Has anyone seen this? (sorry if I missed it)..."Y2K should teach investors that the Internet is a wonderful communications tool and a dangerous propaganda appartus"

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Y2K should teach investors that the Internet is a wonderful communications tool and a dangerous propaganda appartus, our contrarians say.

BENJ GALLANDER AND BEN STADELMANN

Saturday, March 11, 2000

Y2K: Whew, did that get stale fast! After dominating the news for so long, the public's current temper is well illustrated by the Royal Canadian Air Farce who gave the subject a disgusting blast with their Chicken Cannon. This reaction, though understandable, is a pity, for now is the time for a sober reflection on what investors can learn from this episode.

For starters, the majority of commentators and experts were way, way off the mark in their predictions of what would happen. This included not only the pessimists who warned of an apocalyptic catastrophe, but the optimistic governments and agencies charged with soothing public anxiety were completely wrong in their use of the "three-day storm" metaphor. The rollover came and went, without so much as a three-second gust of wind. The problems that did come up were trivial, compared with something really scary like, say, the 68,000 "issues" in Windows 2000.

All this begs the question of how all these putative gurus could be so clueless? The backlash suggests greedy consultants perpetrated an elaborate hoax. There is a grain of truth here, especially concerning so called "embedded systems," but the applications problem was real.

Another proffered explanation in academic circles is that Y2K represented such a unique event that nobody knew what would happen. This doesn't hold any water at all. Essays such as Nick Zvegintzov's 1996 volley "The Year 2000 as racket and ruse" may not have been widely read, but laid out predictions that were dead on.

The answer lies deep in our very notion of what an "expert" represents. The nature of technology requires that the public, corporate managers and government bureaucrats are all heavily dependent on the opinions of the technical class. Y2K became the epitome of the old saw about "those who can, do, those who can't teach."

Professionals with the most realistic approach tended to be hard at work on the problem early on, while those on the interview circuit tended to be people with fluffed credentials and dubious track records.

Take Ed Yourdon for instance. His 1994 book Decline and Fall of the American Programmer claimed that by 1999 most programmers would be standing in unemployment lines, their jobs outsourced to foreign countries. This bizarre claim, coming just as it did when software nerds were making the biggest surge in wealth yet, is reminiscent of Ken Olson, the founder of minicomputer maker Digital Equipment, who in 1977 stated: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." Not surprisingly this blunder led to a complete meltdown in Mr. Yourdon's reputation among his professional peers.

The public and media saw it differently. Mr. Yourdon's book Time Bomb 2000 was a smash best-seller, spawning a bevy of cultish survivalist fans, dozens of lectures and interviews, culminating in an invitation to testify as an expert witness before the U.S. Congress.

The explanation for this amazing comeback can be largely laid at the feet of the Internet. Indeed, it is no coincidence that Y2K hysteria was largely confined to those countries with very high rates of Internet participation.

In another era Mr. Yourdon's bizarre prognostications would have been ripped to shreds by peer review. In the accelerated plane of the Web, gossip and rumour reach wide audiences with no filtering.

Highly motivated fans were not only used to spread the word, but also for vicious counterattacks on perceived enemies. Skeptical journalists were bombarded with e-mail, legions of these "doom zombies" invaded chat rooms and message boards, gamely defying efforts by debunkers to stem the furor.

So what does all of this have to do with investing? We are now seeing exactly the same phenomena on investing message boards. First the self-anointed stock gurus leak the news on the next hot stock. Then the shills use these forums to tout their wares.

Finally the shareholders themselves get in on the action and soon there is a storm of vituperative posts, urging others to buy. Anybody who questions the fundamentals is shouted down in ugly flame wars.

Y2K taught us that the Internet, as well as being a wonderful tool of communication, is also a dangerous propaganda apparatus. Investors beware.

-- ############ ($$$$@#####.!!!!!!!!), July 03, 2000

Answers

Ben did at good job on that. You should follow their work on "The Contrarian".



-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), July 03, 2000.


Skeptical journalists were bombarded with e-mail, legions of these "doom zombies" invaded chat rooms and message boards, gamely defying efforts by debunkers to stem the furor.

