THOUGHTS AT THE EDGE OF THE MILLENNIUM

by Michael Brownlee

Sit down, and be quiet. You are drunk, and this is the edge of the roof.  Rumi

Part One: Thinking the Unthinkable

A common response to a threat to ones paradigms is to flee into protective ignorance by ignoring and refusing to learn any information which might contradict those paradigms.  John David Garcia

In the early stages of the crisis, Y2K revealed our very human tendency to deny and hide from issues that seem too complex to understand. We had already experienced this to some extent with other complex and troublesome issues: the Vietnam war, the ecological deterioration of our environment, global warming, AIDS and other intractable new diseases, and of course the shattering impact and implications of quantum physics. But in the closing years of the 20th century, nothing made our tendency for resistance and denial stand out in such sharp relief as the Y2K crisis. (Notes from the Future: Ten Years After Y2K)

Nearly everyone is weary of hearing about Y2K. To many its a joke, a ridiculous phantom blown wildly out of proportion by the lunatic fringe via the Internet. To others, its a dire emergency that threatens our very way of life.

To government and business, Y2K is an expensive headache that has consumed vast resources  money and manpower  at nearly uncontrollable rates, approaching an estimated $600 billion in this country alone, $1 trillion worldwide. Damage from Y2K-related failures plus inevitable lawsuits could total as much as $3 trillion  not including the long-term economic impact that could result from this crisis.

But to most people, Y2K is now a non-issue. While the doom-and-gloomers initially raised disturbing warnings of impending infrastructure meltdown, such fears have been largely quelled through massive public relations efforts sponsored by the White House, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, banks, government agencies, and major corporations. The now fairly consistent message  the official story  comes down to this:

Y2K was indeed a challenge, but we now have it firmly under control. Weve worked hard to complete the needed repairs, and our computer systems are now ready for the rollover date. We are confident that there will be no major problems, and whatever minor problems do show up will be fixed in very short order. You can count on business as usual. You can continue to depend on life as we have known it. The flow of goods and services will continue uninterrupted, and in a few weeks we can put this whole Y2K fiasco behind us. Nothing will change. You need not worry about any of this, for we have taken care of it all. The only significant possible problem remaining is that some people may believe the doomsayers and become overly concerned, needlessly and recklessly stockpiling cash, food, fuel, and water. If too many people do this simultaneously, there could be self-induced shortages and this could cause panic. Public panic must be avoided at all costs. It is not necessary for you to make unusual preparations for Y2K, as we anticipate no serious problems. But if you still have concerns, think of Y2K as you would a potential two or three day winter storm, and prepare accordingly.

On the whole, this is a compelling and seductive message, one that nearly everyone wants to believe. Id like to believe it, too. But having been intensely studying the Y2K crisis for a year and a half, I have come to suspect that very little of this message reflects reality.

I would be more comfortable with the official story if it offered us more facts and fewer platitudes. Repeated expressions of official confidence are hardly compelling, especially when one is aware of a mountain of apparent facts that directly challenge the position of official authority. Anyone who actively participates in the worldwide network of Y2K researchers and activists is painfully aware that the official story is based on misinformation, disinformation, conjecture, unverified self-reported data, public-relations spin, and sometimes even outright dishonesty.

I must confess that as I have studied this situation intensely for the last 18 months (in contact with a wide-ranging network of programmers, IT professionals, journalists, consultants, grassroots activists, and social theorists) I have become increasingly convinced that the government  under the direction of the White House  has deliberately painted a distorted and unrealistic picture of the Y2K crisis, and has systematically misled the public about the seriousness of the situation. Too much obvious effort has gone into managing public perceptions of the Y2K crisis to not arouse deep suspicions among those closely following the unfolding story.

My intention at this late point in the game is not to create concern or evoke fear, nor to stir public reaction, nor to place blame. Im not even encouraging people to prepare for Y2K. Instead, I am writing to thoughtful readers, to invite them to engage in an exercise of thinking the unthinkable. Its time for us to think creatively together.

From the beginning of my involvement with Y2K, I have noticed that considering the implications of the crisis is very uncomfortable for many people, because it confronts them with issues they naturally prefer not to think about. They feel overwhelmed, or are suddenly fearful. They feel deeply threatened, on a level that may even be called ontological. This perhaps points to the fundamental challenge of Y2K, and suggests at least a partial explanation for all the denial and polarization of viewpoints that the issue seems to engender.

The usual very human ways of dealing with such uncomfortable confrontations are to deny, to ignore, to attack, to deride, to withdraw. So it has been with Y2K.

