Gary North and Infomagic did more to scare me into preparing for Y2K than anyone else. It is true that much of what he (infomagic) predicted that would happen in 99 has not happened but I think what he had to say in part 2 is still very applicable to us in late 99. Has Infomagic showed up anywhere lately? Has anyone read anything from him this year? If so, I would appreciate knowing where to find it. Ive searched the net but to no avail. Thanks.

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), November 26, 1999

Answers

I'm curious as well.

And I find it amusing that most of the pollies who moan about "all this doom & gloom" have never even READ Infomagic.

Can anyone even know what doom & gloom ARE until they've seriously considered his theory of de-volution...?

One more thought on the subject: It seems to me that taking Infomagic seriously would be a very good argument against prepping -- unless you're willing to "go Milne" & become a total survivalist. If Inf. is right, anything less than TOTAL preparation is simply futile. By total prep I mean, being many miles away from anyone, on an unmarked road, & completely independent for months on end. If Infomagic is right (hope he isn't) the rest of us moderate preppers are toast, even with our nice wood stoves & our closets full of Dinty Moore.

Does anyone agree with this...?

-- God have mercy (on@us.all), November 26, 1999.

Infomagic is scary because s/he gives a systemic analysis (this from a Systems Design engineering grad).

One possible hope - when TSHTF there is nothing forcing what comes off to be evenly distributed. Given this, there will be "pockets" where there is more maneuvering room - and a group of moderately prepped types pulling together will be able to make a go of it.

For a more detailed outline of this scenario, see Robert Waldrop's work at: http://www.justpeace.org/y2kfreereport.htm where he works through what could be done, and how it would look on the ground.

Best of luck,

Tom in Canada

-- Tom Stein (indagatr@istar.ca), November 26, 1999.

I agree! I have a neighbor across the street who is a professional computer consultant and works with our city govt and several of the largest corps in our city (approx 300,000 pop) and she is preparing for 3 weeks...yes only 3 weeks. I asked her why and her answer was that if the infrastructure is down for that long, we will have total anarchy and it wont matter how much food youve got stored. She says that privately her clients are scared of what may be ahead but due to their position in the govt and corp, they cannot be honest.

Back in March, she was invited to particpate in a city wide open forum on y2k. They invited a rep from the power company, bank, city govt, water, state govt and her. She declined because her two largest clients, the city and the 5000+ employee bank holding company CEO were going to give the standard y2k ready answer. She knew that if she took part in the forum, she would have to tell the truth as she knew it.

I am like her, if the power is down for 3 weeks, we are all dead meat. The first time you fire up your generator or light your wood stove or light your candles, you are a marked man by somebody. Dont forget they will probably have guns too. I pray for Gods mercy on us all. He is the only one that we can lean on if things get that bad.

Once again, anyone heard from Infomagic? thanks

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), November 26, 1999.

Ron,

Do you have links of what you have read from Infomagic? I have searched the net and could not locate this info several people are talking about. I have read hundreds of hours worth over the past year regarding Y2K so I may have read it and just do not remember the name Infomagic connected to it.

Thanks for the link if you have it.

obo

-- Obo (susanwater@excite.com), November 26, 1999.

Sorry meant Rod above.

-- Obo (susanwater@excite.com), November 26, 1999.

I think I can locate...I should have it in my briefcase file. Ill try to find it.

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), November 26, 1999.

Go to this link where you will find a lovely table of all the WRP's. Infomagic starts in #92 IIRC. Cheers, AGF

http://www.sonnet.co.uk/muse/dcwrp.html

-- drac (greenspanisgod@frb.giov), November 26, 1999.

Here are Infomagic's postings to the csy2k forum

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), November 26, 1999.

Obo, I sent part two to your email...providing your email is susanwater@excite. subject: Infomagic Rod

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), November 26, 1999.

What do you do when the exact opposite of ALL your predictions actually comes to pass?

Polly -- admit you didn't understand things very well. Doomer -- vanish without a trace. Infomagic is a doomer.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 26, 1999.

Flint -- Gee, you told me on the other thread that you were only name- calling as a minor part of your display of reason and logic? I suppose that's true here too? Masterful, as always.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 26, 1999.

I suspect he has had some contact with Cory H. I too, consider his thoughts a contribution to my preparations.

If we should experience a collapse, then all of my current supplies would just provide my base of operations. It would not just be... that only the strong shall survive. Smarts would be more important and a banding together in groups of 8 to 12 would provide the best size survival group. It would be necessary for us to have a revised attitude, and start utilizing all of our brain, and not just the top layers. (or the bottom as the case might be)

It is the industrialized west that would suffer the greatest adjustment should a spiral develop. We live on primo real estate which would need to be protected. We would need to revert quickly to the modus operandi of our past and learn a new modus vivendito survive the future.

Copy the writings of infomagic, I think we may make them required reading for our children at some future point.

Remember, he said it was only what he believed, might happen......but he could be wrong.....it might be worse.

No matter what starts in the next 35 days... or less... I will forever remember all of the material I have read and researched over the last two years.

And they lived ___________ly ever after.

-- tc (trashcan@webtv.nett), November 26, 1999.

Duhh...of course he is a doomer. He admits hes part of the doombrood. He still makes alot of sense. Read part 2.

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), November 26, 1999.

For the newbies.. seems like a good time to repost some of infomagic's stuff. Perhaps, as Flint suggests, it will show how wrong he was. Or perhaps it will give you food for thought.

From WRP92 - 486 days to go

I am reposting this c.s.y2k article that Infomagic addressed to me. Infomagic doesn't engage in idle banter and knows his computer stuff.

Infomagic says:

Cory,

If you remember, I've been predicting a stock market collapse for more than a year, as the prelude to the Y2K collapse. I predicted the collapse for the October/November time frame, this year. I still stand by that, and I also still predict a full scale global depression by the end of this year.

The 512 point drop is _not_ the real collapse, although it does indicate the increasing level of fear which will lead to the real collapse in a month or two.

The simple fact is that the global economy is in _much_ worse shape than most americans or europeans admit. Russia is a relatively small part of that economy, but look at the effect their problems have had. Just wait until Asia and South America _really_ tank (which can't be long).

I think you would be crazy to go anywhere near stocks (or bonds) from this point on. Don't forget that, like Y2K, you would be dependent on your business partners (brokers). If they go bust, so do you, and when the bubble really bursts they _will_ go bust.

You would be far better off buying physical gold. At well under $300, this is a much better opportunity. I think that gold prices are being manipulated through rumors by major players who are at massive risk with short positions they cannot cover if the metal rises more than a few bucks.

I think the price will rise significantly fairly soon when Russia effectively goes back on the gold standard (it's their only possible way out of their monetary crisis, and to a certain extent it's already happening). This will only accelerate when the euro is introduced at the beginning of next year (and I'll bet with much higher gold backing than anyone is suggesting right now).

After _our_ stock market bubble bursts, kicking off the global depression, they just won't have any choice. Gold will be the only "currency" that anyone will trust.

===================================== y 2 0 0 0 @ i n f o m a g i c . c o m =====================================

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

From WRP 100 - 423 days to go

Analysis------------ Infomagic ---------------------

SET RECOVERY ON PART 1: CHARLOTTE'S WEB

In the mainframe editor that many programmers use to edit their source code, the command "SET RECOVERY ON" causes the editor to save partial updates so that, in the highly unlikely event of a mainframe crash, the work the programmer has done will not be lost. Pollyannas don't use this command much because they know that mainframes are so reliable they never fail. Of course, pollyannas occasionally lose hours of work that has to be done all over again. Pollyannas also say that Y2K isn't a big problem and our economy is so robust and our programmers are just so brilliant that we can easily fix any problems that are left. They are dead wrong, as you will be if you believe them.

Our modern, technological, civilization has all of the strengths and all of the weaknesses of Charlotte's web. It is strong enough to support the weight of the spider and to hold it's prey. It is strong enough that one or two broken strands can be easily repaired and the web can last for years. But break enough strands and the entire web instantly collapses, beyond any possible repair.

The strands of the web are the myriad interconnections between each of the "nodes" of our civilization. We, ourselves, are the nodes, as are business and non-profit organizations and government agencies (webs within webs, if you will). Some of the nodes are computer systems with Y2K problems which will _not_ be fixed before they fail, taking all of their connected strands with them. In fact, some of the nodes have already failed (e.g. the credit card and POS terminals which failed in 1997 and _still_ have not been completely fixed almost two years later). Others will fail in surprising ways next January and still others will fail, randomly, throughout 1999. More and more strands will fail the closer we get to New Year's Evil. It is a dangerous blunder of epic proportions to believe that we have _any_ of 1999 for more remediation and testing.

So far, we have been able to fix the broken strands, because they are few and we, the programmers, are many. But at some point, the number of failures will exceed the number of programmers, and the strands will be permanently broken. Inexorably, the failures _will_ continue and they _will_ propagate to the rest of the web, like a run in a nylon stocking. I have a nasty feeling this will happen quite some time before the great phalanx of failures on New Year's Evil itself. Even, perhaps, as early as January 1999.

To understand why the entire web will fail, we must consider a number of factors. First, look at the consequences of a major system failure. I remember an incident when a small group of programmers attempted to extort millions from a large european business, Unilever, by stealing the current copies of their master files and destroying all the backups. (One of the group was my successor as Systems Programmer at another company). They were lucky and got their files back, thanks to police intervention. Others have not been so lucky. Statistically, when a medium/large organization has a major loss of IT capability, 50% declare bankruptcy within a month and fully 90% declare bankruptcy within a year. Essentially, a major IT failure means the end of the business, even under the ideal conditions of a fully functional economy, with readily available capital to borrow for recovery.

Many Y2K failures will be limited in scope to just the few strands with which they are connected but some will, indeed, cause the total failure and collapse of the business itself. This in turn will cause more, and more significant, failures elsewhere in the web. One of the big three auto manufacturers has more than 60,000 supppliers, of whom more than 12,000 are considered "critical". If just 5% or _600_ of these critical suppliers go out of business, so does the auto manufacturer and most of the other 56,400 suppliers. And if you think you can resurrect 600 data systems, or replace them with manual systems in time to stop the larger failure then, quite frankly, you are nuts! The failure of a handful of small suppliers _will_, _inevitably_, bring down _all_ of the major auto manufacturers, destroying all of their nodes and all of their strands in the web. And this is only one industry, critical though it is. The web might be able to survive one or two such failures, but not any more.

At this point, we are no longer talking just about software failures, we are talking about larger, macro-economic failures throughout the web. Supplier dependencies exist _between_ industries, as well as within them. For example, all industries depend to a certain extent on ball bearings, most of which are produced in Brazil -- a country far behind the power curve on Y2K and _already_ on the verge of economic collapse as a result of other factors. Another "supplier" upon which _all_ of the other nodes are dependent is the banking and finance industry, which brings me neatly to the next point I want to make.

Y2K is only _one_ of the disasters facing the real-life world wide web and, perhaps, one of the _least_ significant. Many parts of the world are already in deep economic trouble. Japan has been in a _depression_ for two years and is now entering an ominous deflationary spiral. Other parts of Asia are in even more trouble (particularly Malaysia, North and South Korea and China, but all the rest, as well). The Russian economy has effectively ceased to exist, and millions are about to die as their problems are passed on to their German neighbors and financial backers. Brazil and South America are next and _their_ neighbor and backer is US (United States). On top of all this we have a grossly overvalued stock market and, of course, that little problem of "derivatives" and the exposure of all of the major banks to hedge funds like LTCM.