The URL for the article doesn't work either....

-- (^@^.^), July 03, 2000.


The internet, that wild and crazy thing. It's also responsible for making this statement false, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." PCs were around for a long time and it wasn't until the internet in 92 did they start cropping up in homes.

Good article. Stock "experts" are a dime a dozen these days. The internet also makes it easy for day traders to do their thing.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), July 03, 2000.


Is this a real article?

-- Look (before@you.leap), July 03, 2000.

It is *more* than a real article. Some people even forwarded it to the SEC.

When it comes to this sort of thing, where is one of the "leading voices" who even set up her own Y2k board to discuss the "financial impact of Y2k" ??

CHERYL ..........OH CHERYL OF OREGON TRANSPLANT WHERE ARE YOU???

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), July 03, 2000.



I fouled the link. Goto globeandmail.com to find the article.

BTW, my favorite part of this article is "Take Ed Yourdon for instance. His 1994 book Decline and Fall of the American Programmer claimed that by 1999 most programmers would be standing in unemployment lines, their jobs outsourced to foreign countries. This bizarre claim, coming just as it did when software nerds were making the biggest surge in wealth yet, is reminiscent of Ken Olson, the founder of minicomputer maker Digital Equipment, who in 1977 stated: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." Not surprisingly this blunder led to a complete meltdown in Mr. Yourdon's reputation among his professional peers."

-- ############### ($$$$@#####.!!!!!!!!), July 03, 2000.


I find it hard to believe a real article would use terms like 'doom zombies' and 'debunkers.' Somebody should be able to provide a real address for this article if it is indeed a real article.

-- (Still@skepti.cal), July 03, 2000.

LOLOLOLOL..........

DUMMY. WHERE do you think they got the terms "debunkers" and "doom Zombies"??

Globe and Mail must have it someplace. In your case, you should pay what ever they charge for old articles. Maybe then it would sink in.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), July 03, 2000.


The Globe and Mail only keeps the last seven day's worth online -- and even that isn't the complete contents of the paper. This specific article may or may not have been in the online edition. If you're interested, you can call them for reprints ($15/article for subscribers, $25/article for nonsubscribers) -- 1-800-387-5400 ext. 5273. The article will be sent by e-mail. FWIW.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), July 03, 2000.

http://www.globetechnology.com/archive/gam/Y2K/20000311/STCONT.ht ml

Took all of 15 seconds and google.com to find it, and many wonder how they missed the positive Y2k info?

-- passerby (amazined@gainatthis.board), July 03, 2000.



Considerably cheaper than what I found. Nice work.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), July 03, 2000.

Hmmmm...I remember reading this article when it appeared in the Globe. I wonder why I didn't post it at the time.

Anyway, the use of the terms "doom zombies" and "debunkers" could lead one to surmise that the authors of the article did a spot of lurking at TB1.

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), July 04, 2000.


Anyway, the use of the terms "doom zombies" and "debunkers" could lead one to surmise that the authors of the article did a spot of lurking at TB1.

It could...or it could mean CPR helped the two Ben's write that article. "Doom zombies" is a known, favorite term of CPR's that he's used more often himself than everyone else has combined.

-- Not (a@doom.zombie), July 04, 2000.


A search of the net for the phrase 'doom zombies'

http://www.ussc.alltheweb.com/cgi- bin/search?type=phrase&query=doom+zombies&exec=FAST+Search

-- Search (engines@are.cool), July 04, 2000.


I never 'helped' anyone write any particular article on any aspect of Y2k Bull shit.

I did, of course, make sure that a very great amount of material out of the mouths of doom zombies and their string pullers/ chain jerkers was distributed where it counted.

Ben S. was on a private list of ours for a long time. He *hardly* needs any "help" to reach his own conclusions. Nor did many more.



-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), July 04, 2000.



THE GLOBE AND MAIL globeandmail.com

LINK

Relief as emergency plans not needed

'Little doubt Canadians would have faced major disruptions' if $2.5-billion in fixes had not been made

JEFF SALLOT

Parliamentary Bureau Saturday, January 1, 2000

Ottawa -- Officials of federal emergency-response agencies exhaled in relief last night as 2000 arrived in Canada without having to activate Ottawa's $500-million disaster contingency plan.

