Reading old WRPs. The following excerpt is from #15.

It's too late, you had your chance, time to move on. Screams of terror fade behind you as you walk out the door. Senior executives sobbing as their stock options plunge in value, the CEO kills himself and the admin staff cries hysterically when they find his body on Monday.

People are killing themselves over it. This was a long time ago, btw, May 97. And people were ALREADY killing themselves. CEOs. Important people putting guns to heads and firing.

I know I am going to come across as being an utter weakling here but this scares me. This really, REALLY scares me, as in that I have the serious shits and not some adrenalin "possible attackers in the night" thing. This is scary. This is bad. This is REALLY REALLY REALLY not good, not nice, not anything.

Sorry- but I had to say this somewhere, and NOBODY I know in person takes y2k seriously.

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 22, 1998

It should read like This. The HTML screwed up due to the second sub-paragraph being inside tag-brackets. And I messed up the italic brackets anyway. Sorry.

It's too late, you had your chance, time to move on. Screams of terror fade behind you as you walk out the door. Senior executives sobbing as their stock options plunge in value, the CEO kills himself and the admin staff cries hysterically when they find his body on Monday. (This has already happened, please don't ask for the morbid details. I personally know the programmer who walked out on a company, the company collapsed, and the CEO killed himself.)

People are killing themselves over it. This was a long time ago, btw, May 97. And people were ALREADY killing themselves. CEOs. Important people putting guns to heads and firing.

I know I am going to come across as being an utter weakling here but this scares me. This really, REALLY scares me, as in that I have the serious shits and not some adrenalin "possible attackers in the night" thing. This is scary. This is bad. This is REALLY REALLY REALLY not good, not nice, not anything.

Sorry- but I had to say this somewhere, and NOBODY I know in person takes y2k seriously.

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 22, 1998.

Got Zoloft?

-- SSRI (prozac@zoloft.paxil), December 22, 1998.

Leo, Leo...Dear child,

You really have to begin distinguishing fiction from reality. That was an example of the famous Hamasaki-Hyperbole at it's finest. Remember Cory's caution to take the WRPs with a grain of salt?

And "Atlas Shrugged" is fiction as well. Got it?

Hallyx

"Too many of us who think we have found the truth have only lost our sense of humor."---Noah benShea

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), December 22, 1998.

people *are* going to die because of y2k related failures. Leo, if that bit by Cory scares you, try walking through a nursing home sometime and figure out what's going to happen *there* after 24 hours with no electricity....

despite the way some folks act this is NOT just another VR videogame...

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), December 22, 1998.

Forget the nursing home, go to a regular hospital and walk through any floors, then ask yourself what's going to happen *there*.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), December 22, 1998.

Actually, there is a story going around that some preachers' kid obsessed over Y2K and shot himself in front of friends after making some kind of statement that the post Y2K world wasn't going to be worth living in. Anyone know if there is any truth to this? Have seen it a couple places.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 22, 1998.

Paul, I have a sorry feeling there will be a lot of that IF TSHTF. I've had a couple of DWGI's suggest that that's what they would do. More for the rest of us, I suppose...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), December 22, 1998.

I don't know if that is true or not Paul. However it would not surprise me in the least. Once an obsession takes over, reason goes down the drain. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the postings from the extreme 'doom and gloom' crowd in this forum are indirectly or even directly responsible for someones decision to do themselves in. We've already seen examples of seriously depressed and possibly even dangerously depressed folks in this forum. The tragedy is, this is all over something that we do not even know how problematic or severe it will be.

Fact is, 90% of the things we worry about never happen. It would be a horrible pity if millions of people harmed themselves far more emotionally and mentally by the fear of the event than the actual event itself.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), December 22, 1998.

Craig, I think you're treading on dangerous territory here and on the other thread. You are very close to saying that individuals are not to be held responsible for their own actions, AND that emotional feedback is not to be trusted. I believe you need to be very careful there, and REALLY think about what you are saying. I'm just groping here, but maybe you're afraid that your own obsessions and depression are being exacerbated by all doom 'n gloom...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), December 22, 1998.

"Actually, there is a story going around that some preachers' kid obsessed over Y2K and shot himself in front of friends after making some kind of statement that the post Y2K world wasn't going to be worth living in. Anyone know if there is any truth to this? Have seen it a couple places."

