I am a preparationist, perhaps always have been. Y2K consumed me. I have read all that can be read and came to the conclusion that we lived in a totally interdependent society.Interdependency, on a global scale, results in personal exposure, and risk, should the delicate balance be tipped. Y2K computer problems appeared, with diligent research, to be capable, if not destined, to upset that balance. I have, in my own opinion, prepared appropriately for the risks; not the probabilities. it didn't cost much as I already live in a rural paradise.

I am forced, at this hour, to conclude that Y2K is crap. My preparations give me the luxury of such an assumtion. Those of you who gloat over your righteousness in not preparing do not share such a feeling.

Now. lets all get over our differences. A big lie has been laid. For all you GI's (of which I am one}, maybe we didn't GI. Maybe we were duped. Hard as though that may be to admit, maybe we did. I know, through business, that these things come as the greatest surprise.

As for all you Pollies. You did nothing for yourselves or your families, even though you perceived enough interest or apprehension, to follow this forum regligiously. We are obviously a bunch of fools. So why do you enjoy the company of fools so much? I have respect for your opinions so long as they are presented with respect. You are probably right. But from what I have seen, as a latecomer to this forum, you are, for the most part bunch of yahoos, who if not occupied with keyboard gymnastics would be throwing rocks at the kids at the local mental hospital form the safe side of the barbed wire fence. You too have been lied to. Why have our government and business leaders spent 100's of billions of dollars on this problem where governments spending nothing have fared no poorer?

Let's all get together and figure out the LIE. We are little people, right or wrong. To quote a popular progam "The truth is out there"..... let's get together and try and find it.

-- Rich (polaris@saltspring.com), January 04, 2000

Answers

you are, for the most part bunch of yahoos, who if not occupied with keyboard gymnastics would be throwing rocks at the kids at the local mental hospital form the safe side of the barbed wire fence.

Man, couldn't have said it better myself. Beautiful imagery there Rich. Jesus, that's mean.

-- Gordon (g_gecko_69@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

You *did*GI, but now you DGI....too soon, the final ballots aren't in, the cards aren't all on the table.

-- Kenin Marble (kenin17@yahoo.com), January 04, 2000.

It's still the calm before the storm. Sheesh - you prepare and study for all that time and then you conclude that you were wrong in just two days, before the bug has even really begun to chew up data, now that's something I Don't Get!

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 04, 2000.

I agree, the cards are not all on the table, and something could happen; deep down, I wish something would. There exist, however, none of the indicators that I have searched for. Nonetheless, I would not, nor ever, discard the preparations I have made. I feel that I may have got it, but not IT!

-- Rich (polaris@saltspring.com), January 04, 2000.

Great point Rich! I am a polly and here is the reason why. I found the arguments about what could happen completely plausible to a degree. If computers all over the country ceased to work, then we could have mass chaos. I looked at the alarmist and their backgrounds and motivations and found them to be extremists in every aspect of their life. Why were these the people leading the battle cry and no one else? Did they have another agenda? Money, ego gratification, desired political power?

After researching, I found these doomers to have suspicious reasons other than semaritanism as their reason for playing Paul Revere. I wont re-hash Gary North and his Chritian Reconstructionist Motivations. Anyone who has a web browser can find out about his fanatical ideas he was spouting 25 years before y2k. They can also see that he was trying to use this as an acension to religous power over politics, as implausible as that sounds. Do some reading on the man and you can hardly disagree. His motivations are pretty clearly defined. North is a smart man and knows as well as anyone, computer failure or not, that a prophecy can easily become self-fulfilling if enough people believe it.

In short, I came to beleive that the messengers in this whole mess were so extreme, so "out there" and so motivated by self-serving factors, that I chose to become a Polly. This of course was not my only reason, I spoke with several programmer friends who chortled at the extremist doomsday scenarios being laid out by the radical Y2K types.

For those of you that believe you have been duped, don't sit around stewing; research how you think this came about, what made you vulnerable. Who did you listen to and why did you beleive them?

Then, after you you have done some reflection, try and decide what you will do the next time you are presented with someone who says to follow them blindly.

Then, if you really want to exercise your brain and maybe blow off some steam, research these gurus, decide for yourself what there motivations were and post a web page or give talks on con artists. Tell your story! Expose the scam! Don't let them get away with it!

