Most Doomist analyses seem to be based primarily on the preponderance of information available to us. Taken as a whole, this information implies (mostly indirectly) a high probability of widespread, serious problems throughout our government and economy. Of course, preparation for a lengthy period of dislocations and shortages is prudent. This is Pascal's wager -- better to be overprepared and be thought a fool, than to be underprepared and remove all doubt.

The problem is, we have no clean information. All of it suffers from one or more problems -- it is based on self-interested or uninformed assessments, it is often ambiguous, it presents such high-level summaries as to mask any useful detail or it provides such narrowly focused detail as to be ungereralizable, it quotes speculations by pundits whose information is no better than ours, it relies on clearly flawed metaphors or comparisons, and so on. We are left to read entrails in the hope of discovering meaning.

We read that US corporations have spent less than half their remediation budget on average, and utilities have spent less than one fifth. IF those budgets were an accurate reflection of the size of the tasks, this is very bad news. The problem is, we have no way of knowing if we're way behind or if the problems have in most cases turned out to be overestimated. (We know of individual cases of both over- and underestimation, but not in any detail). Are the utilities really way behind, or did they systematically overbudget for the size their problems turned out to be? Ambiguous data like this allows either interpretation, and guides us toward neither.

Yes, the geeks in the trenches are pretty pessimistic. But their noses are buried in the problems, perhaps their perspective is warped. The bigwigs should have the big picture, and they're almost all confident of success (except maybe those who are retiring the week after they see the assessment), but they have a vested interest in being optimistic, at least in pronouncements for our consumption.

The Doomists paint endless disaster scenarios, never mentioning that not all events are equally probable. They emphasize that nobody has guaranteed success, and immediately confuse a failure to guarantee, with a guarantee of failure. They tend to extrapolate from single observations, which themselves are artifacts of dubious assumptions. Gary North has been incorrectly predicting a bank failure for decades. Paul Milne saw an economic meltdown 5 years ago, and by running away to the boonies 'protected' his family from the most sustained economic boom in US history. As prophets, they are unreliable. As spin doctors, they are unmatched.

The most convincing Doomist argument is fairly abstract: We rely heavily on computers (and have no fallback positions in most cases), computers make extensive use of dates, most of these dates will be mishandled with unpredictable but undesired consequences if not fixed, we're way behind in the fixing process and introducing new errors as we make fixes, we lack the combined expertise to either forestall or recover gracefully from all of the problems sure to happen.

Beyond this, we're left arguing about dominoes, resiliance, redundency, repair rates, workarounds, failure probabilities, historical IT track records, safe havens and the like. All of this falls into the category of pure speculation.

I really don't think this argument will ever be resolved. The pessimists will always point to all the car wrecks, while the optimists will point out that we continue to drive cars and it works quite well almost all the time. After the UPS strike, the Doomists pointed out the large number of domino bankruptcies during that period, and the Pollyannas noted that the bankruptcy rate for the period was well within the normal range.

I expect we'll need historians with the perspective of a couple of decades to provide the best understanding of what happened. We'll all be too busy putting out our own fires to worry about just how much of the forest actually burned. For some of us it will be a bump, and for others it will be fatal. It won't be so much a falling tide lowering all boats, as it'll be a firefight where some die and others are untouched. The world as we know it is constantly changing. That change rate will accelerate, for sure. Once the dust settles, we may feel the net change was for the better, although the learning experience was far from pleasant.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 11, 1999

Answers

Flint, coming from "the other side", namely being a card carrying "Doomist", I must say that I find very little in your post that I disagree with. When you rigorously examine everything that is claimed about what will happen with Y2K, it always boils down to unprovable speculation, with people of equal credentials having diverse opinions. The very interdependent complexity that we Doomists claim will bring about TEOTWAWKI, you Pollyannas can counter-claim will be the best defense against Y2K problems, especially when one considers that we still have the human element, which can work miracles, especially when required.

I think that the probability of TEOTWAWKI is very high, maybe 85%. But even if I thought it as low as 15%, I would still prepare for it. Because once you factor in the risks, I believe that the Doomist argument totally blows away the Pollyanna's. If you prepare for TEOTWAWKI, and Y2K turns out to be a non-event or small change, you have lost relatively little. If you don't, and it is, or close to, you have lost a lot. (Which is, of course, what Pascal's Wager is all about.)

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 11, 1999.

The arguments will be resolved in about a year... if there's any room for argument, then the optimists were right.