Y2K presents us with a set of profound challenges to our consensus reality  if not in fact, then at least in potential.[i] We dont like having our sense of reality challenged or threatened, so we resist (collectively).

It would also be far easier for me to believe the official story if it were not so shot through with scorn and derision for those who have labored (rather heroically, in my view) to raise the level of public awareness of the potential for Y2K disruptions. I have personally witnessed this kind of shoot the messenger reaction, and have found it very disturbing  all the more so because I have been more interested in fostering inquiry into the complex of interrelated issues, more drawn to exploratory dialogue, than convincing anyone of anything.

It is true that for the most part, those who have proclaimed Y2K to be serious and meaningful are people who already live outside (or at least on the edge of ) ordinary consensus reality. That is, they have intuitively sensed that the official story has been fatally flawed for a very long time. They have felt that authority  in all its previously overwhelming manifestations  has just about run its course and is now mostly an empty shell. These are people who seek authenticity and integrity in human interaction and enterprise, and find such values nearly completely absent among people in positions of power and authority. Thus it is not surprising that they should find themselves at odds with the powers that be (TPTB) over Y2K; nor is it surprising that those powers should be so defensive about Y2K, so quick to reassure everyone that all is under (their) control.

Nevertheless  and I am convinced that history will bear this out  Y2K is a poignant message bearer of bad tidings for the status quo and the powers that be, and a shining moment of opportunity for those whose intentions are less benign. It is also a carrier wave for sweeping change, and a potential harbinger of conscious human evolution.

Bad Tidings

First, the bad news.

Y2K is a serious design flaw[ii] woven into the heart of the now pervasive information infrastructure. This design flaw has been adamantly ignored by TPTB for more than forty years, despite the protests and warnings of programmers and IT professionals. The belated effort to correct this flaw has been unnecessarily expensive and complex  long-term procrastination has pushed a problem into a present-day crisis, and has precipitated a massive last-ditch attempt (mostly over the last two years) to prevent the crisis from becoming a global disaster.

Many companies, organizations, and local and national governments have failed to understand this design flaw, and are still not highly motivated to correct it  unwittingly putting themselves and their constituents at considerable risk. For some, disaster is now probably inevitable. Contrary to common understanding, not all Y2K-related failures and disruptions are expected to occur on or near January 1, 2000. GartnerGroup estimates that 25% of such failures will occur in the final months of 1999, 10% in the two weeks surrounding January 1, and 55% throughout the coming year (peaking in April or May). Those who have devoted preparation resources only for January problems may later find themselves caught short.

The effects of Y2K are going to be with us for a long time. In an open letter to Congress, members of the influential Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) wrote:

Y2K is a long-term, not a short-term, problem Y2K computer problems will be causing computer system malfunctions and failures for years into the next decade It will take years for the infrastructure to calm down after Y2K impacts themselves and the impacts of the sometimes frantic and misguided changes we have made to it.

This assessment is echoed by Lynn Edelson of PricewaterhouseCoopers Risk Management Group:

The first shock to the global economy will come immediately after the new year, but the aftershock that follows will be even more devastating. Problems will start to bubble up and by the second quarter, there will be a big mess. It will takes years to clean up the aftermath.

To date, Y2K remediation has focused primarily on mission-critical systems, leaving work on non-mission-critical systems for a later date  which will require considerable resources. Over time, it is entirely possible that these systems will generate cascading breakdowns themselves, interfering with mission-critical systems. Further complicating matters, Y2K remediation efforts inevitably introduce new coding errors into existing programs. Thus, the potential for destabilizing computer systems is very high.

Given the potential for Y2K-related breakdowns that could occur even if individual systems are completely Y2K compliant, the official position  that there is nothing to worry about, nothing to prepare for  appears to be an enormous gamble which could leave millions of people unprepared for inevitable emergencies.

In late July, the Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, reported the results of a global study of international readiness for Y2K. She said:

Our assessments suggest that the global community is likely to experience varying degrees of Y2K-related failures in every sector, in every region, and at every economic level. The risk of disruption will likely extend to the international trade arena, where a breakdown in any part of the supply chain would have a serious impact on the U.S. and world economies.

In her final analysis (September), Williams-Bridgers glumly revealed that 53 nations could experience unstable conditions in their critical infrastructure systems, and that Russia, China, Japan, and Italy were particularly vulnerable to widespread failures. Predictably, the leaked version of the report outraged officials from named countries; almost immediately the State Department bowed to political pressure and released a much milder version of the report.

