TB2000 Aftermath & Crisis Intervention of Y2K Movie

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As a former director for years of a 7/24 crisis intervention agency (before the net provided a venue for anonymity and confidentiality), I feel somewhat qualified to make this rather obvious prediction:

Unprecedented numbers of people are going to find this forum within the next couple of weeks seeking guidance. They will be "in crisis" -- meaning beyond their usual coping skills.

Like many here, I certainly know the initial feeling that accompanies awakening: caught in the bright scalding light that exposes the vulnerabilities and dependencies in one's life, with no shade in sight. As y'all know, it can cause paralysis, a difficult anguish, and sometimes an internal panic that is insurmountable. How long did it take you to get going on preps? The dilemma for new people is different now.

You guys have demonstrated an extraordinary cumulative skill in y2k crisis intevention (if you will). But now, with prep time being of the essence (and no time for the luxury of "process" that so many early-birds were afforded by paying attention) the challenge of assisting people seems to me to have changed.

So, how to prompt people to *immediate* prep action without scaring them into the debilitating pain of fright? Consistently in your posts, I can tell that many of you have painstakingly puzzled about this quite a bit. I don't purport to have the answers, but my experience inspires me to make a few peanut-gallery reminders at this juncture:

1. Tedious debate about the validity of the problem now will likely provide a false "shade" in which many will take refuge of inaction. The repeated, resounding emphasis on prep-first-ask-questions-later seems to have been heard by many who thank you later for the relief. The emphasis on the message of relief-gained-by-prepping appears to be very effective. This message appears to pass the reasonable-and-prudent-person standard. It can be heard easily and quickly, and makes compelling sense.

2. As you know, there are many who will not prepare. They are looking for intellectual/moral justification for inaction. Debate over the validity of the potential problem will not change that. Focus might be best remained on those who are given to an instinct, as you have always done here -- but the dwgi-conflicted are going to arrive in numbers now and tempt this forum into heightened debate and distraction.

3. Flint, and Decker, your contributions have been valued by many here, including myself. Your voices have been heard. But for the love of god, take it easy now, if you have prepped. Others deserve the modicum of confidence/insurance/relief you have long-since secured for yourselves. People will be arriving out-of-context. They don't understand the nuance of the internecine debates going on, and it's unfair to expect them to.

4. Most people who come here are half-way to prep action already. Overfear them, presume they can or will have your level of knowledge or acceptance of the potential problem, and you might lose a good opportunity to point them in the direction of safety and relief. Pain and fright debilitates.

I have no credentials here, peanut gallery or otherwise, to put forth these reflections/reminders. But this is the end-game, and I'm inexplicably inspired to do so, regardless of what may cyberbefall me. You guys gave me a hand when I really needed it. I'm doing what I can, in my own way, for others.

-- (resignedNOmore@this.point), November 21, 1999

Answers

ResignedNOmore,

That was a very thoughtful post. Thank you...

Not sure how many people are likely to become aware of this forum in the remaining 40 days. Remember, only half the population has access to the Internet, and I suspect that most of them use it just for email or buying books at Amazon.

But regardless of the numbers, your points about the psychological mindset of the end-game newbies is an interesting one. It should also guide us in our off-the-Internet conversations and interactions with people.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), November 21, 1999.


In the spirit of what this post is calling for, I sure hope that our SYSOPS will feel well justified to take whatever action is required to rid the forum of the troll disruptors that have infested the threads recently.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 21, 1999.

"New to the forum? Year 2000 resources, sites and links for research"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001owa

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), November 21, 1999.


"Remember, only half the population has access to the Internet, and I suspect that most of them use it just for email or buying books at Amazon."

Nope. They use it to find porno, chat-rooms, & sports news.

Books of any kind are WAY down the list.

-- but otherwise (youre@on.target), November 21, 1999.


>As y'all know, it can cause paralysis, a difficult anguish, and sometimes an internal panic that is insurmountable. How long did it take you to get going on preps?

You mean to say for "some." The word is "some people." And I am not going to guide or assist The Day Before The Storm People who have brawls in the long store lines of their own doing.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), November 21, 1999.



"Be prepared: A list of do's"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001p5p

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), November 21, 1999.


A tiny percentage of the population is going to watch that movie in the next few hours. A small percentage of those viewing it will be moved emotionally and want to take action. A small percentage of those will know how to translate that action into valid "preps". A small percentage of those people will find there way onto the internet for a source of others who want to prepare. A small percentage of those will wander into here. A small percentage of those will be able to stand the shennanigans that goes on here and come away with any kind of benefit from wading through all the muck that gets posted along with useful info.

