Please tell me of successful attempts to get people together to prepare for the post Y2K fallout - I don't want to be hiding in my house waiting for it to end. What types of grassroots activity are other people doing? s

-- Sharon Schultz (sschultz@cabq.gov), June 03, 1998

Answers

You might contact these folks for starters, Sharon. The Cassandra Project is at: http://millennia-bcs.com/ The last thing you want is to be alone in this. If it works for you, pass it around. Good luck.

Hal

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." -- Anais Nin

-- Hal (Hallyx@aol.com), June 03, 1998.

Sharon,

Have my attempts been successful? I really don't know, because I don't know how much preparation others *really* have made, but I've taken the following approach:

1. I am a member of a local community organization. I've met with the board of that organization, have made presentations to the overall group, and they are now sponsoring me as a speaker on the subject to other similiar groups. Are they preparing? who knows?

2. I've gone to our pastor, and then to our church with the message. Again, I don't know if they listen or not.

The key point is that I'm not responsible whether or not they listen. I am responsible for trying to alert them while there is time for them to do something. I stress these things:

1. They have to learn. Each one has to make their own decision. (By the way, this has become foreign to a lot of people who seem to want to be told what to do.) The amount of preparation should reflect their own decision. To do nothing is a decision that nothing's going to happen.

2. Stored food can always be eaten. It's also a good idea to have some on hand anyway. The overall cost is negligible, long term.

3. No matter how good or bad the actual situation turns out to be, they will be able to weather it better as a community than as individuals.

Successful? We'll know 01/01/00.

Rocky

P.S. I live in a rural area, so there's no talk about relocation, only preparing where we are.

-- Rocky Knolls (rknolls@hotmail.com), June 04, 1998.

I don't know about you guys, but my attempts to inform my friends at work, or my other friends about the y2k problem and their needs to do something about it has only resulted in ridicule of me. Most of my friends are in mortgage and other hock to the hilt, and don't want to know about anythign that might disrupt their little view of the world. Telling them that there is a giant tornado on the horizon is useless. I've given up.

-- glenna (kamoroff@hotmail.com), June 04, 1998.

I've been at this for over a year now. I've tried to be responsible and warn friends, family, co-workers, church, local county FEMA offices, sometimes strangers. I know a handfull of people personally who are doing anything. This is the most difficult part of this whole thing. It is bazaar.

If there's any common thread in the ones doing somethings, it's that they do not seem to be afraid to be different from the pack. I've given up "campaigning" and just accepted that most people move in herds and will not leave the herd to save their lives.

My strategy now is to try to get into a small community that already has qualities and resources that will enable it to survive calamity more-or-less independently.

If there's any good news in all this it is this: Our world is SO complicated and interdependent that whatever happens will probably be a surprise to all of us and SOME of those surprises will be good.

---------------------------------- God is still the Writer of History

-- David Webb (e2acwebb@fre.fsu.umd.edu), June 04, 1998.

Lets put this into the proper perspective. If massive deforestation, droughts, asian economic collapse, nuclear sabre rattling, etc doesn't faze the public then why would you believe they would get excited about a simple software coding error?

Doomsayers are a dime a dozen. The Y2K problem has attracted to many crazies and racketeers who are making the sales job that much harder. Paul Milne's solution to avoiding one catastrophe is to create another one by pulling out your money and moving to the country. Imagine Pual Milne in place of Winston Churchill when Britain was in big trouble in WWII. Milne would have ran off into the country side and left the citizens of Britain to fend for themselves.

How bout some proactivism instead of activism for a change?

PS - Notice all the relgious people around here? Hmmm...the church can smell the cash already.

-- Reg Smith (rrr@ibm.net), June 04, 1998.

Glenna,

I'm with you, we've told all of our family and friends and we are the only ones doing anything about it. I am concerned about our neighborhood, however, after telling one neighbor, they now think I am crazy. If you tell your neighbors, friends etc.. and they do nothing, will they remember you when they are hungry? What then, any suggestions??

For now I've stopped telling any additional people about Y2K.

-- jane (clemone@emi.net), June 05, 1998.

I tried to talk to some co-workers about the prolem. They could have cared less. I'm afraid if I tried to warn my neighbors, they would laugh it off, then come looking for food or whatever if things get really nasty....maybe even try and take if forcefully. I don't say anything anymore.

-- Annie (anniegaff@mailexcite.com), June 05, 1998.

I've been printing copies from these various Yourdon Q&A Forums, making Xerox copies at my local drug store, and giving them, or mailing them, to family and friends. Skepticism has been changing to conviction, and better yet, making preparations. I've asked my recipients to make copies and give them to their family and friends, too. It's been worth the cost, to my limited funds, to do this, and I will continue doing it. Reading all your comments, and those on other forums here, has been a God-send to me and I thank Him for this website. Ed Yourdon is very generous in providing it. I hope and pray it continues until the power clicks off 01012000! Great granny Holly

-- Holly Allen (Holly3325@juno.com), June 05, 1998.

