This is NOT a religious post, nor is it intended to engender a philosophical debate about the inherent goodness or depravity of the human heart. However, what is relevant to the disciplined mindset necessary for proper preparation to protect one's family is a recognition by one who believes in inherent goodness that y2k forces him to stake the survival of his family on the truth of that proposition. In other words, y2k potentially has the power to disabuse us of all sorts of personal philosophies that, at present, may make us feel good, but when tried and tested, may be weighed in the balance and found wanting, at the cost of our lives. The point is simply this: don't make guinea pigs of your loved ones by betting their lives either on an exalted view of human nature or an exalted view of our technological resiliency. The stakes are high, real high. Play the percentages. Buy that extra ton of wheat, and that expensive water filter. Daddy (or mommy) can't afford a mistake on this one. My best to all the brave souls on this forum.

-- Mark Meyers (gal2:20@face2face.com), December 21, 1998

Answers

I second that! Spend $50. per month on extra food. That is 50 lbs of rice, a case of canned veggies or fruit, some dry soup mix, a few small canned hams, a bottle of multi-vitamins, a few big cans of soup. All that for the price of one nice dinner out.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), December 22, 1998.

Amen to the above. At last, some common sense.

Human nature hasn't changed much in almost 7,000 years of recorded history, only our technology has. Exponential benefits and exponential horrors because of technology.

Technology won't save us however. In fact, it appears that our dependance on it will be our demise.

Fitting.

RIP America.

-- INVAR (gundark@aol.com), December 22, 1998.