And _none_ of the bailouts are working. Billions from the IMF, and the Russian Ruble continues to crumble. Billions lent to LTCM, and they are _still_ in trouble. Drop Japanese interest rates to 1/2% and there's still no "interest" in buying from the consumer. Do you know _why_ we in the US had our last 1/2% drop so soon after the first? Well-informed rumor has it that the request to Greenspan came from the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, home of one of the nation's best known banks. Apparently, if the discount rate wasn't lowered, they couldn't stay in business . . . But don't single them out just because of their name. In Japan, nine of the ten largest banks are, basically, insolvent. They don't have the reserves to do business in Japan, let alone on an international basis (although in Japan it is "tolerated"). Believe it or not, many of our own US banks are equally deep in the doo-doo. And if you _really_ want, I could talk about their Y2K projects . . .

Now, the bulls (pollyannas) will tell you it just isn't so. They will tell you that lowering already low interest rates is a "good thing" and will stimulate dropping economic activity (which isn't happening). The bears (doombrood) say that they won't invest when the return is so low, and they'll put their money somewhere safe to weather the storm (which really _is_ happening). The bulls shout that _this_ company promises they _will_ be Y2K compliant and therefore everything is going to be OK in _all_ of the other companies and, sigh, WE'RE GOING TO MAKE IT! The bears ask "where is the independant proof"? and point to the flat out lies from supposedly honest organizations such as the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense, the IRS and the major banks.

For the moment the bulls are winning, psychologically. And that is the most important to them because they have no true foundation in reality. It is so easy to convince the idle masses that everything is hunky-dory as long as they can't see what is really happening to them (and most of them won't until it is far, far too late). This is why the stock market is so ridiculously over valued and why it has gained so much since the drops of September, based upon _nothing_ but the superficial optimism of the bulls and their utter disregard of reality. But, at some point very soon, the "bull-shit" stops and the "bear-facts" will be known.

At this point the stock market bubble will burst. I have predicted that this would happen in the October/November time frame, and I stand by my words. Shortly after the November elections, I expect some outside trigger event, probably the devaluation of the Brazilian Real, and the collapse of their economy. This will be so close to home, and it's effect on US banks so great, that the bear-fact will be readily apparent even to the bulls -- the global economy really _is_ in deep trouble and none of the economic gimmicks are going to work.

However, the market will not just crash as it did in 1929. Trading stop measures put into place since then will prevent a massive drop all in one day. Rather, there will be a series of major drops over a period of several days or even weeks. I expect a two to three thousand point drop in the DJIA by the end of November, with continued declines throughout December and early January. It will not be a happy holiday season for many. Doors _will_ close and jobs _will_ be lost, and the general sense of depression will weigh heavily on many.

Then, in January '99, we will see a sharp rise in the number of software failures attributable directly to Y2K. Many will fail because they hit data event horizons one year into the future, in 2000 itself. Others because they hit the year-99 special handling boundary (which includes, but is not limited to, treating "99" as "end-of-file"). Most of these early failures will be among the tardier members of the pack, including federal, state and local government agencies. Especially hard hit will be those who didn't think they had a problem or who decided to "fix on failure". But some will be among banks who think they have "remediated" their software and still have "all of 1999 to test". One thing I can guarantee is that _all_ of these failures will be unxpected, just like the POS credit card failures, and they will take a great deal of highly skilled effort to track down and fix.

We may have enough good programmers to fix most of these early problems but some will undoubtedly cause business failures or interrupt critical public services. This will be the trigger of the second barrel and the noise will wake the sleeping giant. Finally, John Q. Public will sniff, smell the coffee, and suddenly realize that there really _is_ a Y2K problem. This is when the bank runs will start and prices for survival items will go up.

We will also see something that has never happened before -- runs on the mutual funds which have fueled the growing market bubble. Unlike banks, there are no government guarantees for these investments and there are no procedures in place to limit withdrawals. Therefore, liquidity must come from the fire-sale of stocks held by the funds. Effectively, the small investors will be wiped out overnight, just as they were in 1929. The market will experience a secondary crash, the largest ever seen.

This is the climate in which we will have to find and fix the _rest_ of the Y2K problems. A global depression reducing the cash flow of those businesses trying to remediate, limiting the amount which can be spent on Y2K. Tax base reductions limiting the resources which government can spend on their _own_ problems, let alone those of others. A programmer pool, already too small, further reduced by those who have to work on the early failures (and the _continuing_ failures throughout 1999). A banking and finance structure already so badly weakened that it can do little or nothing to help. A general public on the verge of panic and in fear of their lives as well as their jobs. Then, in January 2000, it all gets worse . . .

It is the end of Charlotte's web and the beginning of a downward spiral in population, technology and business (I will expand on this in the next article). There is _nothing_ we can do to avert this problem. We might have been able to fix the computer problem if we had ignored the pollyannas and started on a massive, co-ordinated effort five years ago. We might have fixed the economic problem if we had ignored the bulls and taken the necessary economic steps five years ago. But we did neither, and now they are both combining, feeding on each other, to give us the biggest, deepest, disaster in human history (with the possible exception of Noah's flood).

It is too late to fix Charlotte's web. It is too late even to place backup strands in the most important places. It is time to SET RECOVERY ON. We must now make plans and preparations to ensure our own personal survival and to pass on as much of our technology as we can to our children. Perhaps, then, some future generation can rebuild what we are about to lose. Perhaps, even, they will learn from our mistakes.

But we can only SET RECOVERY ON if we plan for the very worst we can imagine (short of the extinction of the human race). To this end, the next article in this series will discuss just how bad I think it is going to get, how deep we are going to fall. The rest will deal with practical plans for survival, methods of passing on our technology, and suggestions for making social life easier after reaching the bottom. _______________ Copyright (C) 1998, y2000@infomagic.com

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

From WRP 103 - 399 days to go

Preface -- Who is Infomagic? --

No one knows but based on his comments on computers, large systems, and programming, Infomagic has substantive, serious expertise. In addition, there are multiple dimensions to his experience set.

While this is not a formal proof of correctness for his dark projections, Infomagic has a strong technical basis upon which to build.

Please, take the time to consider the following offering.

Assessment -- Infomagic --

SET RECOVERY ON PART 2: THE DEVOLUTIONARY SPIRAL by Y2000@Infomagic.com

In the first article of this series I predicted that the failure of even a small number of our computer systems, combined with fundamental problems already existing in the global economy, will lead to the total collapse of civilization as we know it. I would now like to expand on that and show you that collapse is probable even in an unreasonably optimistic best case scenario in which _all_ of the systems are fixed before 2000. In any of the more realistic scenarios this collapse is absolutely certain. I would also like to explain just how devastating that collapse will be and to show that recovery in our lifetimes is an extremely unlikely outcome. We must prepare for a dark period of several generations during which much of our technology and knowledge will be lost and after which there _may_ be a slow recovery by our descendants. Such preparations are the subject matter of this series of articles. However, we must also prepare ourselves for the very real possibility that the outcome of this situation might well be the total extinction of the entire human race. It really _could_ be worse than I am predicting and I really _am_ being optimistic.

First, I would like to assure you that I am not some kind of nut anxiously waiting for the end of the world. I am a professional computer consultant with 30 years of extensive, hard won experience in many different areas of information technology. I have programmed at the lowest machine code level on everything from small embedded systems all the way up to the largest mainframes. I have co-invented computer hardware and developed novel solutions to very complex problems. I have designed and implemented _very_ large scale business computer systems and I have planned and managed the creation and growth of entire mainframe data centers. I have also worked at a senior level in some of the best consulting organizations in the world. In short, I am a super geek, with an extensive real world and management background beyond the art of computing itself.

I have been aware of the Y2K problem for at least 20 years, and actively working on it for about three. Until the beginnning of 1998 I believed that the problem could still be mostly fixed and I have always been skeptical of the wilder claims of potential Y2K failures. For example, as an airline and instructor rated pilot (my secondary career), I _don't_ believe that airplanes will fall out of the sky. However, I am quite certain that many, if not most, large commercial aircraft will indeed be grounded -- by shortages (and higher prices) of fuel, by crippled Air Traffic Control systems and by the lack of sufficient general economic activity to justify their continued operation. Unlike the bulls and pollyannas, I am not fixated on the success or failure of individual systems. I have the capacity to see the larger picture and I am _far_ more concerned with the total failure of Charlotte's Web itself -- that system-of-systems which forms the backbone of modern civilization.

I freely admit that many of my colleagues disagree with my conclusions and believe that Y2K will be nothing more than a "bump in the road". The problem is that, speaking as an expert, I have _never_ seen any _credible_ evidence to support their general position. Yes, they can point to individual successes, but this does not materially support their overall hypothesis of "no problem" and we (the bears or "doombrood") can point to far more failures, far more known problems, and the abysmal record of our own industry in meeting deadlines and required functional capability. In addition, I must point out that the disaster scenario requires the failure of only a relatively small percentage of our systems (let's say 20%) while the "bump in the road" scenario requires virtually perfect correction of almost all affected systems, all on time and all on budget. For the bulls to be right, we must somehow magically move from a historical on-time project success rate of less than 15% to a success rate for Y2K projects of at least 90 - 95%.

Such a position is clearly irrational. However, for the sake of argument, let us go even further and assume that all affected systems will indeed be fixed before they start to fail. Unfortunately, this would _not_ solve the problem or prevent the disaster. You see, after any major maintenence change to a system (which Y2K most certainly is) there is always a residual rate of failure as a result of the changes themselves, _even_ when the changes are properly "tested". The failures manifest themselves when the system is placed back into the real world of "production", as opposed to the artificial world of "testing". They happen because maintenence programmers customarily test only the immediate effects of their changes. There is neither the time nor the money nor often even the ability to test the entire consequences of a particular change to a system. The residual failures typically arise _elsewhere_ in the system, at some point unrelated to the change itself and completely unanticipated by the programmer.

This last is why residual failures are so hard to identify and correct. Often, we can't even tell for certain whether a particular failure really is the result of a recent system change or not. In turn, this is why a good system administrator would _never_ return two or more systems to "production" at the same time. Not only is the risk of failure almost doubled, but there is also a small chance of _both_ systems failing simultaneously. For Y2K, the problem is greatly compounded by the fact that, essentially, we will be placing _all_ of our corrected systems back into "production" at roughly the same time. We can even calculate the magnitude of the residual failures, to a first approximation.

The actual rate of residual failure depends on a number of factors, but mostly on the size of the system and the scope of the changes. Under average conditions, modest changes to a moderately sized system, the rate would be about 7%. The scope of Y2K changes is, of course, much more extensive than this and many of the systems are extremely large, so the residual failure rate is also likely to be higher. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, let us again assume an overly optimistic residual failure rate of only 5% for Y2K related changes. But this is only for one system. For a business with multiple systems (which they all have) the chance of a system failure can be computed as:1-(1-f)**n, where "f" is the failure rate and "n" is the number of systems.

An average small business would have perhaps 5 systems so, assuming a residual rate of 5%, they have about a 23% chance of at least one system failure (1-(1-.05)**5 = 0.226). A medium size business would typically have about 25 systems and, therefore, a 72% chance of a failure (1-(1-.05)**25 = 0.723). A large business with 100 or more systems would have a 99% chance of a failure (1-(1-.05)**100 = 0.994). This is EVEN IF ALL OF THE SYSTEMS ARE FIXED! Of course, many of these failures will be relatively easy to fix, but others will require an effort beyond the capabilities of the business and they will _not_ be fixed before the business itself fails (this is particularly true for small and medium businesses using packaged software). In addition, the great majority of these failures will have at least some domino effect on related customers and vendors. To make it even worse, virtually _everybody_ will be facing these problems at about the same time, leading to a chaos in which actually fixing the problems becomes almost impossible. At the very minimum this will lead to an economic disaster, JUST FROM THE ACT OF FIXING THE SYSTEMS THEMSELVES, without even taking into account the effect of the unfixed systems, of embedded systems or of an already declining global economy.

