Isn't it a scary thought that we are all dependent on the utlity company for our electricity, the water company for our water, the sewage company for our waste, the telephone company to communicate, the doctor to prescribe medicine and the pharamcist to give it to us, the auto mechanic to keep us on the move, the grocery store to feed us, and the government to monetarily rape us with what's left? So, who and what do you think will be left when everything is said and done when TSHTF?

-- bardou (Bardou@baloney.com), January 03, 1999

Answers

Bardou, not only is it scary, it's downright humiliating that we have let ourselves become so dependent on services for everything. I'm preparing for next year, and working on much longer. Mitchell Barnes had a post on here "Long/Short term Prep" that I printed to remind myself to prepare to stay off the grid, as much as I can, even if it does get up and running again. I've been lolling in my comfortable life so long, I almost forgot about how easy it is to become helpless..

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), January 03, 1999.

What's scary to me is that you people are so scared.

If you can't get thru this thing with a feeling of community; of togetherness; of our common humanity;

bottom line is You CAN. We will where I live.

-- John Howard (Greenville, NC) (pcdir@prodigy.net), January 03, 1999.

John: I don't see how anyone who understands y2k can be anything but scared. I've been deeply involved in study and researching this for over a year and a half and the more I learn, the more worried I become. The possibility of a major catastrophe is not diminishing with time, it's increasing. What makes you so optimistic?

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), January 04, 1999.

Fear does not automatically follow pessimism. Fear follows a threat to your hopes. If your hope is in a particular life-style, in the feeling you are guaranteed the physical presence of particular people, in material comfort, in being 'in control' of your life, then any threat to those things (y2k) will produce fear. Lots of fear. If your hope is elsewhere, y2k may not threaten it. In that case, you will see reason for prudence- but not necessarily for fear. If your hope, for example, rests in the assurance that "neither life, nor death, nor powers, nor governments, nor the past, nor the future...can separate you from the love of God" y2k will affect your comfort level-- but it doesn't threaten what is essential to you. I don't know why John isn't more afraid, but I know why I'm not--and it isn't because I'm an optimist.

-- Maria (encelia@mailexcite.com), January 04, 1999.

Even if Y2K turns out to be a fizzle (fat chance!), I think there are a great many Lessons Learned here about how dependent we have become on such a fragile system. I think that, thanks to Y2K, I have become way more knowledgable about our banking system, our power supply system, etc. And that, even without Y2K, there is a lot to be scared of!!!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 04, 1999.