For those of you that prepared and are glad,I say you did not waste your time. It is a good idea to prepare for any disaster. If you did however quit jobs, spend all you had on Spam and duct tape and a bomb shelter on the advice of the "The End of the World as We Know It Gurus" and now have a life to re-build, than get to it! You were better safe than sorry but come out and re-join society. Go get another job, hang on to the Spam and keep enough gas in the car to get to that bomb shelter if that makes you feel better. Be proud of what you have done and live in the satisfaction that you did not need it but if you had, you would have been safe. I for one do not think you were crazy for preparing. But I do think when it comes to gurus who lead people to extreme measures of any kind, you may want to question their motives before making extreme life changing decisions. You are to look out for yourself because Gary North et. al., were not looking out for you. It could be that the biggest benefit you get from Y2K is to NEVER follow anyone blindly again.

-- DAVID (tdavidc@arn.net), January 04, 2000.

i concur. we spend months mentally and materially preparing for this event, and when it doesn't appear 'on time,' some of us are ready to turncoat? vigilance is the order of the day until the 15th, at the earliest, with a nose to the wind until february or march (per the infomagic papers). sure, go back to 'life as normal,' but do not be so quick to assume, as the rest of the world has, that life is normal. if by the leap day, no serious disturbances have severly disrupted life, HOORAY! otherwise, buckle down for another six weeks.

-- Edie Yew (edu@gov.com.mil.org), January 04, 2000.

David, great advice! I was prepared to be wrong about Y2K and can use all of my preps in the coming year. I didn't blindly follow the "doomers" and buy tons of beans and rice, but I did take some precautions, which weren't needed, thankfully.

-- Boy Scout (boyscout@beprepared.com), January 04, 2000.

Hmm...

Well, I prepared too. I don't live in a rural paradise; I live in down town Austin, Texas(to some, this may indeed be a rural paradise, but I'm tellin' ya, it ain't. Pardon; I digress); preparation seemed the sensible thing to do, especially since I live in a city. As a city dweller, I don't have access to things that a rural dweller might have access to(a farm with moo-moos, fresh eggs, decent fresh veggies, a well, you get the picture), so I had to improvise.

I do not feel I was lied to. I blame no one for telling "a big lie" to me, to society, to the doomers, pollies, or the world. If I were to do so, I would be assuming that there was a cadre of manipulators that would make Little Joe Goebbels green with envy, and that "they" were attempting to perpetrate the biggest scam ever in the history of the world.

Interesting. Okay, let's refer to the cadre as The Nimbus.

I don't believe in the Nimbus. Why? Frankly, I don't feel that there is a group of individuals out there that could put aside their own self interests to work together long enough to keep a Y2K scam going, let alone get it off the ground. Checked out the government of any country lately? Most of these groups are fairly incompentent, getting little done, and what does get done is usually late, over budget, riddled with kickbacks, and functions about as efficiently as a battery-operated Rube Goldberg-esque creation that was assembled by a committee of kindergarten drop outs. Said drop outs also blew their battery money on comic books at recess.

What reason did the Nimbus have for creating the Y2K scam? To make me more self sufficient? To get me to buy food for my larder, and to make my home a safer place to live? To get to know my wife better, my neighbors better, to get involved with my community, and to give a damn about others instead of just yours truly?

Doubt it; if there was a nefarious plot to break my ability to function properly, the Nimbus would not take this route.

The Nimbus duped us; a big lie was laid? I just can't see it. I have seen software and electronic appliances when rolled over to 1/1/00 go belly up. Early on in 1997, I saw some examples of this; made me ponder what might happen. The Nimbus didn't make the electronic stuff go boom; the date rollover did. I thought: what would happen when the actual date rollover came about?

Duped? I don't think I've been duped. If I were going to dupe someone, render them unable to fend for themselves, leave them helpless to my will, I might do something like this. I would make sure that they NEVER found out that a particular disaster was about to happen, so they would not prepare for it; they wouldn't have a clue that they needed to prepare(I would prepare to the teeth, of course). That way, when it rolled around, they would be dependent on others(myself and those that knew what was coming) for their most basic needs on a day to day basis.

This is certainly not the case. In fact, this experience has had quite the opposite effect. In case of just about anything(short of a nuclear disaster; I can't afford a fallout shelter, and don't know if I'd wanna hang out in a burned-out cinder of a world with no one else on it) bad happening, I'm quite ready for it. I did not financially strap myself, as I took time to carefully make my preparations. I was able to take my sweet time, because the Nimbus so graciously gave me a set of dates to go by as to when the "accident" would begin(in reality, it began some time ago with other rollovers, but for the sake of this tome we won't get into that. Not relevant), thus allowing me to plan my preparations in a reasonable manner and time frame. Does one usually get this sort of luxury whan dealing with any other sort of disaster preparedness planning?

Nope. You make preparations when you can, and hope you finish them before the event you are planning for hits. Since you never know when it is gonna hit, it is always a crapshoot.