The only way I can see that senior management would have a better understanding than the geeks in the trenches would be if they're making heavy contingency plans for geek failure. If they're relying on the geeks succeeding, and the geeks say they won't, see ya. On average, estimates are turning out to be overly optimistic. The original Gartner Group estimate was $600 billion worldwide, and it was widely scoffed at. Recently Business week reported that $458 billion has already been spent, and the estimate is up to about a trillion. Draw your own conclusions.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), January 11, 1999.

With all of this being said, who's going to pay for it? Share holders? Partners in business? Consumers? Can we say bankruptcy? Or stocks that were running $125/share are now only valued at $35.00 a share or less? You don't give up billions of dollars in profit unless you can make it back someway. What a risk to take is my estimation.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 11, 1999.

Flint,

Since Im still slap in the middle, though wavering today, I have to ask myself who would know more than we know, or most know, of the biggest picture? Assuming, no one knows, for sure, but can only extrapolate based on their OWN current assessment data.

Who would have the biggest vested interest in preparing in order to preserve their prime directive? The big GOV. Not the little ones.

Then I ask, just suppose, they are not releasing what they know ONLY about themselves. If they were confident, what would their actions be, and conversely, if NOT confident, what would their actions be?

Now, any good tracker knows that you look for the signs along the trails, for evidence of recent activity. I am seeing signs of mobilized preparation, involving Mil groups and Alphabet Agencies not commonly grouped together on the domestic scene.

I find that curious. And risky to not pay attention.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 11, 1999.

Flint,

You mentioned Doomist analyses, but what is your definition of a "Doomist"? Is that someone who believes that any kind of preparation is needed, even as little as two weeks of water and food? Or by "Doomist" do you mean someone who believes that electricity will go out for than 60 days and that most people will return to an 1890's lifestyle?

You mentioned most of the pro and con arguments for serious disruptions. Just recently, a new way of convincing people of the seriousness of Y2K has appeared.

The American Red Cross...

http://www.redcross.org/disaster/safety/y2k.html

FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency)...

http://www.fema.gov/nwz99/99001.htm

and the National Guard...

http://www.ngb.dtic.mil/y2k/impact.htm

...all now recommend preparation for Y2K. I think what these organizations are saying should be enough to convince any reasonable person to make some kind of preparation for Y2K.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 12, 1999.

Flint 's summation is right on. Wish I'd said that. Local uncertainty is massive; local risk may range from light to extreme. And yet -- Flint recognizes that "the learning experience" is likely to be "far from pleasant." Tilting a bit away from polly there, is it not so?

And Diane's "I am seeing 'signs' of mobilized preparation, involving Mil groups and Alphabet Agencies not commonly 'grouped' together on the domestic scene." suggests that there are those in high position whose assessment of the probabilities mandates extraordinary forms of readiness. Let's hope we get George Marshall rather than Curtis Lemay.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 12, 1999.

Flint, great post. I never really thought of you as a Pollyanna though.

I'm like Diane. I waver from day to day for various reasons. The number one reason is I want my son to have every advantage other generations have had.

You wrote, "The problem is, we have no clean information. All of it suffers from one or more problems -- it is based on self-interested or uninformed assessments, it is often ambiguous, it presents such high-level summaries as to mask any useful detail or it provides such narrowly focused detail as to be ungereralizable, it quotes speculations by pundits whose information is no better than ours, it relies on clearly flawed metaphors or comparisons, and so on."

Well, I disagree. While it is true that much speculation exists brought about by both sides of the y2k spectrum there is much non-partisan information out there including testimony to Congress and the Senate and organizations like CSIS that supports the contention that there will be disruptions. Who better to know about these systems than those directly responsible for them?

The speculation comes into play because there is no moment in history which can y2k can easily be compared and contrast against. It isn't that there will be no disruptions it is a question of just how severe the disruptions will be. No one knows.

I hope the disruptions are an absolute bump in the road but I want to make sure I get caught on the right side of Pascal's wager.

Mike ===================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 12, 1999.

Flint... just read your post again. Excellent balance in thought. I commend you for your ability to see both sides and then articulate those sides so well.

With your permission, I'd like to print out your post and use it as a tool to get others to prepare.

Thanks again.

Mike ==================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 12, 1999.

Flint:

If the present evidence is susceptible to various interpretations, then please, based on the most current information available, give us your hypothetical rosey scenario which would lead to a soft landing.