About a week later, Bennetts Y2K committee released its final report. Here are some brief excerpts from that 200-page document.

The Committee conducted extensive research and held numerous hearings in 1999, but still cannot conclusively determine how extensive Y2K disruptions will be. Disruptions will occur and in some cases those disruptions will be significant. The international situation will certainly be more tumultuous.

The Y2K problem still has the potential to be very disruptive, necessitating continued, intensive preparation in the time remaining.

Many organizations and industries remain unprepared. Many projected Y2K readiness deadlines are dangerously late. Organizations with late completion dates are not leaving sufficient time to address unexpected problems.

Pandemic self-reporting may result in overly optimistic Y2K projections.

Severe long- and short-term disruptions to supply chains are likely to occur.

Many small- and medium-sized businesses are extremely unprepared for Y2K.

The Y2K preparations in many countries of economic and strategic importance to the U.S. are inadequate. Disruptions could have adverse economic effects here at home A significant potential exists for the Y2K-induced problems of other nations to wash up on our shores  whether in the form of recession, lost jobs, or requests for international assistance.

The likelihood of disruption in oil imports is high due to the lack of preparedness in key oil-producing countries.

The maritime shipping industry has not moved aggressively toward compliance, leading to the likelihood of disruptions in global trade.

Local and regional outages remain a distinct possibility depending on the readiness of the 3,000 utilities serving any given area.

Communities and individuals should take reasonable steps to prepare for the Year 2000.[iii]

More Bad News

All this is potentially bad enough, but it gets worse. Remediation efforts for the Y2K bug have revealed that the information infrastructure  the very backbone of global commerce, government, industry, energy, communication, finance, defense, etc.  is fragile, brittle, structurally weak. Worse, because of the Y2K flaw, the information infrastructure is particularly vulnerable during the millennium rollover or century date change (CDC). Those who desire to disrupt our infrastructure  for a broad variety of reasons  are well aware of this window of extreme vulnerability and have been planning to take advantage of this opportunity to advance their nefarious causes. Destructive millennium viruses and information warfare attacks are planned by terrorists, guerrillas, organized crime, and rogue states.

The threat to the infrastructure is now perhaps the gravest concern among the military and intelligence communities. Defending and protecting the information infrastructure is explicitly their most urgent priority. But they admit that the technologies and structures for such protection and defense are not yet in place. Meanwhile, the public is almost entirely unaware of these issues or the extreme dangers they represent.[iv]

Y2K is hardly likely to be the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI)  which some had feared, and others had hoped for. But in view of the above, it could be the end of much that we have become accustomed to and comfortable with.

If there are serious disruptions, the aftershock could be enormous, the psychospiritual equivalent of a pole shift. For many, Y2K could shatter faith in government, in our social institutions, in our security, in our sense of continuity, our sense of reality, our very way of life  for Y2K reveals that much of what we assumed to be the very underpinnings of Life As We know It are in fact highly dysfunctional systems that have been plunging headlong toward collapse for many years.

A Personal Aside (Nov. 22)

While working on Y2K, I occasionally experience bleak periods, usually mercifully brief, when I feel that I have been naively optimistic about Y2K outcomes  and today is one of those days. Larry Victor (a Tucson intellectual and futuristic social thinker) sent a missive this morning that has me stirred up once again. Larry is among a small network of people who have been intensely exploring the implications of Y2K for many months, working hard to engage others in the dialogue. Ironically, we have pushed aside our own personal preparations to focus on the more urgent work at hand. Now, 39 days out from the rollover, we find ourselves woefully unprepared for the kinds of Y2K scenarios that have surfaced in the last few weeks.

For instance, an allegedly high-level oil industry consultant (in the trenches for more than 30 years) has come forward with the assessment that were in for a far rougher time than even the majority of the Y2K movement has suspected. She says, I will be jumping up and down if my industry can supply 45% of todays refined product. She expects oil and gas supply problems to become critical by the third week of January, and claims that the military is developing contingencies based on todays supply of oil and gas being reduced by as much as 70%. She asserts that the economic impact will be devastating, and has no doubts that this all equates to a depression more serious than the 30s. In fact, she says that she hopes that depression is the worst it will be. Recovery will take many years. As for the short term, she says there will not be enough supply available even for basic services, and flatly predicts that oil and gas will be nationalized. Forget about rationing, she says; there isnt enough supply even for that. After January, she says unequivocally, there wont be any gas for public use at any price.