The Canadian Forces, the biggest spender, had stockpiled a 30-day supply of flashlight batteries, candles, ration packs and diesel fuel to power emergency generators just in case thousands of troops had to be deployed because the Y2K computer bug crashed power grids, phone systems and other critical networks.

But even with no disaster, the military will eventually use all of the stocks it bought in anticipation of the worst, Major-General Ray Henault, a senior commander, said last night.

In total, the government spent $2.5-billion on Y2K projects, one of the biggest one-time operational expenditures in recent years. About $2-billion of that was to fix Y2K bugs in Ottawa's own computers.

Guy McKenzie, the chief federal spokesman for Y2K issues, said there is little doubt that Canadians would have faced major disruptions of major federal services if the fixes had not been made.

Minor glitches may still show up in the days ahead, he cautioned, but nothing is expected to match the worst-case scenarios federal planners had been working with as recently as six months ago.

Confidence rose in Ottawa throughout the day as 2000 arrived in foreign time zones with only minor problems, such as the failure of the bus-ticket validation system in the Australian state of Tasmania.

All major federal agencies, including air navigation, were functioning normally in the first hour after midnight brought the new year to Atlantic Canada, Linda Lizotte-MacPherson, the chief information officer for the Treasury Board, said.

The RCMP was on a heightened state of alert because of New Year's festivities across the country, including a Parliament Hill gala. But the Mounties said they were unaware of any specific terrorism or security threat in this country.

"Canada is fully ready to enter the 21st century," Mr. McKenzie said.

He said the work of 11,000 public servants to fix the Y2K bug was paying off.

"Canadians should enjoy the New Year confidant that the transition will be smooth," he added.

The government will keep its monitoring centre in full operation for at least a full week because computer glitches might not turn up immediately.

This is a long weekend, and many bureaucrats won't be turning their computers on until they return to work Tuesday morning.

Soldiers in green battle fatigues anxiously watched TV monitors at the Canadian Forces joint task force headquarters in frosty Ottawa early yesterday morning as the first time zone in the remote Pacific rolled over to 2000.

At one point Operation Abacus -- the military's code name that recalls the ancient bead computing device that works without software or electricity -- was slated to be the largest peacetime deployment of the Canadian Forces ever.

Soldiers were told to make contingency plans to assist civil authorities across the country in case of anything from wide-scale power failures to rioting and looting.

The federal government designated the Canadian Forces its primary emergency response agency and assigned it such essential duties as maintaining independent communications links with all provincial and territorial governments if commercial telephone systems failed.

But officials say upgrades, which cost $2.5-billion, were completed in time on the critical systems, from the RCMP computers that track crime suspects to the computers that spew out federal pension cheques.

-- (January@1.2000), July 04, 2000.


what is your point Kev? They did the work and got it done.....DUH. Something the doomers could not/would not believe before 1/1/00.....another big fat DUH. Y2k is something that should have STAYED in the business community; the general populace need not have been bothered by it.....but do you think the FUDmasters were going to miss their big chance at PROFITS?!?!?!?!? HELL NO! They milked the suckers for all they were worth....and it sounds like you were one of 'em.

Too bad for you.

-- (suckers@got.fleeced), July 05, 2000.


Ben Stadelmann is also associated with the meme theory of Y2K fear transmission.

http://www.thoughtcontagian.com/tmc.htm

Email Thought Contagions. Analyzes those "virus warnings" and other weird messages that manipulate recipients to forward copies to everyone. The equivalent of "apocalypse on drive C:" warnings, many show similarities to Y2K apocalypse ideas. Contains a debunking letter. Article contains a debunking letter.
 
Thought Contagion and the Heaven's Gate Tragedy. Examines apocalyptic memes leading to mass suicide in this Web-promoted cult.
 

Acknowledgements:

My thanks to Jan Hunt for asking me to analyze this topic, and for providing valuable ideas and editorial comments along the way, to Curt Hicks for providing further editorial help, to Ben Stadelmann for technical comments.
 



-- (block@that.meme), July 07, 2000.

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