I was not duped, I was not lied to. I was presented with information from both sides: Y2K - Bad/Y2K - Feh. From this, I made all decisions as to how I was going to run my life.

No one personally and directly asked me for a penny to remediate their systems. I paid for remediation services through spending on goods and services whose profits companies then turned around and used for remediation(this includes my taxes as well). The organizations that chose to remediate either took a hit to their profit margins, or passed the cost onto me through higher prices of the goods and services that I bought from them. This is not duping the public; it was a business expense. Was it a well informed one? Dunno; could be. Lots of businesses have vastly upgraded software/hardware as a result, and they will be better able to compete in the market in the year 2000 as a direct result. Is this a bad thing for business?

The world did not end(yet). I am healthy, and I have a decent home. I also have extra food and supplies that I can use now or in ten years. If I lose my job tomorrow(Y2K or non Y2K related problems), I can make it for at least a year on my savings that I stashed away(stopped going out to movies so much, and saved some moolah that way. Rediscovered the public library in the process, and learned a few things too), and that is without touching my stash of emergency supplies. Combine all of it, and I could float along in really good shape for 3 plus years(even weathering a bad famine/dust bowl scenario). Supplies take up about 10'x10'; some of it in the garage, the rest in closet space in the house.

Duped? No, informed as to what might still be a problem, and praying it doesn't happen. Lied to? No, just presented with opinions and data. I chose what I was going to do with that information.

Perhaps there is some sort of conspiracy going on, and "the truth is out there." However, if this is truly the case, we shall find the truth to be far stranger than, "someone is trying to get you to part with your hard earned so your pantry will be full."

Sorry for being so long winded; lotsa coffee today. I'll try to stick to "just the facts" for the remainder of my stay on this forum(though it'll be hard sometimes...)

Peace,

Don

-- Shimoda (Enlighten@me.com), January 04, 2000.

First of all, an apology. I never meant to call all Pollies "rock throwers".

Second: Finally, we seem to have some intelligent and polite discourse on this forum.

Third: Thank you, David, for an excellent and well thought-out response.

I agree that GN and others are extremists with agendas. I did try, however, to disregard their commentary and analyze the substance of their links. My focus was always on what could happen vs. what might happen. There appeared to be considerable potential to their posturing. I have prepared extensively, but not, perhaps beyond the directions of my current lifestyle. I did believe that we were in for trouble. As to blindly following: the most disturbing factor of this whole situation is that I do not, in any way consider myself "blind". I am, perhaps quilty of looking more closely at that which I felt paralleled my pre-determined beliefs. The lesson to be taken from this, in my opinion, is that the "machine", or any number of machines, is capable of moulding you in profoundly unknown directions. Beware of this; ie the "Great Lie".

As for those of you who criticize me for being a turncoat: I maintain, and perhaps always will, that one of the gret freedoms in life is both the ability and the desire to become self-sufficient and prepared for anything. I am, and will always, henceforth, be. My coat hath not turneth.

If Y2K, solar activity, earthquakes, political innsurrection, or alien landings occur, I will be as prepared as one can be. So I can now relax. I will, however, in the future, refrain from counselling others to follow me in my path.

Respectfully to all.......Rich

-- Rich (polaris@saltspring.com), January 04, 2000.

Don- Thanks for another great post!!By the way, this is the first time that I have contributed to this, or any other forum. And further by the way, I live on Saltspring Island, British Columbia. I agree with absolutely everything that you state, but most especially your second to last paragraph. The truth, if ever found, will be stranger than we have ever believed. Nothing but strange fits the current set of circumstances. Keep it coming.

Rich

-- Rich (polaris@saltspring.com), January 04, 2000.

There are those of us who haven't felt that things were right. I have felt that way for quite a while, even before Y2K became popular. Y2K seems to have brought out a need to do something in an effort to morally take a stand. It has been gratifying to me to know that I am not alone. Even if our preparation is in vane, we are all stronger and wiser by the journey we have taken over the last several years. It doesn't matter to me what happens. We have done the right thing, and I am glad that a catalyst such as this has managed to get me off my ass and show my family how important they are to me.

-- Hurtzogood (synapse@rea-alp.com), January 04, 2000.

Con and Scam artists know that for the most part their victims will not come forth, out of embarrassment. This syndrome is much more intense in cases of sexual rape. But here we have a brand new phenomenon:

 The scammed and screwed are now attempting to raise the perpetrators to a higher level of respectability. In their minds, this will hopefully diminish their stupidity for being sucked into the Y2K scheme.

It is this quirk of human nature that allows the Norths, Hyatts, and Yourdons of the world to operate their schemes over and over. Very sad.

-- Look (at@the.facts), January 04, 2000.