In reality, of course, the situation is _much_ worse than this, and the residual failure rate will be much, much higher. Just how much worse is anybody's guess since we have, as yet, insufficient historical data of actual Y2K failures. One thing I can state, categorically, is that a "bump in the road" is not even on the scale of possibility. As we have seen above, the best case end of the scale really _begins_ with a global economic disaster and even then assumes that all systems are fixed on time and that there are no outside factors such as a global recession. Clearly this, too, is an untenable position.

So, in a realistic best case, how much worse than an "economic disaster" is it going to get? Let's use the same formula but this time with a guesstimate of the rate of _critical_ failures (those likely to lead to a failure of the business itself). As an expert, I personally think that the overall, critical failure rate will be between 10 and 20% but, again, let's be overly optimistic and say that only _1%_ will fail critically and terminally for the business. Even this means that 5% of small, 22% of medium and 63% of big businesses will, inevitably, cease to exist as a direct result of Y2K system failures. Interestingly, these numbers accurately reflect our intuitive grasp of the increasing dependance on information technology as businesses grow larger. But the exact numbers don't really matter because this is only the _first_ level of failure.

The second stage of failure is the "domino effect", the interrelationships between vendors and their customers. Roughly speaking, each of the big three auto manufacturers has about 50,000 vendors of whom about 10,000 are "critical" to production. On the basis of the above, at only a 1% critical failure rate, at least 500 of the critical vendors (5%) will go out of business, forcing the production line to a halt. If that happens for any extended period of time then most of the other 49,500 vendors are basically out of business. Not that it matters. On the basis of the above, two of the big three (63%) will _themselves_ go out of business because of their own Y2K failures, taking most of their vendors with them. Not that it really matters. 50% of the big three's customers are employed by small businesses, of which 5% will immediately go out of business. Unfortunately, the other 50% of their customers are employed by medium and large businesses of whom, optimistically, (63-22)/2+22 or 42% will also go out of business, removing their former employees from the auto market. Those who still have jobs will also be much less likely to buy and, with this immediate and increasing drop in sales, _all_ of the big three will effectively go out of business -- together with most of their vendors. The same thing will happen in every other segment of the economy as well.

Even with unrealistically optimistic numbers, and without taking either embedded systems or the already poor global economy into account, I think this proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Charlotte's Web will indeed completely collapse, just as I predicted in the previous article. Unfortunately, that is still only the _second_ level of failure.

The _third_ level of failure is something I call a devolutionary spiral -- the unwinding of everything we have built over the last 2,000 years of civilization. It is a continuing, self perpetuating, reduction in global population, economic activity and technical capability. It has many of the characteristics of a deflationary spiral in economics; of the entropy of a closed thermodynamic system; and of the sudden jump to a lower energy level which we see in the decay of many nuclear-physical systems. Historically, it is much like the fall of the Roman Empire, which collapsed under it's own weight far more than from outside factors, and from which "recovery" took over 1,000 years. I don't yet know how to measure the spiral, scientifically, but I do know how to describe it.

The key is something called "carrying capacity", a term from the biological sciences. It defines the maximum population of a given species which a particular habitat can support under a specified set of circumstances. If the maximum population is exceeded, or if the capacity itself is reduced, the inevitable result is always a reduction in the population to a level far lower than the simple difference in population numbers would suggest. As an example, consider the plight of the beautiful Mule Deer of the Kaibab Plateau, close to my home in Northern Arizona. Several years ago, the greenie meanies manipulated a ban on the hunting of Mule Deer in this area. Until then, hunting had been used to control the deer population, with the permitted "harvest" designed to reduce the total number of deer, swollen by springtime breeding and summer plenty, to the maximum number which could be supported through harsher winter conditions. As a result, the year round population of deer was normally at it's theoretical maximum for that particular habitat.

Without hunting, the first snows found the herd 25% larger than the winter carrying capacity. At first, the poor deers just lost weight, competing with each other for a food supply far below that needed to support them all through the winter. As the winter progressed, however, the weaker deer (does, fawns and the old) quite naturally died -- by their pitiful thousands. But, worse than this, even the stronger, dominant males were weakened to the point that they, too, succumbed in higher numbers than usual. By the next spring, the Kaibab deer herd was reduced to less than 50% of the normal, springtime population and there were fewer new fawns. In the fall, there were less dominant males and less healthy does, to take care of building the new population. It took decades to recover to normal levels (and then only with the resumption of controlled hunting).

I am personally sickened by the images of this event, by the triumph of "emotion" over "reason", but that is not the point I wish to make. The point I _must_ make is that we, ourselves, are really not that different from the Kaibab deer herd. We live in a complex, computer dependent, world with a carrying capacity of about 6 billion souls. Take away some of the computer capacity, as little as 10%, and we lose a significant portion of the carrying capacity. Because of the domino effect, if we lose just 10% of our businesses (and even the government expects more) this could easily translate into a loss of one third of the carrying capacity and, thus, 2 billion dead.

But that's just the beginning of the devolutionary spiral. Unlike those Kaibab deer, we human beings are to a large extent responsible for creating our own carrying capacity. Without our complex society there is no way this earth could support or carry 6 billion people. But, conversely, without 6 billion people there is no way we could create such a complex society in the first place. When we lose a significant percentage of the population, which we certainly will, we will also lose an important part of our ability to maintain civilization itself. As a result, we will lose even more of the carrying capacity and even more of the population. Once the spiral starts it feeds on itself and it _cannot_ be stopped by anything we do. It will stop, all by itself, but only when a new equilibrium is reached with a much lower carrying capacity and a much smaller population, with far less economic activity and more limited technology.

It doesn't matter whether you believe me. It doesn't even matter if I am right. Because you are not the only one reading this article. Through the magic of the internet there are thousands, perhaps millions, who are also reading and who do believe. There are millions of others who have found similar opinions elsewhere and who also firmly believe it's really coming, really soon, to a town near them. They believe it is serious enough that they have already decided to withdraw their money from their banks and mutual funds. When that happens en masse, some time next year, our entire economy will collapse. In a sense, the end has already begun and the spiral has already started to unwind.

There is nothing _wrong_ with their decision, even though it will indeed trigger the very collapse they are trying to protect themselves against. The point is that Y2K is real, the global recession is real. Roosevelt was wrong. We really do have something more to fear than fear itself. It makes sense to prepare. It is sheer folly to ignore Y2K and those who do so will be numbered among the dead. The sensible question is not whether to prepare but how to prepare and for what. The remaining articles in this series will cover the how, for the moment I am concerned with the what. I have painted a pretty bleak picture of the total collapse of civilisation itself and the death of billions. Using highly optimistic numbers, I think I have shown that this is not just possible but probable. It makes the most sense to prepare for this worst case scenario. If you prepare for anything less, and I am right, you will _not_ be prepared at all and you, too, will be numbered among the dead.

To drive this point home, I would like you to consider the closest historical precedent I can think of. The Roman Empire also collapsed in upon itself, in much the same way that I am predicting. As it collapsed, the carrying capacity of the empire was reduced and the population did indeed spiral downwards, reaching a low point several hundred years later around 1350. Most of their technology was also lost and their roads, aquaducts, cities and monuments soon fell into disrepair because none of the survivors understood the Roman technology. Even if they had, there weren't enough people nor enough economic activity to justify let alone institute the repairs. Consider this also. After a 1,000 years there _were_ indeed survivors. They just weren't Romans.

Five miles from my boyhood home in England are the ruins of a Roman fort, built in the time of Hadrian to protect the estuary of the largest local river, and the center of trade and commerce in the area. Today it is little more than a few piles of rubble, but legend has it that every year, at midnight on Good Friday evening, the old town comes back to life for just one hour. As a boy I would sneak out and ride my bike to the old fort. More than one dark night I spent there, listening for and almost hearing the ancient sounds, looking for and almost seeing two thousand year old ghosts from a long dead civilization. I wonder what little boy will look for us, if we don't prepare. _______________________________________ Copyright (C) 1998, y2000@infomagic.com

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

From WRP 103 - 399 days to go

Preface -- Who is Infomagic? --

No one knows but based on his comments on computers, large systems, and programming, Infomagic has substantive, serious expertise. In addition, there are multiple dimensions to his experience set.

While this is not a formal proof of correctness for his dark projections, Infomagic has a strong technical basis upon which to build.

Please, take the time to consider the following offering.

Assessment -- Infomagic --

SET RECOVERY ON PART 2: THE DEVOLUTIONARY SPIRAL by Y2000@Infomagic.com

In the first article of this series I predicted that the failure of even a small number of our computer systems, combined with fundamental problems already existing in the global economy, will lead to the total collapse of civilization as we know it. I would now like to expand on that and show you that collapse is probable even in an unreasonably optimistic best case scenario in which _all_ of the systems are fixed before 2000. In any of the more realistic scenarios this collapse is absolutely certain. I would also like to explain just how devastating that collapse will be and to show that recovery in our lifetimes is an extremely unlikely outcome. We must prepare for a dark period of several generations during which much of our technology and knowledge will be lost and after which there _may_ be a slow recovery by our descendants. Such preparations are the subject matter of this series of articles. However, we must also prepare ourselves for the very real possibility that the outcome of this situation might well be the total extinction of the entire human race. It really _could_ be worse than I am predicting and I really _am_ being optimistic.

First, I would like to assure you that I am not some kind of nut anxiously waiting for the end of the world. I am a professional computer consultant with 30 years of extensive, hard won experience in many different areas of information technology. I have programmed at the lowest machine code level on everything from small embedded systems all the way up to the largest mainframes. I have co-invented computer hardware and developed novel solutions to very complex problems. I have designed and implemented _very_ large scale business computer systems and I have planned and managed the creation and growth of entire mainframe data centers. I have also worked at a senior level in some of the best consulting organizations in the world. In short, I am a super geek, with an extensive real world and management background beyond the art of computing itself.

I have been aware of the Y2K problem for at least 20 years, and actively working on it for about three. Until the beginnning of 1998 I believed that the problem could still be mostly fixed and I have always been skeptical of the wilder claims of potential Y2K failures. For example, as an airline and instructor rated pilot (my secondary career), I _don't_ believe that airplanes will fall out of the sky. However, I am quite certain that many, if not most, large commercial aircraft will indeed be grounded -- by shortages (and higher prices) of fuel, by crippled Air Traffic Control systems and by the lack of sufficient general economic activity to justify their continued operation. Unlike the bulls and pollyannas, I am not fixated on the success or failure of individual systems. I have the capacity to see the larger picture and I am _far_ more concerned with the total failure of Charlotte's Web itself -- that system-of-systems which forms the backbone of modern civilization.

I freely admit that many of my colleagues disagree with my conclusions and believe that Y2K will be nothing more than a "bump in the road". The problem is that, speaking as an expert, I have _never_ seen any _credible_ evidence to support their general position. Yes, they can point to individual successes, but this does not materially support their overall hypothesis of "no problem" and we (the bears or "doombrood") can point to far more failures, far more known problems, and the abysmal record of our own industry in meeting deadlines and required functional capability. In addition, I must point out that the disaster scenario requires the failure of only a relatively small percentage of our systems (let's say 20%) while the "bump in the road" scenario requires virtually perfect correction of almost all affected systems, all on time and all on budget. For the bulls to be right, we must somehow magically move from a historical on-time project success rate of less than 15% to a success rate for Y2K projects of at least 90 - 95%.