At about the same time, Gary North reported alarming statements from Mr. CEO, allegedly chief of one of the larger embedded systems remediation companies. This executive has been quoted (and apparently confirmed) as saying, If we lose power in 40-60% of the country from between two weeks and a month; and, if we have dirty power all next year that is rationed, Ill consider that a home run. This is his best case scenario, based on field reports from his 200+ teams of engineers working on embedded systems in electric, water, and gas utilities; these engineers have been consistently encountering much higher failure rates in embedded systems than expected, approaching 5%  far above government and industry projections of 0.1-1% failure rates.

These two sources, who have chosen anonymity rather than engage in public discourse, have delivered a strangely unsettling blow to those of us dismayed by recent highly successful government attempts (most notably by John Koskenin, Alan Greenspan, and Bill Clinton) to undermine and defuse public Y2K concerns. At a moment when concern over Y2K is at an all-time low since the awareness push began nearly two years ago, here come two of the most alarming (and plausible) reports weve ever seen. Because the sources are anonymous, and because the stories are being reported only on the Internet, the information is being widely disregarded even by many Y2K activists. Koskenin has offhandedly dismissed the oil industry consultant as not a qualified analyst, without addressing the important issues she raises. Mr. CEO remains a mythical figure who will not reveal himself publicly.

So we are left with this enormous gap between what Koskenin and Clinton want the public to believe and what many of us have intuited from the very beginning but had no reliable data to support our conclusions. Its not quite AOK vs. doomsday, but the perception gap is almost that great.

Clinton said in a recent (11/9) online town hall meeting (his first public comments on Y2K since his State of the Union address):

I think America is in good shape. We have worked very, very hard on this. The only problems left in the United States that were aware of are with some of our small businesses who basically havent yet made sure that theyre Y2K compliant. But the United States is doing fine, and I wouldnt hoard food, and I wouldnt hide. I would be trusting, because I think we're going to make it fine.

On a roll, the next day Clinton declared in a White House lawn press briefing:

The American people can have full faith that everything from air traffic control systems to Social Security payment systems will continue to work exactly as they should When it comes to financial services, power, telecommunications, air and rail travel, leading organizations report

-- Rod (rspain@webcombo.net), December 23, 1999

Answers

Ho Hum Time for the snooze button zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Rod, thank you for this post. If it stays up I'll come back and read it again. Lots of meat on this bone. Indeed, I personally don't believe the world is coming to an end. However, in a sense it will when many of the "creature comforts" that we take so for granted now, are no longer available, and our daily life-pattern is changed.

I ain't gonna die if I don't have a Snickers bar.

On thing that all us humans have in common is our ability to adapt, adjust and make do with whatever is at hand.

If this is what is coming, so be it.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), December 23, 1999.

Rod.....How did you do that. I desired to print this article when it was first posted last week, but the orginal article (as posted) was 44 pages long.

Thanks! Do you have the rest of this article?

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), December 23, 1999.

Can anyone relate with this paragraph or what? Genius!!

""It is true that for the most part, those who have proclaimed Y2K to be serious and meaningful are people who already live outside (or at least on the edge of ) ordinary consensus reality. That is, they have intuitively sensed that the official story has been fatally flawed for a very long time. They have felt that authority  in all its previously overwhelming manifestations  has just about run its course and is now mostly an empty shell. These are people who seek authenticity and integrity in human interaction and enterprise, and find such values nearly completely absent among people in positions of power and authority. Thus it is not surprising that they should find themselves at odds with the powers that be (TPTB) over Y2K; nor is it surprising that those powers should be so defensive about Y2K, so quick to reassure everyone that all is under (their) control""

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Sorry ROD....this was not the article I had in mind. My mistake!

However, Here is the article I refered to: a must read! looong article.

"HOW DID WE GET HERE AND WHY"

Http://www.justincasey2k.com/newletter12.1.99.htm

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), December 23, 1999.

Excellent!

-- Me (me@me.me), December 23, 1999.

On the one hand, "Y2K is hardly likely to be the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI)  which some had feared, and others had hoped for."

... but on the other hand... "If there are serious disruptions, the aftershock could be enormous, the psychospiritual equivalent of a pole shift. For many, Y2K could shatter faith in government, in our social institutions, in our security, in our sense of continuity, our sense of reality, our very way of life  for Y2K reveals that much of what we assumed to be the very underpinnings of Life"

-- Scarecrow (Somewhere@over.rainbow), December 23, 1999.

It is also a carrier wave for sweeping change, and a potential harbinger of conscious human evolution.

Think about that.

-- a (a@a.a), December 23, 1999.