Since you make it sound that the most draconian economic wipeout has no more chance than any other possible economic outcome then you should give us your best guess how a "bump-in-the-road" scenario would play itself out. My guess is that except for the often used catch-all statement along the lines that "human igenuity will work its magic to pull us through", you will be hard pressed to develop any "bump-in-the-road" scenario that would even be remotely probable.

But don't let me disuade you -- give it your best shot, and that goes for everyone else. This type of thinking is very useful to maintain your equilibrium and objectivity. BTW, I'll be thinking about it as well. Just don't ask me for it right now, cause I already waisted too much damn time on this forum which could have been ordering more supplies!

-- Dr. Roger Altman (rogaltman@aol.com), January 12, 1999.

Boy, what a breath of fresh air this thread is.

I recently received a post that put some of this in perspective. Here is the relevant part of the post (sorry about the formatting):

PART THREE:

A GATHERING OF EAGLES

SHOCK TREATMENTS & ELEPHANTS

Everyone I've encountered who has been seriously involved in Y2K -- researchers, programmers, community organizers, government officials, journalists -- eventually starts feeling like they've slipped in the Twilight Zone. Slowly at first, and then with increasing intensity, your normal way of viewing life on planet Earth starts to get blurry: you realize that governments around the world might topple, missiles might launch unexpectedly, terrorists might attack, nuclear reactors might melt down, medical equipment might not work, power grids might fail, the IRS and many other U.S. government agencies might go belly up, 911 and emergency services might not work, grocery stores might run out of food, WAL-MART, for goodness sake, might not get new shipments from overseas.

Pondering the ramifications of thousands upon thousands of vitally important, highly-interconnected systems failing all over the world at the same time does something to normal awareness. Tom Atlee, founder of THE CO-INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE, coined a term for this kind of pondering: "Y2K Fatigue."

"Perhaps there's something called Y2K Fatigue," writes Tom. "Like battle fatigue or compassion fatigue. I think its main ingredient is ambiguity fatigue. It is exhausting to continually contemplate a massive threat from a place of radical uncertainty littered with certainties that blink on and off."

The kind of "blinking certainties" that Tom refers to includes the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE declaring several mission critical systems to be Y2K compliant only to be challenged by government watchdog agencies who discovered that the DoD had falsified their reports -- on at least two separate occasions. Or the FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION installing brand new Y2K compliant computer systems at three major airports only to find out that their new systems were so riddled with bugs that the old non-Y2K compliant systems had to be reinstalled before planes, which were disappearing from radar screens, crashed into each other.

Blinking certainties. There are a lot of those these days. And there are also electric shocks. Writes Tom again:

"I heard once that giving rats regular shocks and random shocks were both less stressful than giving them semi-predictable shocks. The most stressful regimen was a regular schedule of shocks occasionally interrupted with shocks that didn't happen when they were supposed to and shocks that did happen when they weren't supposed to. The poor rats couldn't even develop psychological defenses against the shocks. They just sank into apathy. There's something about Y2K that's like that. On Monday we may feel certain about something, only to find that by Tuesday some new evidence or hearsay or shift in perspective makes it feel like a far shot -- or worse: that its opposite may suddenly appear to be true -- while other things we thought were fairly iffy may suddenly seem as sure as sunrise. Where is the landscape here? Where's the ground? What is going on? Where can I stand? Am I crazy?"

And then there is Y2K itself. Why has it appeared in human history now? What is its purpose in the grand scheme of things? And what are we -- private citizens, mothers, fathers and families, small businesses, corporations, cities, states, nations -- to do about it? David La Chapelle, who reported on the first national gathering of Y2K leaders that met in Boulder, Colorado in August of last year, had this to say:

"I came away from the Boulder conference with a profound appreciation for the depth of integrity, courage and heartfulness of the participants. I also experienced very strongly that we were living within the story of the blind men and the elephant. A very large and strange creature has appeared in our midst and we still do not have fundamental agreement as to what that creature looks like.

We all were groping to describe a phenomenon which has such far-reaching implications and such powerful psychic and physical consequences that we were in some fundamental way blinded. The very complexity of the issue we face and the necessity to be able to make huge leaps of whole systems integration created a palpable overload.

"I found that I was tiring easily in the discussions and several of my good friends reported similar levels of exhaustion. I have observed in the course of communicating about Y2K, with many people in many different settings, a similar process of overload. One of the positive aspects of the conference was the fact that so many people were in a similar state of awakened exhaustion that many participants were able to be carried by the container of the whole, even if their individual nodes of concentration weakened at times. This points to a fundamental truth which the conference brought home to me: we cannot do this alone or in isolation. The very networked nature of the crisis is calling forth a level of communication across all social and cultural levels which I believe is unparalleled in our modern experience."