Such a position is clearly irrational. However, for the sake of argument, let us go even further and assume that all affected systems will indeed be fixed before they start to fail. Unfortunately, this would _not_ solve the problem or prevent the disaster. You see, after any major maintenence change to a system (which Y2K most certainly is) there is always a residual rate of failure as a result of the changes themselves, _even_ when the changes are properly "tested". The failures manifest themselves when the system is placed back into the real world of "production", as opposed to the artificial world of "testing". They happen because maintenence programmers customarily test only the immediate effects of their changes. There is neither the time nor the money nor often even the ability to test the entire consequences of a particular change to a system. The residual failures typically arise _elsewhere_ in the system, at some point unrelated to the change itself and completely unanticipated by the programmer.

This last is why residual failures are so hard to identify and correct. Often, we can't even tell for certain whether a particular failure really is the result of a recent system change or not. In turn, this is why a good system administrator would _never_ return two or more systems to "production" at the same time. Not only is the risk of failure almost doubled, but there is also a small chance of _both_ systems failing simultaneously. For Y2K, the problem is greatly compounded by the fact that, essentially, we will be placing _all_ of our corrected systems back into "production" at roughly the same time. We can even calculate the magnitude of the residual failures, to a first approximation.

The actual rate of residual failure depends on a number of factors, but mostly on the size of the system and the scope of the changes. Under average conditions, modest changes to a moderately sized system, the rate would be about 7%. The scope of Y2K changes is, of course, much more extensive than this and many of the systems are extremely large, so the residual failure rate is also likely to be higher. Nevertheless, for the sake of argument, let us again assume an overly optimistic residual failure rate of only 5% for Y2K related changes. But this is only for one system. For a business with multiple systems (which they all have) the chance of a system failure can be computed as:1-(1-f)**n, where "f" is the failure rate and "n" is the number of systems.

An average small business would have perhaps 5 systems so, assuming a residual rate of 5%, they have about a 23% chance of at least one system failure (1-(1-.05)**5 = 0.226). A medium size business would typically have about 25 systems and, therefore, a 72% chance of a failure (1-(1-.05)**25 = 0.723). A large business with 100 or more systems would have a 99% chance of a failure (1-(1-.05)**100 = 0.994). This is EVEN IF ALL OF THE SYSTEMS ARE FIXED! Of course, many of these failures will be relatively easy to fix, but others will require an effort beyond the capabilities of the business and they will _not_ be fixed before the business itself fails (this is particularly true for small and medium businesses using packaged software). In addition, the great majority of these failures will have at least some domino effect on related customers and vendors. To make it even worse, virtually _everybody_ will be facing these problems at about the same time, leading to a chaos in which actually fixing the problems becomes almost impossible. At the very minimum this will lead to an economic disaster, JUST FROM THE ACT OF FIXING THE SYSTEMS THEMSELVES, without even taking into account the effect of the unfixed systems, of embedded systems or of an already declining global economy.

In reality, of course, the situation is _much_ worse than this, and the residual failure rate will be much, much higher. Just how much worse is anybody's guess since we have, as yet, insufficient historical data of actual Y2K failures. One thing I can state, categorically, is that a "bump in the road" is not even on the scale of possibility. As we have seen above, the best case end of the scale really _begins_ with a global economic disaster and even then assumes that all systems are fixed on time and that there are no outside factors such as a global recession. Clearly this, too, is an untenable position.

So, in a realistic best case, how much worse than an "economic disaster" is it going to get? Let's use the same formula but this time with a guesstimate of the rate of _critical_ failures (those likely to lead to a failure of the business itself). As an expert, I personally think that the overall, critical failure rate will be between 10 and 20% but, again, let's be overly optimistic and say that only _1%_ will fail critically and terminally for the business. Even this means that 5% of small, 22% of medium and 63% of big businesses will, inevitably, cease to exist as a direct result of Y2K system failures. Interestingly, these numbers accurately reflect our intuitive grasp of the increasing dependance on information technology as businesses grow larger. But the exact numbers don't really matter because this is only the _first_ level of failure.

The second stage of failure is the "domino effect", the interrelationships between vendors and their customers. Roughly speaking, each of the big three auto manufacturers has about 50,000 vendors of whom about 10,000 are "critical" to production. On the basis of the above, at only a 1% critical failure rate, at least 500 of the critical vendors (5%) will go out of business, forcing the production line to a halt. If that happens for any extended period of time then most of the other 49,500 vendors are basically out of business. Not that it matters. On the basis of the above, two of the big three (63%) will _themselves_ go out of business because of their own Y2K failures, taking most of their vendors with them. Not that it really matters. 50% of the big three's customers are employed by small businesses, of which 5% will immediately go out of business. Unfortunately, the other 50% of their customers are employed by medium and large businesses of whom, optimistically, (63-22)/2+22 or 42% will also go out of business, removing their former employees from the auto market. Those who still have jobs will also be much less likely to buy and, with this immediate and increasing drop in sales, _all_ of the big three will effectively go out of business -- together with most of their vendors. The same thing will happen in every other segment of the economy as well.

Even with unrealistically optimistic numbers, and without taking either embedded systems or the already poor global economy into account, I think this proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Charlotte's Web will indeed completely collapse, just as I predicted in the previous article. Unfortunately, that is still only the _second_ level of failure.

The _third_ level of failure is something I call a devolutionary spiral -- the unwinding of everything we have built over the last 2,000 years of civilization. It is a continuing, self perpetuating, reduction in global population, economic activity and technical capability. It has many of the characteristics of a deflationary spiral in economics; of the entropy of a closed thermodynamic system; and of the sudden jump to a lower energy level which we see in the decay of many nuclear-physical systems. Historically, it is much like the fall of the Roman Empire, which collapsed under it's own weight far more than from outside factors, and from which "recovery" took over 1,000 years. I don't yet know how to measure the spiral, scientifically, but I do know how to describe it.

The key is something called "carrying capacity", a term from the biological sciences. It defines the maximum population of a given species which a particular habitat can support under a specified set of circumstances. If the maximum population is exceeded, or if the capacity itself is reduced, the inevitable result is always a reduction in the population to a level far lower than the simple difference in population numbers would suggest. As an example, consider the plight of the beautiful Mule Deer of the Kaibab Plateau, close to my home in Northern Arizona. Several years ago, the greenie meanies manipulated a ban on the hunting of Mule Deer in this area. Until then, hunting had been used to control the deer population, with the permitted "harvest" designed to reduce the total number of deer, swollen by springtime breeding and summer plenty, to the maximum number which could be supported through harsher winter conditions. As a result, the year round population of deer was normally at it's theoretical maximum for that particular habitat.

Without hunting, the first snows found the herd 25% larger than the winter carrying capacity. At first, the poor deers just lost weight, competing with each other for a food supply far below that needed to support them all through the winter. As the winter progressed, however, the weaker deer (does, fawns and the old) quite naturally died -- by their pitiful thousands. But, worse than this, even the stronger, dominant males were weakened to the point that they, too, succumbed in higher numbers than usual. By the next spring, the Kaibab deer herd was reduced to less than 50% of the normal, springtime population and there were fewer new fawns. In the fall, there were less dominant males and less healthy does, to take care of building the new population. It took decades to recover to normal levels (and then only with the resumption of controlled hunting).

I am personally sickened by the images of this event, by the triumph of "emotion" over "reason", but that is not the point I wish to make. The point I _must_ make is that we, ourselves, are really not that different from the Kaibab deer herd. We live in a complex, computer dependent, world with a carrying capacity of about 6 billion souls. Take away some of the computer capacity, as little as 10%, and we lose a significant portion of the carrying capacity. Because of the domino effect, if we lose just 10% of our businesses (and even the government expects more) this could easily translate into a loss of one third of the carrying capacity and, thus, 2 billion dead.

But that's just the beginning of the devolutionary spiral. Unlike those Kaibab deer, we human beings are to a large extent responsible for creating our own carrying capacity. Without our complex society there is no way this earth could support or carry 6 billion people. But, conversely, without 6 billion people there is no way we could create such a complex society in the first place. When we lose a significant percentage of the population, which we certainly will, we will also lose an important part of our ability to maintain civilization itself. As a result, we will lose even more of the carrying capacity and even more of the population. Once the spiral starts it feeds on itself and it _cannot_ be stopped by anything we do. It will stop, all by itself, but only when a new equilibrium is reached with a much lower carrying capacity and a much smaller population, with far less economic activity and more limited technology.

It doesn't matter whether you believe me. It doesn't even matter if I am right. Because you are not the only one reading this article. Through the magic of the internet there are thousands, perhaps millions, who are also reading and who do believe. There are millions of others who have found similar opinions elsewhere and who also firmly believe it's really coming, really soon, to a town near them. They believe it is serious enough that they have already decided to withdraw their money from their banks and mutual funds. When that happens en masse, some time next year, our entire economy will collapse. In a sense, the end has already begun and the spiral has already started to unwind.

There is nothing _wrong_ with their decision, even though it will indeed trigger the very collapse they are trying to protect themselves against. The point is that Y2K is real, the global recession is real. Roosevelt was wrong. We really do have something more to fear than fear itself. It makes sense to prepare. It is sheer folly to ignore Y2K and those who do so will be numbered among the dead. The sensible question is not whether to prepare but how to prepare and for what. The remaining articles in this series will cover the how, for the moment I am concerned with the what. I have painted a pretty bleak picture of the total collapse of civilisation itself and the death of billions. Using highly optimistic numbers, I think I have shown that this is not just possible but probable. It makes the most sense to prepare for this worst case scenario. If you prepare for anything less, and I am right, you will _not_ be prepared at all and you, too, will be numbered among the dead.

To drive this point home, I would like you to consider the closest historical precedent I can think of. The Roman Empire also collapsed in upon itself, in much the same way that I am predicting. As it collapsed, the carrying capacity of the empire was reduced and the population did indeed spiral downwards, reaching a low point several hundred years later around 1350. Most of their technology was also lost and their roads, aquaducts, cities and monuments soon fell into disrepair because none of the survivors understood the Roman technology. Even if they had, there weren't enough people nor enough economic activity to justify let alone institute the repairs. Consider this also. After a 1,000 years there _were_ indeed survivors. They just weren't Romans.

Five miles from my boyhood home in England are the ruins of a Roman fort, built in the time of Hadrian to protect the estuary of the largest local river, and the center of trade and commerce in the area. Today it is little more than a few piles of rubble, but legend has it that every year, at midnight on Good Friday evening, the old town comes back to life for just one hour. As a boy I would sneak out and ride my bike to the old fort. More than one dark night I spent there, listening for and almost hearing the ancient sounds, looking for and almost seeing two thousand year old ghosts from a long dead civilization. I wonder what little boy will look for us, if we don't prepare. _______________________________________ Copyright (C) 1998, y2000@infomagic.com

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

WRP 106 - 368 days to go

You really need to go to the site and read this one, as 2 different articles critique infomagic, and then infomagic responds - contents:

1. Why Infomagic is a Pollyanna... 2. Confronting Fears.... 3. Bruce Webster (on Infomagic).... 4. Infomagic Reponds

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

WRP 107 - 358 days to go

Infomagic is back with Part 3 of Set Recovery On. I find this piece to be more disturbing than the previous. Please give this serious consideration.

Two new authors have added their own ideas on Y2K and preparation.

Recovery -- Infomagic --

SET RECOVERY ON

PART 3: WE'RE GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT

by

y2000 @ InfoMagic.com

Thanks to the enlightenment of our Arizona legislature, I legally carry a concealed handgun pretty much wherever I go. When close friends ask why I carry a gun, I usually reply "It's in case I see the elephant". Now this is obviously a highly effective technique since, after the introduction of carry permits, there have been fewer incidents with dangerous elephants in our state. But, actually, there is a more serious and darker side to my answer that usually passes over the heads of those to whom I am talking. Back in the days of the old west, cowboys almost never travelled beyond the frontier towns and their entertainment was often brought to them from back east. A rare treat was the arrival of a travelling circus and, particularly, the elephants which seem to have fascinated these simple hardworking men. Over time, the expression "goin' to see the elephant" came to be used whenever someone decided to do something totally different or unusual. In the combat shooting fraternity, particularly in law enforcement, "seeing the elephant" has now come to mean a close encounter of the deadly kind. This is the meaning intended in my reply (and in the following remark).

