Russ Kelly's December 1999 Expert Rankings:

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Russ Kelly's December 1999 Expert Rankings: Click Here

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 03, 1999

Answers

Thanks Ray for the update post!

This is what drives me crazy...such a range of expectations. A close look at the record of rankings for each shows me what the individuals have done for their research.

Expert opinion aside, everyone is susceptible to human nature, and once we make up our minds (statistically) it's hard to change our opinions...

Embedded systems + late start + poor project management + incomplete data available + unverifiable data + the truly awesome scope of the problem to begin with (global) = BIG PROBLEMS AHEAD.

You've got to be delusional to truly think it'll be a BITR!

IMHO.

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), December 03, 1999.


Has Nicholas Zvegintzov been institutionalized yet? Seems to me the boy is suffering from a bad case of DGI. I think this has been added to the list of psychiactric disorders hasn't it? Just curious.

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 03, 1999.

The spread is amazing. It makes me wonder whether the experts are actually reviewing data, or whether some are simply giving an opinion off the top of their heads.

Maybe a reasonable way of looking at the rankings, is to do what the olympic scorers do: Drop the highest and the lowest scores, and then average what is left. Doing it that way, it still looks like a pretty bumpy three day storm.

gene

-- Gene (ekbaker@essex1.coM), December 03, 1999.


What I find disturbing about this list of experts is that most of them make some or all of their living as lecturers, authors, or heads of organizations, the purpose of all of which is to emphasize the magnitude of the problem. Russ Kelly himself is author of "Y2K: An Equal Opportunity Destroyer".

The contrast with those whose current professions don't depend on, or who aren't remuneriated by, banging the drum about y2k is amazing -- those four provide estimates of 0.2, 0.75, 1.95, and 4.0.

Otherwise, we have a co-leader of a year2000 working group, the president of an organization devoted to developing solutions to the "crisis", the editor of a y2k newsletter with 20,000 subscribers, a speaker and writer on the embedded systems "crisis" (with no credentials), and so on and on.

This illustrates one of the difficulties of coming up with a panel of experts -- you tend to select from among those most actively involved. Since there's no particular market for concern about small problems, we find the panel selecting for those who feel there's a big problem, and are making (at least part of) their living saying so. It's extremely hard to find people who have studied the issue in depth, concluded there just isn't much to it, and gone on with their lives.

I really hope that Russ Kelly keeps polling these people for 2 or 3 more months, changing the question from "how bad do you think it will be" to "how bad do you think it IS" after rollover. I'd be willing to bet that those who thought it *would* be bad beforehand, are also convinced it's bad when it's happening, and vice versa.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 03, 1999.


Yep. And just like in 1930's, people like Flint will be denying that the country has entered a depression.

-- a (a@a.a), December 03, 1999.


Yup, just as people like 'a' look around and see that we've been miserable for years and only a few miserable people realize it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 03, 1999.

Flint-

"The contrast with those whose current professions don't depend on, or who aren't remuneriated by, banging the drum about y2k is amazing -- those four provide estimates of 0.2, 0.75, 1.95, and 4.0"

This is the classic chicken or egg argument; Are the people predicting 6's-10's doing it ONLY to make a buck, or did they get involved in warning others because THEY REALLY BELIEVE it will be bad, and decided to make a living out of it along the way. A vested interest does not necessarily have to have sinister meanings.

"It's extremely hard to find people who have studied the issue in depth, concluded there just isn't much to it, and gone on with their lives. "

Why is this? There seems to be plenty of them over at Debunkers board for example. Aren't there ANY there with credentials? Why don't we see nearly as many experts on the polly side who seem to have any kind of a grasp of the overall picture?

The same "vested interest" argument can be made against all those in industry and government who may know something different from what they are saying publicly; that they are merely protecting their jobs by putting a smiley face on their remediation efforts.

The difference is that those who have the guts to say that Y2K may very well be devastating have much more to lose. If it's BITR, then they will be ridiculed and some may have a hard time finding employment in the future, while those who fudged the truth but got off easily will breath a big sigh of relief. OTOH, If it's bad, the corporate and governmental cover-up artists will all be in the same boat, and will be saying "Gee, we did the best we could"....

-- (cavscout@fix.net), December 03, 1999.


cavscout:

On the whole, I agree with your points. It stands to reason that those who are most active about y2k are those who are most concerned, and ALSO are those who are most visible as "experts". I should point out that Charles Reuben IS "Mr. Debunker" over on that other forum, and I consider him as much a frothing extremist as Paul Milne. But my observation that the high numbers are from those with a strong vested interest in predicting big problems remains true.

What surprises me is the largely rock-steady numbers these experts have submitted over the course of the last year. You would think, with all the attention y2k is getting and all the various announcements being made, that their numbers would have shown trends, not just held still. To me, this suggests quite strongly that opinions are impervious to data. Not surprising.

Yet read what these experts said a year or two ago, and they'd have been almost without exception astounded that we'd be sitting here in December 1999 STILL waiting for our very first newsworthy date bug, that massive remediation of now-in-production code and new implementations would have failed to produce even an economic ripple, or that the public at large, still waiting for any sign of problems whatever, would have adopted a wait and see, "where's the beef" attitude.

