It seems to me that virtually all doomers believe that it was simply not possible to have had any intelligence yet not expect disaster due to Y2K. Am I correct, or do some of you believe that there is a possibility of a Polly being intelligent and well informed on Y2K?

-- Realist (don't@want.spam), January 05, 2000

Answers

Yes, I do believe that an intelligent person could have seen the evidence and concluded that the CDC would be a non-event, Just as I believe that a person could conclude that problems would result.

What I wonder is how many "hanks" who sat on the fence until January 1, now proclaim they are one the "winning" side?

Just a

Peace Farmer

-- Peace Farmer (peace-farmer@usa.net), January 05, 2000.

Sure. There were many different ways of interpreting the information we had. I never thought pollies, other than a handful of incredible obnoxious ones, were stupid; I thought they were unwilling to consider any major event that would disrupt their lives. I still think this is the case and that they were lucky regarding Y2K. Lucky but not stupid.

-- h. roark (howard@roark.com), January 05, 2000.

We've been waiting for a sign of intelligence from the polly crowd. Read a few posts that made me think one had finally arrived....but alas, nothing.

-- smartypants (chanceof-failure@100%.com), January 05, 2000.

If you ask me, both sides seemed to hold this view (lack of intellegence) about the opposing one.

As if. Don't people realize that there were a multitude of positions on this issue? Would the "bunker doomers" be in the same class as the guy who bought 12 AA batteries, 3 gallons of water and a week's worth of canned food "just in case? Do the "absolutely nothing will happen" pollies find companions in the "some minor inconvieniences but not TEOTWAWKI" pollies?

Of course. What I don't understand is why the people on TB and Debunki feel the need to see everything Y2K in such black and white terms as it appears that they do. Good vs. evil, and all that.

I guess it's just human nature.

-- Simpleminded (nope@wont.never), January 05, 2000.

Certainly it is possible for a person to be well informed with respect to Y2K and not expect serious trouble to arise from it. Someone close to me is an IT professional, who last year laughed when I mentioned the possibility of trouble to come. Know where he spent New Year's Eve? At work.

People who understand Y2K without perceiving the potential for disruption lack a greater perspective, and often are remarkably naive with respect to other aspects of human life and experience, not to mention fundamental "non-computer" technologies. Many know nothing of politics or history either.

It can help one's perspective to have been hassled by corrupt officials in a foreign airport, to have been subject to strip search, maybe to have seen the inside of a jail, maybe to have deconstructed a religion. One man's paranoic nightmare may be another man's reality.

The end of the world? 20,000 dead in Venezuela. Only it hasn't happened here in generations. And it doesn't have to be the end to be a DEBACLE.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), January 05, 2000.

Reasonable people disagree all the time!

-- Duke1983 (Duke1983@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

Realist...I posted this on an earlier thread today...FWIW

Years ago, certain men had the ability to grasp firmly the concepts and fundamentals of every known field of science, art and thought...they were called Rennasaince men. These men would be able to literally know almost everything there was to know. That is an impossible task today.

Ironically, it is the Y2K "division of labor" argument which makes it impossible for any one man to know everything there is to know. We are therefore dependant upon the knowledge and wisdom of the experts of these specialized fields of knowledge. The specialization of knowledge is so divided as to have left us depending upon MULTIPLE experts, even in the same general field. Just in the IT field, there are many, many subdivisions of expertise. (And believe me...anyone who has visited this board for any length of time will tell you how often the IT experts clashed even on the most basic premises of the Y2K issue).

So in retrospect, it is dificult to imagine anyone who didn't play the role of sheeple at least for part of the time.

Personally, I had to rely upon the understanding of many people...and I still do. I would have never come here if I wasn't in a position to defer to someone else's greater understanding. That's why I think that it is disingenuous of pollies and doomers alike to resort to "I told you so" posting. It only serves to alienate and deeply offend those who sincerely believed they were doing the right thing.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), January 05, 2000.

-- TM (mercier7@pdnt.com), January 05, 2000.

Intelligent=Civility in communication. Without it our minds are capable of anything against our brother.

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), January 05, 2000.

Civility in communication = lacking by most on this forum for the last few days.

-- (who@what.where), January 05, 2000.

Hey I hope I'm not the Hank you we're referring to. I never claimed to be a polly and I still think the Jury is out. I know first hand (all the pollies will ask for link and evidence but TS) of a fortune 1000 if not 500 who had a serious Y2K finance problem with an AS/400. They kept it hush hush. It's supposed to be fixed now but even the tech people I talked to said they don't know for sure. I had another customer cancel work today, said they had some issues to take care of before we started with a WAN design and implementation. Issues weren't there when we spoke with them in December.

-- Hank (reardon@not.now), January 05, 2000.

What about the Y2K adoption? Why do the sysops keep deleting posts about it? What are they trying to hide?

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0025TL

-- Y2K Adoption? (concered@foia.com), January 05, 2000.