As I write this, we are fast approaching January 1999. In just a few days, we will see the first wave of year-ahead Y2K system failures, as well as a wave of the Year 99 failures which many have been underestimating. At the same time, the US dollar will face it's first challenge in half a century with the introduction of the Euro (which is already advance trading higher than the dollar). And then we also still have that crazy stock market bubble and the deepening, irreversible, global depression. We are about to enter a short period of intense trouble and great dangers. I believe this will last 3 to 4 years, starting in January 1999, and will then lead to the longer devolutionary spiral I described in part two of this series. If I am right, we will eventually lose half to two-thirds of the world's population. Most of us are "going to see the elephant" (perhaps more than once) and, statistically, most of us will not survive our own close encounter of the deadly kind.

This article is intended to help you prepare to meet that awesome elephant and to give you a better chance to survive those first terrible years. The first step is to load your most important weapon, not your gun, but your mind. Any good instructor will tell you that the key to survival is attitude. Believe that you will survive and your chances of actually doing so go up dramatically. This applies as much to economic hardship, hunger, thirst and illness as it does to a fire fight. But positive attitude alone is not enough. You must also make a realistic assessment of your situation and you must be able to make logical decisions and carry them out under stress, perhaps under threat of death. Let's deal with this last point first.

One of the best ways to deal with extreme danger and your own imminent demise is to accept that you are already dead. This may seem to contradict the need for a positive attitude but, in practice, it does not. A friend of mine was the instructor pilot aboard a Learjet whose student pilot lost control just after liftoff and the plane immediately rolled inverted and crashed. The accident lasted only seconds, but before the airplane even touched down he had the fuel shut off and the emergency exit already open. As my friend explained it, he knew he was going to die but at least they would find the switches in the correct positions and the checklist completed. This attitude gave him the calmness he needed to take the steps which resulted not only in his own survival but also that of his student. However, the time to accept this is not during the takeoff roll but, rather, long before when you are mentally preparing and training yourself for a potentially dangerous activity.

In the Y2K context, the time to accept your own death is now, before the fun really begins. If I am right, and I honestly believe I am, then you must accept that you are statistically more likely to die than to survive. As am I. If you can come to terms with that now, you will be far better prepared to face anything you might encounter in the next few years, and your chance of survival will actually go up. I cannot tell you precisely how to do that -- it is something we must all face in our own way. In my own case, Christian faith gives me the certain knowledge that there are some things worse than death as well as the promise of something more valuable than life itself. I also have children and a grandchild who are more important to me than my own survival, so they come first. Your mileage may vary, but whatever God you believe in, the time to make your peace is now.

Accept this probability, come to terms with it, and you will also be better prepared to realistically assess your situation and to make rational, practical plans for survival. The first fact you must accept is that no government agency will be able to help you. You must do it all yourself and/or with a tight knit group of family, friends or neighbors. Neither the US Federal Government nor any other national government on earth is going to be ready in time. Even if a few individual agencies do fix their systems, they are unlikely to be the ones that we, the people, really need. Government "missions" worldwide are aimed more at controlling people than helping them, so their definition of "mission critical systems" is unlikely to match your own. In any case, the drastically lowered economic activity in this period will cut the tax revenues of all governments, national and local, to the point that none will be able to afford to help and few will be able to service their debts and pay their present employees. It will be much worse than the 1930's because, this time around, government debt levels are greater, tax rates are already too high to be raised very much without serious opposition, and social "safety nets" already consume such an enormous portion of western economies that they, too, cannot be expanded without causing an even greater collapse. There'll be no spending our way out of this one. Worst of all, currencies like the US dollar are no longer backed by real assets as they were in 1929. Even the partial gold backing of the Euro is unlikely to instill sufficient confidence, in the context of a total economic collapse, to allow it to continue in use as a medium of exchange. The economic model for this can already be seen emerging in Russia -- a barter/exchange system, an almost totally ineffective government and virtual elimination of the welfare state. Oh, and on top of all this, you probably won't have a job.

No, in the short term, government is more likely to be your enemy than your friend. The United Kingdom, Canada and other nations have already announced contingency plans for martial law, which is just another name for a dictatorship. In spite of, and indeed because of, recent denials, I am certain the US will do the same. Such dictatorships usually begin for benign reasons, "for the good of the people", but they rarely achieve the stated intention and more often they get worse and more despotic as their failures become more apparent. Once established, they are almost impossible to remove without force of arms. As wiser men than I have said, those who trade their freedoms for the illusion of security are bound to lose both. I feel truly sorry for our European and Australasian friends who have done precisely this, trading the right to their weapons for the illusion of public safety and thereby practically guaranteeing the loss of both. The stormtroopers will have a field day throughout these countries. They will maintain "order" but at the cost of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It will be a long time before most countries taste freedom again.

Here in the US, it will at first be worse than Europe but, I think, it will get better sooner. We do have the second amendment; a wide availability of privately owned firearms and ammunition; and even a military which is predisposed towards the people rather than against them. But there is no cause for complacency and I think there are good reasons to conclude that we could well be in the beginnings of a second civil war before the end of 1999. The key indicator (not cause) for this is the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton and the divisions it has exposed within society. It doesn't really matter whether or not he is convicted because he would only be replaced by Al Gore, who is just as deeply hated by conservatives and just as likely to declare martial law. None of the possible outcomes can do anything to resolve the fundamental problems. For, in truth, we are a deeply divided nation, split almost down the middle between the political left and right. The polarization gets stronger each year, there is less and less dialogue, positions have become more deeply entrenched and anger, resentment and violence are boiling just below the surface (on both sides). This can only get worse when the Senate action is over and those on the right realize that nothing has changed and the system has badly let them down. This is the volatile mix, the powder keg, of a civil war and its dual fuses, the declining economy and Y2K have already been lit.

As 1999 progresses, as the global economy continues to decline and as more and more of the early Y2K failures occur, there will be some sudden, critical failure which will trigger a social crisis. There are so many possible causes, so many loaded cannon, that I cannot say which it will be or when. It might be the inevitable US stock market crash, it may be an international monetary collapse or it could simply be a handful of Y2K failures serious enough to finally wake up John Q. Public and to launch a series of bank runs. Whatever the cause, governments all over the world will seize on this as an excuse to put their plans for martial law into effect, hoping to have some kind of emergency administration in place before their existing systems are wiped out by Y2K. From their point of view, this would be the "right" thing to do, an ideal "contingency plan", and most of the world's peoples will accept it (if only because they don't have the weapons to oppose it).

But not here in the US. We do have weapons as well as a long, healthy tradition of mistrust of the government and its motives. Waco, Ruby Ridge and similar incidents may seem extreme and uncommon in the current peacetime context but they do show that Americans will resist government oppression, even in the face of overwhelming force. If a state of emergency is declared, if supplies or weapons are confiscated, such incidents are likely to increase (as are more violent incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing). You can bet your life your friendly Fred Fed is well aware of this and his emergency plans will absolutely, certainly, include the rounding up of private weapons -- even though this will trigger the very violence it is supposed to prevent. However, they are unlikely to attempt this with regular or national guard personnel. These people are trained to defend against outside enemies and they are unlikely to fire on private citizens or to confiscate private property (except in the case of a full fledged insurrection or riot). In addition, many are themselves strongly opposed to the present regime and believe strongly in the right to keep and bear arms. Their military weapons could just as easily end up being used against the government as for it. Fred Fed knows this, too.

This is why the initial US contingency plan is based on FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and civilian federal agents from various other departments. This is why FEMA thinks it needs trained snipers, SWAT teams and detectives experienced in performing background checks on private individuals. This is why the FBI is sending advance teams into areas most likely to shelter "dissidents". This is why BATF thinks it needs armed attack helicopters. This is why the law enforcement agents of fully civilian agencies like the USDA and BLM need to be more and more heavily armed (so that they, too, can be transferred into the fray when needed). This is why state and local police agencies are being gathered into the fold.

Ostensibly, the justification for this increased government control and the loss of civil liberties will be "public safety" from the small minority who really will try and take advantage of the situation. Isn't that always the excuse? But, as with gun control and the drug war, the difficult primary mission will soon be forgotten and agents will spend most of their time on the easier task of gathering information about innocent citizens and interfering with their lawful activities. This is why you must be very, very careful who you accept into your survival group or with whom you discuss your plans -- even if you are not storing arms and ammunition. Fred Fed (and your unprepared neighbor) is just as interested in your food and other supplies as he is in your weapons. After all, he and his family have to eat too!

In America, then, the first elephant we are likely to see will not be the purple mutants from the big city or divisions of well armed battle tanks. It will be Fred Fed, who has already proved he will reliably fire on private citizens (regardless of the legality of the action). The same Fred Fed who has already stated that he will steal private property if "he" thinks it necessary. So how do we deal with this elephant? The correct answer is "we don't". Quite apart from legal and christian-ethical considerations which should, rightfully, discourage us from overthrowing our government, your first choice in dealing with any elephant must always be to avoid him, if at all possible. In this case it means avoiding the conflict by caching most of your arms and supplies, while this is still possible and legal.

Preferably, you should have several smaller caches known only to you and to a highly trusted backup, one for each separate cache, someone who will pass the supplies on to your family or group if anything happens to you. This will minimize your potential losses to accident, theft and the machinations of Fred Fed. Each cache should have supplies for about a month, with at least twelve months total -- enough to last you through the summer of 2000 (by which time you should already be growing your own food). You don't need expensive dehydrated food or emergency rations designed to last for decades. Basic canned goods will all last for a couple of years and provide all of the nutrients you need. Staples like flour, dried milk, sugar and salt can also be stored for at least two years in sealed containers or buckets. Make up a month long set of family menus from these sorts of foods and store the whole lot in a single cache. Then repeat the same items in another cache for each additional month for which you are preparing. Be generous in the amounts so that you can feed additional mouths or spread the contents over a longer period of time if that becomes necessary. Add 25% for needy outsiders and this can be your insurance policy for a lost cache. This shouldn't cost more than a couple of hundred dollars per person and would also be good advice for non-americans. Your own first elephant may not be as big and bad as ours, but he'll still be after your food.

Of primary concern should be your assault or battle rifle and its ammunition, if you have one. You really won't need it for the first stages of meltdown and it is the most likely to be the subject of confiscation or registration (which is just a prelude to confiscation as it was in Nazi Germany, England and Australia). In the short term, before the rollover, you can adequately protect yourself and your family with a shotgun and/or a handgun which are less likely to be confiscated and will attract less attention. You will sorely need your rifle in the second stage of meltdown, after the rollover itself, when we really will have to deal with roving bands of purples and, quite probably, a more developed level of civil war. We also have a responsibility to keep alive the flame of freedom for our allies in other countries, even though they gave up that freedom themselves. A rifle can be stored for a couple of years, well oiled, in a sealed plastic bag (with desiccant to absorb the moisture). When you buy your (military surplus) ammunition make sure that it is already stored in sealed, moisture proof packs or cans. Store small amounts (say 200 rounds) in each of your caches.