I tried to tell my neighbor. A nice young man and in now way stupid or ignorant. I am the one who came off both stupid and ignorant. I showed him reports and opinions from people he had never heard of. I showed him newspaper clippings about Senators, Congressmen and experts testifying before comittees that he had never heard of. By this time he started looking at his watch and wriggling in his chair. The kicker was when he asked me how come there is nothing in the media, and my answer was that it must be some kind of conspiracy of silence. As I said the words, I could almost hear the distant report of machine gun fire, while I saw my wings catch fire as I went crashing to the earth. I GIVE UP!

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), June 05, 1998.

Dear Bill S., I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you shot yourself in the foot with that "conspiracy of silence" stuff. Do you really think there is a conspiracy of silance, if so, well at least you were honest, wrong, but honest.

If you want to go with the word conspiracy, how about "conspiracy of stupidity" or "conspiracy of ignorance"? Of course those really aren't conspiracies then.

There is not ONE news topic that is technically oriented that the mass media has gotten right. Here is what the press reports: ozone holes, global warming, current federal budget surplus, HIV causes AIDS. Not one of those are true. You'ld never know it from the mass media though!

If the person you are valiantly trying to explain Y2K to can not get beyond, "if Peter Jennings said it, it must be right" level of thinking, nothing you or I can do or say will help.

"think of it as evolution in action"

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@tseinc.com), June 05, 1998.

Many folks have been printing out the two reports I wrote to our church and have had good luck with them. Read them and see if they would be helpful.

You can find them under the "Links" section at http://www.lifetel.com/y2k2000.htm Please let me know if they're helpful to you.

-- Pastor Chris (chrisbr@ptinet.net), June 05, 1998.

I think that Bill Solorzano's "conspiracy of silence" theory is quite reasonable. Can't you just imagine the panic if our "leaders" - at any level of government- were to alert the public-at-large ab't the Y2K problem -in clear, simple 8th-grade lanquage that they could comprehend?

Like, when was the last time that the public was informed - in a timely fashion - of some big disaster? For ex. t'was only yesterday that TV told us ab't a plane disaster at La Guardia when two large passenger planes missed collision by 20+ feet - in APRIL! The guy in the tower didn't think it was important enuff to report it earlier.

From tamie smith

-- tamie smith (tasmith@nm-us.campus.mci.net), June 07, 1998.

Tamie: Thanks for the back up. After watching CSPAN this afternoon I am more convinced of a conspiracy of silence by our elected leaders. My reasoning makes their silence even more venal than just keeping the public from panicing. Several questions from the floor had to do with deliberate silence until after the Congressional elections in November of 1998. It seems that neither the Republicans or Democrats want to make it an issue because if the voting public thought that an incumbant had any idea of y2k and did not do anything about it he would be voted out of office. If the incumbant did not know about y2k while in office, he would be stupid and voted out. There is no POLITICAL value for either side to discuss y2k before the elections. De Jager said clearly that if the government delayed for six months (till after the elections) it would be way too late. How many will die because of these stupid poitics is too terrible to contemplate. Panic, now, while we still have an infrastructure that can supply food and equipment, is what we need. If the government would nationalize the electric industry and put all of the enourmous resources that we have on just one industry, we could save western civilization. Without electricity we have no water, sewage or even the ability to turn on the computers so that they can be fixed. What a terrible price to pay for re-election!

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), June 07, 1998.

Tamie: Thanks for the back up. After watching CSPAN this afternoon I am more convinced than ever of a conspiracy of silence by our elected leaders. My reasoning makes their silence even more venal than just keeping the public from panicing. Several questions from the floor had to do with deliberate silence until after the Congressional elections in November of 1998. It seems that neither the Republicans or Democrats want to make it an issue because if the voting public thought that an incumbant had any idea of y2k and did not do anything about it he would be voted out of office. If the incumbant did not know about y2k while in office, he would be stupid and voted out. There is no POLITICAL value for either side to discuss y2k before the elections. De Jager said clearly that if the government delayed for six months (till after the elections) it would be way too late. How many will die because of these stupid poitics is too terrible to contemplate. Panic, now, while we still have an infrastructure that can supply food and equipment, is what we need. If the government would nationalize the electric industry and put all of the enourmous resources that we have on just one industry, we could save western civilization. Without electricity we have no water, sewage or even the ability to turn on the computers so that they can be fixed. What a terrible price to pay for re-election!

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), June 07, 1998.

The most I have done for public awareness and activism is to post a Y2K information document with links on my website.

Beyond that my plans are to keep assisting my grown children and the rest of my family to ready themselves. My neighbors, too....I plan to post a sign in the local stores about starting a barter co-op...of course without Y2K reference. Neighborhoods will be VERY important if TSHTF as badly as some predictions indicate. Anywhere beyond a 10 square block area will not be home. If that. Once the potential, probably looming disaster hits the major media panic buying and bank runs are likely to start. Some are saying this could happen in about six months.

My new motto for life (although it is not really new) is:

Improvise, adapt and overcome (and hope the Armageddon folks don't start running things)!

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), June 08, 1998.