Two years ago, these experts were expecting 1999 to be a year of progressive breakdowns, a y2k segment on the news every night, increasing public unrest, etc. The Big Nothing we've seen actually happening would have astonished them -- if you'd predicted what we've seen up until now, they'd have laughed at you for being so naive and blindly optimistic. Yet over these two years, they've seen no problems. They've seen all expired predictions fail miserably. And what do they do? They keep posting the exact same big numbers, month after uneventful month. Why?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 03, 1999.


Flint,

I'll bet that very few Fortune 1000 companies are running 2000 compliant code in 1999 Production. Face it, 1999 compliant code is perfect for production NOW! It is seasoned, and with several years in production, thoroughly debugged.

2000 Compliant software is unseasoned, and even if ALL the Y2K stuff is corrected, the incidental bugs will have to be found.



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), December 04, 1999.


Flint-

Agreed- Rueben is an obnoxious loudmouth extremist to be set aside with those like Milne. Their haranguing diatribes don't do much to enlighten anyone on either side of the issue.

You asked why polly numbers change and doomer numbers remain more or less stable. I think the answer is relatively simple; Both sides want proof that the other is right, and neither is satisfied with the proof they're being offered. Now, before you blast me for oversimplifying, let me explain what I mean.

I went back and glanced at the numbers and what I saw was this: you are right; the pollies, notably Rueben and Simpson, have systematically lowered their numbers, presumably because they REALLY BELIEVE that the work IS being done, and the code is getting fixed, hence, the disaster (even a little one) will be largely avoided. In their minds every negative story can be countered by several reports of work completed, code fixed, disaster narrowly averted. For them 99%, 95%, even 85% is good enough, the systems will survive, and it will all be fixed in a week or two at most.

The "Doomers", OTOH, have remained more or less where they started, fluctuating a point or two at most. I presume this is because they REALLY BELIEVE that the work is NOT being done, and systems will fail.

You Said:

"Yet over these two years, they've seen no problems. They've seen all expired predictions fail miserably. And what do they do? They keep posting the exact same big numbers, month after uneventful month. Why?"

I don't think that it is because they haven't seen failures, because:

1) we HAVE seen failures, although as you say, not nearly to the extent some had predicted, but,

2) More than the lack of failures, I think that the reason they still believe Y2K will wreak at least SOME havoc is that they, like many of us, just don't believe what we are being told by both government and industry. Especially government- you know as well as I that they are juggling the number of mission critical systems in order to make the percentage of compliant systems look good. I could go on with other examples, but that's not really the point of the argument. As I inferred in my earlier post, there is just too much to lose, legally speaking, for almost any company to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And that is what we "doomers" want to hear; EXACT figures, COMPLETE SURVEYS, as much and as complete information as we can get. The stakes are just too high to base this decision (whether or not to prepare) on incomplete information. If ONE TREE in Idaho can take power down in seven western states in 1996, then it is going to take a HELL of a lot to convince me that a handful of "uncle joe's power companies, inc." going down won't take the whole grid with them.

Anyway, that's my take, thanks for listening.

-- (cavscout@fix.net), December 04, 1999.



cavscout:

Yes, it's true that it's impossible to prove a negative -- that problems won't happen. All the exactitude you could possibly hope for would get you no closer to such a proof. And you must admit that what information we DO get about progress and testing is largely discounted here on the grounds of self-interest (but ONLY those self- interested in reporting good news. Remediation firms reporting *potential* problems are swallowed whole).

But not only are the big numbers steady, they're up in the 9-10 range. I can understand uncertainty not being satisfiable before the event, so I can understand sitting somewhere in the 5 range and unable to drop below that because of that uncertainty. But 9-10? As I said, these people predicted MUCH worse by now. It didn't happen, and their numbers didn't change. The vast preponderance of our information now points to a mostly manageable level of problems (with isolated exceptions), yet they claim problems will NOT be manageable.

Yes, we have a mountain of evidence that there will be problems. We also have a mountain of evidence by now (given all the date bugs already encountered and all the botched new implementations) that our systems are far less fragile than such a dire prediction MUST continue to assume.

So I tried to say that these 9-10 level "experts" have effectively painted themselves into a corner. They cannot admit their expectations have been (and likely will be) far worse than their current numbers, since that would (1) obviate the purpose of their efforts to date; and (2) undermine their current positions and activities. If I'd spent years devoting my efforts to something that more and more clearly became obvious was a waste of time, I'd have a DAMN hard time recognizing this.

And as you noticed, those who hadn't married themselves to the problem watched the information flow by over the last year or two, recognized it for what it was, and adjusted their estimates accordingly. They could AFFORD to do so.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 04, 1999.


There is plenty of evidence that the work is not being completed on schedule, such as Yandeni's latest survey and the Cap Gemeni survey. Also, most problems do not get reported in the news until they begin to affect the public in some significant way. Accounting and planning systems are important to companies, but problems are not going to make the news reports when they begin to happen.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), December 04, 1999.

flintster-

Have the doomers painted themselves into a corner, or have the pollies conveniently overlooked the facts and adjuisted their numbers accordingly? That is the question which will begin to be answered in 28 days. There is self-interest on BOTH sides- that's my whole point, but 'nuff said about this topic. You make cogent points without inflammatory rhetoric, and that is a good thing for this forum. Until next time, Sir......

-- cavscout (cavscout@fix.net), December 04, 1999.


Cavscout, Flint...................good debate!!!!

-- ((applause)) (karlacalif@aol.com), December 04, 1999.

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