Finally, if you haven't already done so, you need to convert most of your spare cash and paper investments into gold and/or silver coins. Depending on the value and risk, spread them across your caches or create separate caches for your coins, as I do. Keep a little cash and a few coins on hand for your daily needs and remember you can always convert one or two coins back into cash if necessary for short term needs or to pay the credit card bills. Keep most of your worth in precious metals from now on and nothing in stocks or bonds (unless you like gambling). The stock market bubble will burst and everything you still have invested will be lost. Same goes for banks. The bank runs will start when John Q. Public wakes up and anything you still have in your accounts will also be lost or at least restricted in the way you can use it. Personally, I converted most of my spare cash to gold during 1998 and withdraw all but a few hundred of the rest before the end of the year. Any new, extra cash will go straight into gold. Real estate is a big problem and you will have to decide for yourself just how seriously you are going to take this but I wouldn't want to own property in a major city in the last half of 1999. If you're going to, the time to sell is now, while prices are still high, interest rates are still low and there are still buyers. Put the proceeds into rural property and/or more precious metals.

These few simple precautions should cover you through the first stage of collapse, up to and including the Y2K rollover itself and the first few weeks of 2000. After that, you will need to be planning to grow your own food; to produce your own energy (including electric power and motor fuel); to survive the coming violence, disease and despair; and to pass on knowledge and technology to future generations. If you haven't already done so, you will also need to relocate from urban areas to somewhere with a smaller population and a greater carrying capacity. These are the subjects of following articles in the series.

_______________________________________

Copyright (C) 1999, y2000@infomagic.com

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

Big Dog:

Was Infomagic a doomer? Emphatically yes. Was he wrong with all his predictions so far? Emphatically yes. Has he vanished? Yes.

Big Dog's response to this: Attack Flint! What else?

Have you ever wondered *why* Infomagic has been so wrong? His analysis has clearly failed. What do you suppose led him astray? I'd like to get your input on the actual subject at hand. I doubt that attacking me is going to change the past, somehow.

So come on, let's hear something constructive and thoughtful for a change. I've explained why *I* think his analysis was wrong (evidence selected to support conclusions rather than vice versa). What's yours?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 26, 1999.

What Infomagic did not accurately predict was the continuous and absurdly high level of greed in the Stock Market. The NASDAQ is on a moon shot, and money is being furiously poured into its rocket fuel chambers. All of the experts did NOT see this incredibly robust rise, but some realize that the blow off will eventually top out and produce an amazingly fast plunge. The main element is the timing. I believe it will be totally unexpected and cause a massive panic.

Have you noticed how many bears have moderated and become quasi- bullish in their outlooks? I view this as a major warning sign when almost every person believes that the Stock Market will continually ascend to new highs. Have they forgotten that history bears witness of economic cycles? And we are in the greatest economic bubble ever! It is economically IMPOSSIBLE for this financial stock bubble to expand continually. IMPOSSIBLE! The time is ripe for a major crash. But no mere human knows WHEN...

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), November 26, 1999.

Seems he has been wrong so far because he assumed people would panic before now. It remains to be seen if the level of disruptions caused by faulty programming and embedded chips will lead to a devolutionary spiral as he predicts. It ain't over 'till its over. 35 days and counting.

Hoping you're right, Flint, and infomagic is wrong, wrong, WRONG.

No matter though what level of disruption you expect though, preparation makes sense. And if you don't feel that there will be ANY significant disruption... then what the heck are you doing here? [unless it is just your job to be here - too bad.. no day-after-Thanksgiving off?]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 26, 1999.

Far earlier this year I came across a link that is now buried in pile of stuff from a guy from AZ who had a paper post that was so similar to Infomagic it was errie. In my mind it came from the same person using the same logic, language and stastical analysis. It wasn't Prudent Bear but something like that. If I have time I'll delve through pile of printouts. At the time I though about writing about Infomagic unvieled (even if he would't admit it).

The real deal is that it is too early to prove him right or wrong. If you are into math et al like I am, you have to give the guy credience.

I still believe his analysis is correct.

Todd

-- Todd Detzel (detzel@jps.net), November 26, 1999.

Flint, I'm not following your logic. Why couldn't a Doomer who was wrong also "admit he didn't understand things very well" ? Is it required that every "wrong" Doomer vanish because InfoMagic did ? Are you extrapolating from a sample size of one ? Do you know for sure that InfoMagic disappeared 'because' he was wrong (about some things) ? Correlation is not causality, with your large brain I know you are aware of this. I think there are many Doomers who, if things don't go "InfoMagic" in the next 60 days, will simply "admit they didn't understand things very well". Why not ?

Please enlighten us as to your thinking here.

-- Count Vronsky (vronsky@anna.lit), November 26, 1999.

>the first time you light up your woodstove or turn >on your generator....you are toast

I have been very influenced by this type of thinking. My preps include no generator and no woodstove that can be heard or seen far away. (Yes, I have alternative heating and cooking...they have been discussed often in the prep forum).

Hopefully no-one will want to come here. (Thanks to the understanding wife who has been willing to put up with the scoffing of relatives. "So sorry for you, dear, that he made you move _there_.")

If Infomagic is wrong we can buy a yuppie palace with the money we have saved--if he is right we _may_ live through this.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), November 26, 1999.

Did anyone answer the original question? INFOMAGIC---"where is he?"

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 26, 1999.

Lars, why not ask him yourself, he's never made a secret of the fact that he is: mingham@infomagic.com

-- Count Vronsky (vronsky@anna.lit), November 26, 1999.

Linda: Thanks for posting Infomagic's work, definitely a good re-read.

Flint: I look forward to seeing your "Lookeee, Infomagic was wrong about Y2K." statement in April 2000. Until then, stop making yourself look like an ass.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 26, 1999.

A commentator can be right on the big picture, but wrong about details. Someone describing the eventual collapse of the Soviet Empire would have been hardpressed in advance of the event to predict with detail the improbable chain of events that led e.g. to the opening of the Berlin Wall. One of these events was a garbled radio transmission that may have been misunderstood by border guards. As it is often said, for want of a nail, a horse was lost, and thus an empire.

But life goes on. People manage even as empires collapse around them. When a system collapses, the opportunity is there for new structures and systems to emerge that perhaps were suppressed by the dominant powers of the "ancien regime". Those new systems may be bad -- or they may be good. We can end up in a worse situation -- or in a better situation. Or it may get a lot worse, and then a lot better.

The decisions we make and the actions we undertake can be seen as "votes" for a better or a worse outcome.

Got a free on-line book on coping with Y2k disruptions in the city?

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), November 26, 1999.

Count Vronsky:

Over on csy2k, Bradley Sherman has coined the term DSAS, which stands for Doomer Selective Amnesia Syndrome. Essentially (without citing case by case) what this refers to is that we haven't yet experienced any notable systemic problems at all. Yes, a few organizations have suffered major computer problems, but not many and without any chain reactions. No indications of public panic, no ill health in the market, etc.

Now, understand that many pessimists have made many pessimistic predictions of which Very Bad Things would happen when, the when being before today. Needless to say, none of these have come to pass. How do all these people account for this consistent pattern of failed predictions? Almost without exception, they drop the subject. When asked about it later, they don't respond. Several (like Milne) have made *many* predictions which have already failed. Their response in each case is to "forget" about them and continue to make more.

While few predictions are as solidly supported as Infomagic's, all of them are based on what the predictor considers a rational and informed assessment of available information. What I've done is assumed there is some common, systematic flaw underlying this consistent inability to make correct predictions. I'm not claiming that these people *want* bad things to happen -- few do. The pattern I've seen is that these people tend to fall into two errors: They base their predictions on a carefully selected subset of all information, and they tend to interpret information to force it to be consistent with their convictions, even when it's a stretch.

We see that sort of thing on this forum fairly consistently as well. If this problem is so big and pervasive (someone asks), why are the media ignoring it? Answer -- because the media are dumb, or lazy, or controlled by a conspiracy, or even *part* of the conspiracy. The possibility that things aren't so bad is NOT considered acceptable. And why hasn't the market tanked despite all predictions (someone asks)? Answer -- Either people are even dumber than we thought, or it's being propped up by a conspiracy, or it's part of that conspiracy. The possibility that the market isn't all that unhealthy to begin with is NOT considered acceptable. And so on ad nauseum.

I have yet to see anyone admit they were wrong, no matter that what happened was the opposite of what they predicted. In the very few cases where they actually "remembered" their prediction, they simply say they timed it wrong. It'll still happen, mind you. Later.

I admit I expected a *lot* of problems last January 1. For that matter, so did Bradley Sherman. He (and I) admit we got that one wrong. This leads me (at least) to question the method I used to arrive at my wrong conclusion. Maybe either there aren't as many lookahead date bugs as I'd feared, or they weren't as virulent on the whole as I'd feared. Maybe those who wrote those bugs had an exaggerated idea of their own importance in the global scheme of things.

But I'm not extrapolating from a sample size of 1. I am probably overgeneralizing to make a point, for which I apologize.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 27, 1999.

I think it would have been impossible to predict that the DOW wouldn't crash badly and that people wouldn't have panicked by this point. Which shows something...but logically, very logically, the stock market should be down around our ankles by now and people should be clearing the shelves...

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 27, 1999.

People have never been very good at prediciting the future, so don't be too tough on a person who makes a few mistakes. How many predicted the 1930's depression, or the economic decline of Japan starting in 1990? Who would have thought 15 years ago that Russia would be in the condition it is today? It is OK to guess, but we don't really know how y2k will play out.

-- Danny (dcox@ix.netcom.com), November 27, 1999.

Re: Infomagic's predictions of the stock market crash:

Infomagic's biggest mistake was in greatly underestimating the power of human greed and denial.

It is far, far stronger than most people think.

I always get so depressed after reading Infomagic. Need to go get prepared for my own death now.......(sigh)...........

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), November 27, 1999.

Flint--

I am a preparer. Call it prudency. But my overall view is what you just articulated so well. Thanks for hanging around.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 27, 1999.

Flint,

The refutation of your post is that we have never experienced a worldwide, simultaneous, real-time embedded systems "test", as we will on 1/1/2000. Therefore, to base an argument on what may or may not yet have happened is simply absurd.

-- eve (123@4567.com), November 28, 1999.

eve:

You're lost in your own little world. My post had nothing to do with embedded systems, it had to do with the way people have "taken responsibility" for failed predictions so far.

I see that you decided that embedded systems will cause big problems. You asked, and a lot of embedded systems people gave you fairly optimistic viewpoints based on knowledge and experience. They filled huge threads with details. Your response? Rejection, in favor of your original uninformed decision. Very good!

Now you claim that if people who have made incorrect predictions tend to vanish, that your embedded systems hangup is the point! On clear days, the sky is blue too. In about 6 weeks, you can come out from under the bad. Maybe by then, you'll be awake enough to understand what a "topic" is.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 28, 1999.

Infomagic could not predict the lengths the Fed and Greenspan would go to in order to protect and bolster the Market. If there had not been an elephant size shot of liquidity/broadening i.e. if the rules had remained the same, the Market would have long since tanked.

An ounce of fiscal policy prevention is worth many pounds of cure.

The Herstatt risk could be the real turd, in the Y2K punch bowl.

-- evianplease (karlacalif@aol.com), November 28, 1999.

Flint,

If you would be so kind as to keep the personal attacks to a minimum, I think my point will become clear to you if you would just answer a few questions; the first being:

What is your interest in being involved in a discussion of failed predictions?

-- eve (123@4567.com), November 28, 1999.

eve:

Presumably, predictions are based on analysis of information. If they're wrong (especially consistently WAY wrong), what might cause this? My theory is, failed predictions are based on incorrect interpretation of unrepresentative evidence. Why am I interested? Because this forum is essentially here to make a prediction -- that we face Big Problems in the near future. It seems appropriate to examine the track record, the mode of analysis, and the ability to learn from mistakes, of the people making these predictions.

My comments on this thread address the last of these, since those who refuse to admit they make mistakes don't learn from them. OK?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 28, 1999.

Dear Mr. Flint

I notice how you constantly mention the doomers refusal to acknowledge the good news about Y2K provided by the media and how they always seem to resort to some type of conspiracy theory to justify their ignoring it.