That sounds like an episode of "Millennium" that aired a few months ago. A bunch of Y2K-obsessed survivalists went around the bend & someone got killed, but since it was such a dumb show I don't recall the details. (However, a different episode, one that dealt with demons walking among us, was excellent.)

-- Ben Dair (not@aol.com), December 22, 1998.

Actually, I know of someone in other forum I post to occasionally in the computer industry that said that the minister's son at his church had committed a Y2K suicide.

Note and everything.

Problem was, many DWGIs were saying that he had other reasons for doing it, pregnant sister, (the sister miscarried from the stress of the suicide).

The problem I have in this is that we're supposed to be pulling together to get through Y2K, not watching the world go down the tubes.

Are we going to be more like the Pharoah when Joseph interpreted the dream of 7 years of famine?

Or more like other Biblical cities which were punished by God for their sins?

Glen Austin

-- Glen Austin (gdaustin@aol.com), December 22, 1998.

It was from a episode of millenium. Some people took it as fact and it ended up in the *rumor mill*....

scholty

-- scholty (scholty@waymark.net), December 22, 1998.

pshannon said

"Paul, I have a sorry feeling there will be a lot of that IF TSHTF. I've had a couple of DWGI's suggest that that's what they would do. More for the rest of us, I suppose... "

Good God man! You're not suggesting what I think you are are you? Shudder:)

(Sorry - been reading Lucifer's Hammer...)

I seem to recall a cop murdered a few months back dut to some y2k nut stressing out up in Montana or somewhere.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 22, 1998.

Okay, everybody calm down! Deep breaths!

There, feeling better?

Now, listen closely...I'm whispering...between now and y2k, 40,000 people will die because they drove their car badly -- or because some stranger drove his/her car badly and it hit theirs.

Between now and y2k, 7,000-11,000 teenagers will take their own lives. That's how many did last year, and the year before, and the year before.... Reasons? Bad grades, unhappy love life, family stress & abuse, drugs, peer pressure, TV/movie influence.... for a teenager to become "obsessed" with y2k is an indicator of SOMETHING ELSE badly wrong in that kid's life. Y2k isn't the problem, anymore than "TV" or "video games" or "rock music" is the problem -- there's something else going wrong with that kid, internally, perhaps chemically. Adolescence is typically the time that certain forms of schizophrenia show up. A teen-schizo can become obsessed with picking every hair out of their eyebrows -- but you wouldn't call that an "eyebrow problem"!

Craig, as with the other thread, let's be a little more gracious in avoiding the unnecessary allusions to mental illness. Concern about the unknown isn't mental illness....it's not nuts to be cautious...to make preparations for an unknown future...or to express the depths and passions of one's concerns to a (hopefully) sympathetic audience.

I really don't think your slights of Leo's concern is going to help him weather his personal storm -- the "slap on the face" technique only works in movies.

Anita E.

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), December 22, 1998.

Anita,

That was so wonderfullly and gracefully done. In my kindest moments, I could not have been so gracious. (I bet you've got great kids.)

Hallyx

Yesterday is history--- Tomorrow is mystery--- Today is a gift--- That's why it's called the present!

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), December 22, 1998.

Anita.........

There was no 'slap' intended for Leo or anyone else for that matter. It seems to me though, that when one starts expressing deep fears about all hell breaking loose when it may or may not happen at all to that extent, it is wise to back down for a while and fill the mind with something else.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), December 22, 1998.

Hi again, Craig:

Thanks for your reply. You sound more yourself.

I'm sure you didn't intend to come off quite as upset as you did... but your charity level was kinda in the dumpster.

Leo probably does need a break from his concerns -- goodness knows, we all should take a while to appreciate the holidays, the good food, and the joys of the season.

Even so, expressing anxiety to sympathetic ears RELIEVES anxiety -- if we listeners keep our ears open with a "golden rule" attitude. I know you can do it Craig....I've seen you do it before!

And Hallyx: thanks for the kind words...but my kids are decent people in spite of me -- I'm a hollerer! Anita E.

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), December 22, 1998.

I think more CEOs will take their retirements rather than their lives.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), December 23, 1998.