I always thought the pollies were dumb. I still think so. Hmmm, it might be their inflexability of mind more than their intelligence. I apologize for hurting anyone's feelings, but this really is the way I feel.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

While I agree that knowing everything is impossible, and as specialization continues knowing even 2 or 3 areas more the superficially is difficult, perspective is not impossible.

There is a methodology to thinking, to analysis, to drawing conclusions, to assessing probabilities. Think of a high school algebra problem as an example. Just looking at the problem, you don't know the answer. But you know how to solve the problem. You know the techniques and procedures and steps, and you know if you follow them correctly, you'll arrive at the answer.

This approach, while difficult, was not necessarily impossible with y2k. But most people picked an outcome that "felt" right somehow, and worked backwards to define the questions appropriate to the predetermined answer. If you start out by asking "just what level of impact is likely to be felt?", you end up with a very different conclusion than if you start out asking "How can I get people to believe that this will be very bad, so that they'll prepare?"

Some highly intelligent people asked the second question, and managed to come up with some very good answers to it. But this is like trying to build a business by making a high quality product nobody wants to buy.

Anyone who thinks their pessimism was supported by the proponderance of all available evidence need only peruse the archives and savor the intense vehemence with which positive information was rejected, along with those who presented it. It should be clear that when you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer, regardless of intelligence.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 05, 2000.

Flint:

Once again I disagree--not with your original point (although Euclidian Geometry more fits "logic" than algebra)--but with the implication that anyone who tried this would reach your basic position (with some allowable variance).

I did exactly this and reached the conclusion that to really know would take more time--and information--than was currently available.

I believe, based upon my research and background, that the problem really was TOO BIG to be understood by any individual. Including you. The only remaining option (for me) was to ask myself what COULD happen, and prepare accordingly.

I posted it on another thread, and I'll say it publicly here. CONGRADULATIONS FLINT! Sincerely. I am glad you are exonerated, as I consistently disagreed with you and witnessed much abuse thrown your way. Take heart, as all of us who took a stand also took abuse. You've seen it too!

I am not convinced this is over yet. I do not claim to "know" what will happen. I remain prepared for nearly any eventuality nonetheless. My posted "prediction" (my expectation) had a timeline into the fall of 2000. Much of it is wrong already--but we're at

...DAY 5.

Happy New Year Flint!

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 05, 2000.

"Virtually all"???? Now THAT was a stupid thing to say. Seems to me it was always the same people expressing that sentiment, over and over again, and no, it wasn't everyone.

What was that someone said, on another thread, about having a fantasy and then only looking at the info that supports it? (Oh gee, Flint, that was you, wasn't it?)

In answer to your question, Realist: Yes, I think there are intelligent pollies, but I'm not so sure you're one of them.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), January 05, 2000.

In answer to your question, Realist: Yes, I think there are intelligent pollies, but I'm not so sure you're one of them.

Oooooh, nice comeback, Bok. You really BURNED him.

-- (moderate@my.eye), January 05, 2000.

moderate:

...and your sarcasm really helps the group's understanding now, doesn't it?

Did it ever occur to you to consider what people say? Bok was right. The statement was a collective statement of belief that doomers "believe that it was simply not possible to have had any intelligence yet not expect disaster due to Y2K."

The statement was heartfelt, but inaccurate.

Bok's response was to correct the inaccuracy--something pollies have done, with varying degrees of decency, throughout this year.

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), January 05, 2000.

Bok's response was to correct the inaccuracy--something pollies have done, with varying degrees of decency, throughout this year.

Yup, and then Bok BURNED him good.

-- (moderate@my.eye), January 05, 2000.

Bokonon:

You may be right, it was only a score of people who did most of the attacking, definitely a minority. But the chilling effect was quite real, and I received a lot of email from people supporting me in private, but unwilling to suffer the inevitable abuse of doing so on the forum.

And it's easy for *everyone*, myself included, to draw conclusions that fail to include all the sentiments people didn't dare express, that we never saw.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 05, 2000.

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

Do you doomers think it was possible for an intelligent person to have believed that Y2K would be a non-event?

Of course it is. Few would try to make the case that Bill Clinton, John Koskinen and Steven Hawking are unintelligent. It might surprise you that many of those preparing (me, for example) also thought that problems due directly to computer malfunction were less than certain. Where we differ is in the willingness to accept that others may have a different assessment, and in the wisdom of preparing in the face of uncertainty.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), January 06, 2000.

Dancr:

Doesn't follow. The wisdom of preparing for unlikely events is different from the wisdom of deciding that unlikely events are really likely after all.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 06, 2000.

No, I don't think so, because an intelligent person assumes that everyone else is stupid. That was the basis for concluding that there were going to be big problems, due to the stupidity of other people.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

Oh that's funny....moderate@my.eye is questioning my "ideological purity" as a moderate.

And what do you base this assesment on? The fact that I haven't jumped on the polly bandwagon, to slam all doomers as idiots? That I haven't used my position in the middle to conveniently jump to the "winning" side, and pretend it's what I said, all along? Pardon me, but integrity begs otherwise. If you think that's a naieve and foolish notion, then I feel only pity for you.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), January 07, 2000.