While I may not have any super overview of the whole Y2K problem, one small portion of it I have paid attention to is the media reporting. I assumed it would be bad. The media tells me it will be O.K. It now becomes, for me at least, a very simple question. Can I trust the media?

A very valid question came onto this site a few days or a week ago. Is Kosky telling citizens to prepare for 3 days while telling state govts and private business to prepare for 3 weeks and if so why? Perhaps there is a simple answer. Perhaps the answer is "no" he did not do that. The point is I live near metro NY and I could not find the question being asked in any newspaper or on any tv news show.

Same same for Ms. Garveys 100% claim of compliance for the airports dropping down to what? 34%?

Perhaps all the good news the media prints is true (yeah, right) but their failure to print anything that might make anyone question these happy face reports leads me to believe that for whatever reasons they ARE holding back the bad news.

I have seen too many valid questions asked that the media refused to ask of those supposedly responsible. The "good news only" slant of the press, around here at least, is too obvious to ignore and what good is genuine reporting of good news if not balanced by the less then good? That sundays picnic will proceed as scheduled at 8:00 A.M. will not make me feel any better knowing a potential "but the nuke plant may/will explode at 8:30 is not being mentioned.

My local utility, PSE&G, originally reported it would be ready by 2005. The Jim Lord Naval site also listed it as toast.I then read how the govt was going to hire a PR firm to throw a nice slant on Y2K reporting. Now a year later our mayor and our press says it will be finished in time yet no one has bothered to attempt to explain how this miracle came about. They simply say everything is fine. Should I feel foolish for doubting this and not simply taking the media at their word?

The U.S. govt told people in 1918 not to worry about the flu. How many died? Millions? The U.S. govt told people in Memphis not to worry about the disease (what was it? Malaria?) headed their way. Half of those who listened and stayed died. When Mt. Pele blew it killed all of the inhabitants who the local govt had forcibly prevented from leaving becase the local mayor needed them at home for the upcoming election. Are you suggesting that one has to be an extremist to doubt the govt? Or that a govt would not lie to its citizens?

If you wish to continue believing everything you read, fine. The only spin on media reporting is to make good news sound good and behind closed door hearings on Y2K are done only to prevent good news form leaking out. If this is the world you choose to live in. Enjoy it. Also donate those preps of yours to some food bank. I understand you bought them a long time ago but you've seen the reports, you know its all fixed. No need to keep them around any more. And while I don't begrudge you your happy little polly world, please don't begrude me my doomer world where the media is most definitely biased and the govt does not always tell the truth.

As for infomagic and his failed predictions, remember these were made before the spin control set in and it may be assumed he factored in the reactions of the average citizen to all the bad news that they would be encountering NOT

-- thomas thatcher (jabawaki@erols.com), November 28, 1999.

thomas:

[I notice how you constantly mention the doomers refusal to acknowledge the good news about Y2K provided by the media and how they always seem to resort to some type of conspiracy theory to justify their ignoring it.]

I do this because it's constantly the case. There are several good, procedural explanations for superficial media coverage. Nobody mentions them.

[While I may not have any super overview of the whole Y2K problem, one small portion of it I have paid attention to is the media reporting. I assumed it would be bad. The media tells me it will be O.K. It now becomes, for me at least, a very simple question. Can I trust the media?]

Interestingly, I (and if you've been paying attention, you too) have seen numerous complaints, *by members of the media*, that by failing to dig and study the subject adequately, reporters have fallen victim to *uninformed, irresponsible fear-mongering!!!* Now, I don't accept this interpretation myself. My point is that your *interpretation* of the media's message depends on your convictions FAR MORE than it does on the actual coverage. If you're a head-in-the-sand optimist, y2k coverage overemphasizes the bad news. If you're a loony doomer, y2k coverage is a whitewash. Curious, isn't it?

So I'm not saying at all that the media can be trusted. I'm saying your distrust is based entirely on the media's message not being what you think you should be hearing.

And I should point out that nearly every bit of the bad news chewed on here comes from media coverage! So my contention is that you are trusting the media coverage *very selectively*, swallowing all bad news whole (or exaggerating it), while dismissing the good news as spin.

[Perhaps all the good news the media prints is true (yeah, right) but their failure to print anything that might make anyone question these happy face reports leads me to believe that for whatever reasons they ARE holding back the bad news.]

Conveniently "forgetting" the many many news stories posted here as "evidence" of big problems. Can't you even SEE you're doing this?

[I have seen too many valid questions asked that the media refused to ask of those supposedly responsible. The "good news only" slant of the press, around here at least, is too obvious to ignore and what good is genuine reporting of good news if not balanced by the less then good?]

An interesting position there. I ask you: If 90% of the news really is good, then is "proper" balance 50-50? What if 90% of the news were bad? Would you still complain about imbalance? Be honest. It appears that like most people, you simply cannot see *any* practical difference between "fair" and "in my favor".

[That sundays picnic will proceed as scheduled at 8:00 A.M. will not make me feel any better knowing a potential "but the nuke plant may/will explode at 8:30 is not being mentioned.]

Nor do they mention the possibility of a meteor strike, or the second coming, or the aliens landing, or any of a long list of equally unlikely disasters. Your conviction that the nuke plant might explode is a self-serving fiction, and you want the media to endorse it. And if they don't, they're covering things up? Earth to thomas!

[I then read how the govt was going to hire a PR firm to throw a nice slant on Y2K reporting.]

No you did not. This is again your own personal self-serving interpretation. Just hypothetically, let's say you KNEW your organization was compliant, but you also knew the doubting thomases simply refused to believe it on general principles. Now, how do you get the word out? You aren't a PR person, so you hire one. Those selling remediation services ALSO hire PR firms to help them drum up business. It's called advertising, even though a good PR agency can get dire speculations reported as straight news. Are you saying that PR you happen to agree with suddenly becomes more honest? Hah!

[Now a year later our mayor and our press says it will be finished in time yet no one has bothered to attempt to explain how this miracle came about. They simply say everything is fine. Should I feel foolish for doubting this and not simply taking the media at their word?]

No, they won't be finished in time. Nobody will. But they have a little problem so well illustrated on this forum -- that people see things in black and white. There's no such thing as "close enough", so either you're "fine" or you're "toast". No middle ground. And you yourself are exhibit A that *unless* they say they're fine, you'll "read between the lines" and conclude they're toast. Of course, if they say they're "fine" you simply conclude they're lying and toast anyway.

[The U.S. govt told people in 1918 not to worry about the flu. How many died? Millions? The U.S. govt told people in Memphis not to worry about the disease (what was it? Malaria?) headed their way. Half of those who listened and stayed died. When Mt. Pele blew it killed all of the inhabitants who the local govt had forcibly prevented from leaving becase the local mayor needed them at home for the upcoming election. Are you suggesting that one has to be an extremist to doubt the govt? Or that a govt would not lie to its citizens?]

Of course not. Governments lie for a living. Trying to piece the truth together from all the filtered reports we get is hard. Just try to bear in mind that *everything* is spun, not just the good news.

[If you wish to continue believing everything you read, fine.]

Never have, and never said I do. I'm skeptical of ALL these reports, good and bad (and not *just* skeptical of the good ones). You, on the other hand, are ready to swallow any bad news you can find at face value. Think about it.

[...please don't begrude me my doomer world where the media is most definitely biased and the govt does not always tell the truth.]

Well, I already mentioned that the *perceived direction* of media bias depends MUCH more on your own bias than on the actual reporting. Your position is based on selected interpretation of selected material. I'm not saying the cases you cite are incorrect. But for every one of them, you could cite 1,000 where media coverage turned out to be correct, or government action proper. And you carefully fail to mention a *single one*. Who are you to complain of bias?

[As for infomagic and his failed predictions, remember these were made before the spin control set in...]

Huh? You think spin is something new? If the problems Infomagic predicted had even half come to pass, NO amount of spin could have covered them up. People would be LIVING with them constantly. Infomagic's predictions failed because there flat haven't been any big problems for people to react to. It's that simple. Your apology for Infomagic is no more than grasping at straws. Nearly ALL the failed predictions failed for lack of trigger events.

All I'm asking is that you consider everything on its own merits and think clearly. You can do it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 28, 1999.

Flint,

Do Infomagic's failed predictions, in and of themselves, lead you to automatically discount (not necessarily dismiss), at least to some extent, the remainder of his writings?

-- eve (123@4567.com), November 29, 1999.

Flint, I don't want to be another doomer dog ganging up on you, but you can clearly handle it, and probably enjoy it is my guess. I recognize and respect the intellectual integrity of your main point. Regarding your interesting rebuttal of the media bias complaint I wonder if you are forgetting some important cases in point. To me the "media" that counts is that which reaches the masses of people, not trade journals or the like, in other words the mainstream media--USA Today, CNN etc. Question: Where in the mainstream media have you seen any story itemizing some of the gloomier statements from the Feb 1999 U.S. Senate Y2K Committee report? Same question regarding the September report from the same body. What about the Dec 31, 1998 deadlines that if anybody made they decided to keep it a secret. Was that apparent massive missed deadline too trivial to mention in the press or did I just miss something? What about data from Cap Gemini and CIOMagazine suggesting that huge numbers of large companies will not be ready by year's end? Not newsworthy I guess.

I think your point about how judging the media is influenced by your viewpoint is worthwhile, but how can even a neutral and rational person look at omissions on the scale of the above examples and not wonder if something is fishy?

-- David Tasgal (tasmania@valinet.com), November 29, 1999.

David:

You raise good points. I'm reluctant to give simple answers to complex questions, and this thread is already getting very long. Ah well,...

[Regarding your interesting rebuttal of the media bias complaint I wonder if you are forgetting some important cases in point. To me the "media" that counts is that which reaches the masses of people, not trade journals or the like, in other words the mainstream media--USA Today, CNN etc. Question: Where in the mainstream media have you seen any story itemizing some of the gloomier statements from the Feb 1999 U.S. Senate Y2K Committee report? Same question regarding the September report from the same body.]

I agree that the shape of coverage is molded to the target audience. And as I recall the target audience of the mass media has an assumed 7th grade education. You would expect other sources to present a more nuanced picture, and they do. One of my issues here is, the inhabitants of this forum are NOT a nuanced audience by and large. They "read between the lines", which in practice has meant stripping out the nuances and exaggerating every warning they can find, and misinterpreting the observations they read in a systematic way. I read the Senate report, and it sounded fairly well informed. But at least 90% of the "commentary" on this forum consisted of repeating a single sentence from someone from International Monitoring like it were some kind of mantra. And that was the single gloomiest sound- bite in the entire report! And of course, that statement is now widely regarded hereabouts as "typical" of the Senate report content.

And you should be aware that 60 Minutes (the most watched show on TV) did TWO segments on y2k, and these were hardly a whitewash of the situation. But yes, most of the mass media make little effort to dig into the details. The complaint made on this forum, despite the way it's worded, isn't that the mass media coverage is unbalanced. Rather, the complaint is that the mass media are failing in their *duty* to present a fringe viewpoint as being the accurate or objective viewpoint. And as I've said endlessly, this fringe viewpoint is supported only by the most biased possible reading of the tea leaves.

[What about the Dec 31, 1998 deadlines that if anybody made they decided to keep it a secret. Was that apparent massive missed deadline too trivial to mention in the press or did I just miss something? What about data from Cap Gemini and CIOMagazine suggesting that huge numbers of large companies will not be ready by year's end? Not newsworthy I guess.]

Relatively few organizations made such a claim, though Gary North found a couple dozen and drummed on them incessantly. However, that does NOT reflect how remediation is done whatsoever. That deadline (at least in North's presentation, which you seem to have accepted), implied that organizations would fix ALL bugs without testing anything until the last day of 1998, and then test ALL code without fixing, for one year.