Most people are lurkers, its probably as high as 90% of the people attending any forum. I dont expect a noticiable increase in new, 'active' participants because of the movie. I hope I am wrong.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 21, 1999.


Paula, about your phrase "of their own doing." While I really don't want to be mincing or quibbling, maybe it's not really about that. Long end-game store-lines might be traceable to trust. And trust can often be properly understood as a virtue more than a stupidity. Depends on your orientation. It's often simply a miscalculation. But "of their own doing" quietly suggests a motive. I hate ambiguities too, Paula, but I suspect they're inherent in this conversation.

-- (resignedNomore@this.point), November 21, 1999.

May I suggest...it would be nice if Stan's 14 days of prep message could be put on each morning. Any newbies will most likely look through at least a day's worth of the thread. Personally, if I was starting now I would be paralyzed with fright. It's cold outside and snowing...It took months and months and months for me to get a reasonable amount of preps, and I started from scratch. However...people are so used to seeing violence and disasters on TV, I think they won't panic over a movie. And the U.S. government has come out very strongly to say the U.S. is prepared. So I think any concern will be rationalized away. I don't think people will panic until problems are "in their faces." However, Stan's 14 day prep thing would be a great thing each day for the newbies to see. Good luck everyone and may God be with you all!!

-- nothing (better@to.do), November 21, 1999.

Resigned NOmore@this point,

First, I must tell you I smiled at the welcome news of your name change. Also, I have great respect and appreciation for the compassionate motivation of your message. I hope that you are right that the Y2K movie will bring at least some concerned new people to this site in the coming days. Even if it were just a small handful, your points are well taken and I hope that most of us will heed them.

If the forum does find itself facing a small group of frightened newbies, it will call upon the best in all of us to appropriately attend to them. I'm afraid that hamster is probably correct that most who find their way here will only lurk. If that is true, the forum in its present incarnation could scare the bejeebers out of them. One thought I had is that, in the past, those threads with titles like "Welcome all newcomers" have had a pretty high success rate in getting newbies and lurkers to post. Some of the regulars could start at least one thread like that every day, so that those who haven't yet figured out how to go to the "recent answers" page can still find a checking-in place.

I think the best we can do is to keep our eyes open for those who may come here with questions, fears or possibly even panic, and share the responsibility for monitoring responses that could do harm.

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), November 21, 1999.



God love ya' RUOK. I know I do.

-- (resignedNOmore@this.point), November 21, 1999.

One way the might find this forum (and, in particular, this post) would be for anyone currently registered with snap.com to post a message on NBC's Y2K discussion forum. Currently (10 minutes till showtime), there are only 9 messages posted.

-- Zach Anderson (z@figure.8m.com), November 21, 1999.

Some newly GI's that I work with, are moving REAL FAST and are creating a whirlwind of prepping.

It can be done!

Preparing to "CAMP AT HOME" and you don't know for how long... seems to work.

Also mentioning... "If you only have a 3-days supply, then after that you'll have to go to a central location to "be supplied." Think screaming children and sleep deprivation. Is that what you want to risk by not being prepared?"

The thought of little privacy, and remember the Kosovar camps, seems to be motivational.

;-D

Communicate... basic supplies... and camping.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 21, 1999.


Maybe we need to troll the chat sites, sports sites, and XXX sites and try to wake up the masses???

Nah. Let 'em sleep.

Still... would be kinda funny to have Stan's 14 days of preps suddenly appearing anonymously all over the web... ya think?

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 21, 1999.


The movie just finished here. I wasted 2 hours, what a LAME stupid movie! There's noway this movie is going to stir JQP.

The typical lone American Hero saved the world.

Was worse than an after-school special. I wonder what all the fuss was about this movie.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), November 21, 1999.



There were some *REALLY* good ideas on this thread.

Two that *I* particularly liked were putting Stan Faryna's 14 days of preps message up every morning, and posting daily 'Welcome newcomers' threads.

These would help the folks like one or two that are newly come to this in the last day or last week who post messages like 'New and stupid what does...mean?' etc. Then, it wouldn't be just the ones with the stones to post questions who got the benefit. (Although admittedly, these are probably questions which people who only lurk also have, so they get the answers anyway.)

But remember, one of the purposes of the forum, as I understand it, is the *sharing* of information relating to Y2K. This being the case, lets be nice to the newcomers. Remember... THE ONLY STUPID QUESTION IS THE ONE THAT DOESN'T GET ASKED.

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 22, 1999.


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