEOs and PR men with their children grown (I have those too, and worry less about them) and their rural retreats already stocked have any influence over us?

Gotta go, 3:30 AM and I've got more garbage to clear away, ready to go into 2000 fresh and ready for whatevers happens...

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), November 20, 1999.


Appreciate this section, Big Dog--especially when the other side of the house gets nuts like yesterday. I continue to be naively amazed that most people are doing zip zero to bring in even elementary preps. The lesson that has sunk in for me is the need to be able to take care of myself in the event of a natural or "computer generated" disaster.

I am relatively new in the place I call home and it takes time to build community and closeness with neighbors. At least it seems like it does in California. My home is deliberately, delightfully remote from centers of commerce and I recently retired early after almost 30 years in the telecommunications and networking industry. I also live pretty close to an earthquake fault in a reasonably sound, 50-year old house.

It feels really good to know that the fruit trees, berries, and veggies I grow, as well as the dollars I have spent on water and water storage devices, firewood, lamp oil, and other preps will serve me. I still have to go out today and find a used bicycle "just in case". I will be able to use just about all of what I have purchased, dried, canned, etc. and the rest is insurance or worst case a donation to the food bank.

I appreciate both of these forums for the overall concern and quality of expertise (not being a sysop, I can ignore the postings from those folks who make me crazy unless I have nothing better to do).

thanks

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), November 20, 1999.



Good thread, BigDog. It's been a long and interesting journey, hasn't it? And it's not over yet! Adding my own perspective, from a newspaper/TV-related crime/emergency background:

1. It proved to be far easier for government and biz PR to keep folks from preparing than I anticipated. That said, enough facts were disclosed about Y2K exposures that the fundamental responsibility rests with citizens for their failure to prepare.

2. Almost all progress has been self-reported. This doesn't necessarily mean it is invalid, but I expected a significantly higher percentage of independent IV&V and public disclosure. Apparently, the law boys aren't too worried.

3. A wall of silence began to surround warranted public speculation on the subject following the release of the Senate Report (ironic, given its contents) and has increased steadily throughout the year. I expected the reverse -- increasingly public debate about Y2K's likely impacts.

4. A surprising percentage of computing entities (from countries through counties through SMEs) decided to punt altogether.

Most of the lessons have been with respect to the way government, media and citizens inter-relate circa 1999. They haven't been pretty.

Do I have one more lesson yet to learn?

Apparently, the laws of software projects have been repealed in the past year while I wasn't looking. Precise distinctions can now be made between mission-critical and other software systems. Accurate measurements of intra- and inter-organizational completion percentages can be calculated. And, even more wonderfully, entities that were 40% complete in May became 90% complete several months later (I'm hoping to find jobs at these amazing places after Y2K proves to be a BITR).

And, finally, it appears that although the vast majority of embedded systems have not been touched, let alone tested (even type-tested), they won't be a problem either.

I hold open the possibility that, despite the hundreds of millions spent on remediation by single organizations (eg., Citibank, GM, others), Y2K was actually rather trivial. Hey, what do I know?

But, err, umm, as I said in the beginning, I EXPECTED authentic good news this year WHEN I anticipated TEOTWAWKI.

So, why did I consider TEOTWAWKI an authentic possibility? And should I stop considering it a possibility today?

(as Drudge says .... "developing hot")

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), November 20, 1999.


Jor-el: welcome back!

Both you and Nancy have emphasized the tremendous positives that reasonable preparations and self-reliance have on us as human beings, Y2K or not.

As one of dozens of "for instances" in our life, we have long gardened and were raising a few animals before Y2K preps started. Prepping for survivable Y2K worst cases has given us the "excuse" (and we'll no longer use that word) to raise pigs and, next year, beef cattle; pickle our own cornichons and experiment with raising portobello mushrooms; get the greenhouse Ms. Big Dog has wanted for 15 years. And that's just on the gardening and livestock side.

Many "doomers" have realized belatedly that we have allowed ourselves (let's not blame .gov for this one) to be robbed of taking pleasure in many small acts of personal participation in our own sustenance, protection and happiness by being passively "consumerized".

The biggest irony of all is that the vast majority of doomers aren't "doomers" but the reverse. Instead of passively, fatalistically taking what comes with Y2K, we are proactively planning and expecting to not only live next year but live joyfully.

Once Y2K itself is over (hopefully, Feb 2000 but if it's Feb 2010, so be it), it will be interesting for some of us to step back from the anxiety of that event (admitting anxiety isn't contradictory to the comment just above about joy) and reflect on what we've learned and how/where to translate that learning into something which will further benefit our families and our communities.

I suspect we'll be looking at something a bit different, more mature and tougher in spirit than the earlier commune, back to the land, dippy-ly spiritual stuff some of us used to do .. and with correspondingly more to offer our 21st century culture.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 20, 1999.


Sorry, don't know how that happened! TO continue:

1. It proved to be far easier for government and biz PR to keep folks from preparing than I anticipated. That said, enough facts were disclosed about Y2K exposures that the fundamental responsibility rests with citizens for their failure to prepare.

We have been socialized to respond to pictures--flames are preferable to blood, blood to most other subjects. Preparing for Y2k involves no flames or blood. The most arresting pictures were, predictably, of "wackos" and "extremists" (camo, bandoliers, ceiling-high pyramids of canned goods).

2. Almost all progress has been self-reported. This doesn't necessarily mean it is invalid, but I expected a significantly higher percentage of independent IV&V and public disclosure. Apparently, the law boys aren't too worried.

It's less expensive to accept self-reporting and it keeps the blame on the self-reporters, not politicians (note how often Bennett has strongly criticized self-reporting).

3. A wall of silence began to surround warranted public speculation on the subject following the release of the Senate Report (ironic, given its contents) and has increased steadily throughout the year. I expected the reverse -- increasingly public debate about Y2K's likely impacts.

People like to take the easy way out--give them a hook and theyll happily hang their hat on it. (I love mixed metaphors.)

4. A surprising percentage of computing entities (from countries through counties through SMEs) decided to punt altogether.

Nobody wanted to be responsible for any panic, early or late. Mission-critical systems: Bennett addressed that term early on. He pointed out that one person's mission-critical was another person's low priority--it has ever been thus.

Embedded systems: it was decided long ago that it was virtually impossible (and horribly expensive) to find the things so shoulders were summarily shrugged and that was that. (Just don't get in an elevator, haha, has been the standard means of addressing the problem.)

At this point? I don't really care what other people think any more. (I never did care very much!) I'm going to do what I think best for my family and pets and I cannot take responsibility for anyone else, except the elderly couple across the street who have been extremely kind to me in this xenophobic town. My son is in a good position down in Louisiana; my father is well set (his status enhanced by frequent care packages of warm clothing and dried food over the last year and a half). I can't do any more than that and I am at peace with myself. I will have beans, rice and salt available for people from my neighborhood, but I can't feed teh whole town. I shall have extra petfood for any stray--as long as it holds out. I shall do my best; that is all I can do.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), November 20, 1999.


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