That's nonsense. In practice, they started with the most important systems and worked down the list. And bugs are unit-tested as they're fixed. Quite a few organizations had all their most important systems fixed, unit and system tested, and back into production by the end of last year or early this year. At that time, their middle-of-the-list systems were still in the fix and unit test phase, while the least important hadn't even been looked at. As time has passed, they've continued working down the list, returning less and less critical systems to production all the time.

And no, they won't finish all systems. I doubt anyone will. The idea of a "massive missed deadline" simply doesn't apply to the most efficient and logistically feasible approach to the problem. The question isn't one of a missed deadline, it's more like "How can we best fix the maximum amount of functionality as quickly and cheaply as possible?"

I suspect that those who made the 12/31/98 statements were merely trying to emphasize that they were ahead of the game.

The issue of not being "ready" is devilish. Like many here, I believe organizations went from "compliance" to "readiness" for several reasons -- full compliance is impossible, perfect is the enemy of excellent, compliance is binary while readiness is a spectrum. You've read the estimate that 90-something percent of organizations have *already* encountered date bugs. Oops, they weren't ready, and the bugs bit. The biggest date bug problem reported so far is the year 1900 printed on 500 juror notices. Head For The Hills!, right? Maybe, despite the Party Line around here, you don't need to be 100% ready to survive. Maybe 90% ready means longer hours for the geeks, and 80% ready means some delays and firefighting, mostly confidential.

And how about 0% ready? We have good solid indications that many many organizations plan a pure fix on failure, with NO remediation at all! How many will die as a result? I predict the bankruptcy rate for the next 6 months will be about 10% above normal. Experience based on all those already suffering date bugs (the vast majority) suggests that date bugs per se tend to be easy to find and fix, with some really nasty exceptions. We shall see.

[I think your point about how judging the media is influenced by your viewpoint is worthwhile, but how can even a neutral and rational person look at omissions on the scale of the above examples and not wonder if something is fishy?]

Simple, though unpopular here. First, as I've written in some detail, these weren't "omissions" in any real sense of the word. The perception that the "missed deadlines" were ignored is an artifact of a (perhaps deliberate) misrepresentation of the remediation process itself. The perception that "huge numbers will not be ready" is being ignored, is an artifact of the assumption that not being ready *necessarily* means huge, visible problems.

Look, even Sysman agreed at one point that if we through some miracle had fixed *precisely* the most critical 5% of all date bugs, and missed the other 95%, we'd hardly even have a BITR. Conversely, if we'd fixed only the least critical 95%, the results would be essentially the same as if we'd never fixed a thing!

So now an organization has fixed, let's say, their most important 50% of all date bugs. Are they in good shape? You betcha! And most organizations have fixed *at least* that many, and they really do understand which systems are critical. By any rational definition, they are "ready", yet they have NO HOPE of completing the entire task to the very last drop.

NOW, David, I ask you. If you were a journalist, HOW would you spin this situation? Would you emphasize what has NOT been done, knowing it's unimportant, creating a picture of a lost cause without ever actually saying so and letting your readers draw incorrect conclusions? Would you describe this company as "substantially complete" and not expecting any serious problems, knowing it's true but "omitting" the fact that they aren't going to finish every detail? You have 2 million organizations to report on and you have 12 column inches to do it in. What do you write, that's most descriptive of the reality?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 29, 1999.

Dear Mr. Flint

My problem is that I have a DGI girlfriend who refuses to give any credence to anything posted on the internet as she (correctly) claims that anyone can put anything on the net. It doesn't have to be true. I therefore have been paying a great deal of attention to print which she considers more "real" for some reason, trying to put together a folder of news clippings to present to her showing there might be some problems. I realize now that I have been wasting my time since you have pointed out that I have some type of subconcious block that prevents me from seeing anything but the good news which is strange since most pollys accuse doomers of only seeing the bad news.

"Interestingly, I (and if you've been paying attention, you too) have seen numerous complaints, *by members of the media*, that by failing to dig and study the subject aequately, reporters have fallen victim to *uninformed, irresponsible fear-mongering!!!* "

I don't suppose any of the polly posters out there could point out some of this uninformed,irresponsible fear-mongering to me as published in any major newspaper? No, I didn't think so. Or maybe just one story, again in a major newspaper that even mentions Koskys contradicting advice to individuals and business. Please, they don't have to agree with it, they can pollinize it all they want, I'd just like to see it mentioned. "So I'm not saying at all that the media can be trusted. I'm saying your distrust is based entirely on the media's message not being what you think you should be hearing."

I notice you don't even consider the possibility that I'm simply reporting what I see. I'm sure the NY metro area has a fair share of pollys and they can post with the bad news for Y2K articles that I have missed. After all, as you point out, that's all they can see. If they really want to help people GI that the problem is resolved, it won't take much to convince me that you are correct. Just a couple of articles from the New York Times, or the News or Post. I see them, I realize how I did not permit myself to see them when they were first printed and I make the connection. POW ! Wow Tom you really have been blocking it out. I doubt it though. The only real blocking I see around here..... well forgive me for pointing it out but you are always so quick to mention how everyone else in the world is blocking out anything they don't want to hear or see and have yet to suggest that you yourself might be suffering from this selective viewing of reality fixation that the rest of us experience.

Informagic made his predictions when various govt agencies were freely admitting completion dates of 2009, 2014 etc. If these figures were still being given out you don't think that could have had an effect on the stock market or contributed to panic buying? And, like my own local utility, no one has explained how agencies originally claiming to need 10+ years to remediate suddenly managed to do it in 1. If you cannot see the extent of the govts spin then perhaps you should look a little deeper into yourself for indications of selective reality viewing.

Wishing you well

-- thomas thatcher (jabawaki@erols.com), November 30, 1999.

thomas:

I guess my writing is really unclear. Sorry. I'll keep trying.

OK, we have an organization that, 2 years ago, announced they'd be finished in 2009. That same organization now claims they're essentially finished. How can this be? Yes, I know the Party Line here is that they were telling the pure truth 2 years ago, and they're lying now. And off we go trying to explain *why* they're lying. And the answer boils down to pressure being applied by shortsighted and evil people.

Now, consider some of the following points:

1) Two years ago, they were still assessing. We KNOW they lacked sufficient information for that 2009 estimate to be more than a wild guess.

2) We KNOW that government agencies are always looking for some way, any way, to boost their budgets. Is it even remotely possible that they may have exaggerated their problems just a tad? That they created absolutely worst-case estimates based on very little hard information because they'd have been fools not to? Had their estimates been realistic, that good money would have gone to *someone else*!

3) The original 2009 estimate, hazy as it was, was based on their then-current rate of remediation -- which was almost nil. Is it even remotely possible that this rate has changed dramatically? We KNOW it has.

4) We KNOW this lobbying effort was successful, since the Federal remediation budget tripled in the interim. Is it all that amazing that problems get fixed much faster when you're working on them than when you're not?

5) We KNOW these agencies are under pressure to exaggerate their progress today, just as they were motivated to exaggerate the size of their task 2 years ago. We have excellent reason to believe that current estimates are just as unreliable as they were 2 years ago, for similar reasons. But at least today's estimates are based on hard information, not guesses.

6) We KNOW that all y2k bugs are not created equal. Pareto's law applies here -- you can retain 80% of your functionality by fixing 20% of your bugs, if the effort is directed intelligently. Sysman estimated that you can retain 99% of your functionality by fixing 5% of your bugs, if your effort is omnicient. Nobody is omnicient, but most organizations have fixed well over 20% of their bugs.

So be careful of worst-case linear analysis. It sounds to me like you're saying (1) It was a 10-year effort; (2) It could not be accelerated; (3) Progress is linear, so they can't be more than 1/10th done; and (4) Therefore they are sure to "fail".

But a little common sense tells us that (1) was a deliberate exaggeration, (2) is simply false, (3) is a conclusion based on a false assumption applied to that exaggeration, and (4) is an article of faith

When do I think they'll be "done"? Not in my lifetime. When do I think they'll be "close enough for government work"? Today, on the whole. How close is that? Not very, but that's pretty normal. It seems most reasonable to conclude that things weren't nearly as bad as they claimed 2 years ago, and things aren't nearly as good as they claim today. And I'm skeptical of anything more specific, because specifics depend on the details, and these cannot be predicted.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 30, 1999.

Flint says:

I have yet to see anyone admit they were wrong, no matter that what happened was the opposite of what they predicted. In the very few cases where they actually "remembered" their prediction, they simply say they timed it wrong. It'll still happen, mind you. Later.

I say:

On at least two occasions, one in csy2k and one on one of the fora here, I believe, I have admitted that my predictions were wrong.

If you feel up to chasing down the instances, have at it.

And to be wrong in the timing while still holding to the original predictions does not _automatically_ make one's reasoning suspect as you would imply from your comment.

George

-- George Valentine (georgevalentine@usa.net), November 30, 1999.

Should I even try? I think you're just playing.

You are doing exactly what you are accusing me of. Govt agencies that reported bad news (we'll be done in 2007) were not reporting honestly. The reason for this of course is a bunch of evil agency heads trying to gather unneeded or deserved wealth. Wow. A polly conspiracy.

I am quite prepared to accept that many of these agencies have progressed much quicker then expected. Some might actually make it in one year. See, I'm not hard to get along with. But that all of these govt agencies lied to differing extents that result in all of them actually having almost the same amount of real remediation to handle is just a little too much. Those that predicted 2014 exaggerated by 14 years, those predicting 2009 by 9 years, 2005 by 5 etc. when the truth is that all will be finished (lets not get into your feelings here, we're talking about what is being reported) by Dec 1999. That 14 months before the new year all those that began work discovered they had 14 months of work to do while in Feb of 99 all those just beginning discovered they only had 10 months of work and last month around Nov 1, those just beginning discovered they could finish in just 60 days. Wow, this just too closely resembles the stories I use to hear about fat men in red suits climbing down my chimney or tiny winged broads who buy teeth. But I don't think that will make any difference to you. I think the debates you get yourself involved with on this forum are for entertainment purposes only. If you actually believed any of the things you said you wouldn't still be holding onto all those preps. And if you actually do believe.... well I aint all that eddycated and so I don't even know what the proper definiation of them meme things are that everyone's talking about but perhaps you should check into them. Best Wishes

-- thomas thatcher (jabawaki@erols.com), November 30, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Flint says: I have yet to see anyone admit they were wrong, no matter that what happened was the opposite of what they predicted.

Does this ring a bell? I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. As you can imagine, I've given this a lot of thought, and I think these are the reasons I was wrong: They then go on for hundreds of words about that. Here's your hint.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), November 30, 1999.

Dancr: Your "hint" link does not work.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 30, 1999.

thomas:

As far as I can tell, there has never been any good motivatiion for any government agency, unlike the private sector, to produce an accurate report of their y2k status or progress. You said they were "freely admitting" dates a decade and more away. I tried to point out that while their information was slim at the time, they had good motivation to lobby for resources while those resources were there for the grabbing. So they lobbied, producing preposterous estimates.

NOW, things are different and they are under pressure to report being in great shape. OK, they report great shape. I regard this as *equally* preposterous. When you get rewarded for saying one thing and penalized for saying another, you go for the reward and not the penalty. Doh! And the truth? I don't think it enters the equation anywhere. That's my opinion.

So I think you are comparing one fabrication with another in such a way as to support your opinion. And that's fine. My own opinion is that government departments and agencies, in general, are in poor shape because the motivation to get things fixed aren't much greater than the motivation to be honest about it. I have little confidence in government to function very well -- their track record stinks.

I tried to give some reasons why it's *possible* that they're in better shape than either of us believes. It is possible, just unlikely. We shall see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 30, 1999.