SOMETHING IN THE WIND

I guess you get the picture: Y2K is not only causing a great deal of mischief in the world of software, hardware, and embedded chips, but it is also causing a great deal of mischief inside the human beings who are trying to understand it. Put simply, none of us, it seems, has been able to get a handle on the global elephant that has wandered into our house and sat on us.

But there are movements afoot now that are trying to.

In October of this past year, David La Chapelle approached me about gathering together with a small group of Y2K leaders from around the country to do a vision quest (or "quest" as David prefers to calls it). The idea was to create a way for those of us who have been wrestling with Y2K on the Internet to meet in the real world and compare notes, seek guidance, and deepen our bonds with one another. As David and I discussed this, Sedona emerged as the place to meet and this spring the time. Last month, I sent out a letter to some of the main Y2K leaders and visionaries I've been corresponding with. Among other things, I mentioned the upcoming gathering and my growing need to meet with others who have been wrestling as intensely with Y2K as I have. Tom Atlee responded with a stirring reply:

"There's something in the wind.

"About two weeks ago I found myself feeling like I/we were on the wrong track somehow. I felt like something BIG was trying to surface through us -- or through Y2K -- and the way we were operating was somehow blocking that. I have found it increasingly difficult to focus on many Y2K activities that were of compelling interest just a month or so ago. Burnout is part of it, but not all of it. Not by a long shot.

"When I talked tentatively to three Y2K activist friends, they all said they felt the same way. In particular, their attention was drifting to spiritual and other 'larger' issues beyond preparation.

"Then I went to the weekly BAY2K meeting of Bay Area Y2K organizers. I decided I wouldn't say how I was feeling, because I didn't want to undermine the momentum of anyone's community organizing or preparation projects. But then one of the other participants said that she was having a hard time focusing on Y2K preparedness and educational issues and was drifting towards spiritual concerns that had long been relegated to the background. As soon as she said that (and she was very much groping for words), EVERYONE ELSE IN THE MEETING said they felt the same way.

"We ended up having a hilarious meeting in which we joked about the seriousness of our efforts. We decided that dried food was a perfect symbol for a certain dessicated quality we'd observed in Y2K 'preparedness' efforts. Preparedness itself seemed like a soulless, often fearful black hole into which we could dump all our resources and attention and never really succeed -- because no matter HOW prepared we ever are, there is always some plausible worse-case scenario that could overwhelm us. We joked about creating a book or screenplay or poem entitled 'Just Add Water: Finding the Juice in Y2K.'

Phrases like 'Reclaim your soul from the infrastructure before it falls apart' and 'Waiting for the Y2K Godot' were tossed around. Joyful, boisterous life came back into the room. Something shifted. It was like the decks were being cleared for something. But then we weren't sure where to go from there.

"What did it mean? Someone said, 'Something passionate is waiting for us to be ready.' I have that distinct feeling. Something is in the wind."

Tom went on to say that my letter strengthened his sense that something was, indeed, "in the wind." He wrote that he planned to organize a small gathering of friends over the holidays for a time of inner work together:

--------------------------------------------------------- Resilient Communities Website:

http://www.transform.org/transform/tlc/index.html

------------ Please feel free to share this report with as many people as you like.

-- Ted Markow (markow@gwi.net), January 12, 1999.

I wish I could paint a rosy picture, but my crystal ball is still on the blink. I'm not pursuaded by those who shout about an alien invasion every time they see a weather balloon, regardless of how loud or often they shout.

In my tiny corner of the world, we design systems (mostly PCs and some embeddeds) and do initial bring-up. Most of the time, when we first apply power to the first protoboard, it's stone dead. Within a day or two, we've found the really killer problems (usually less than half a dozen), and the board is up and doing most of what it should, though not always very reliably.

I emphasize that the board is *usable* at this time. Over the course of one to three months of testing (depending on system complexity) we'll typically find several dozen more bugs. We ship the product when it can successfully pass everything in our test plan, which is itself hardly exhaustive. An exhaustive test plan would be nearly infinite. The point is that the system became 95% operational (or more) after fixing only 10% of the bugs (or less).

No, most companies don't have anywhere near enough time for complete end-to-end testing. But it seems important to me whether we have nough time for the minimal testing and debugging necessary to prevent the entire system from blowing up. It doesn't take that long to find and fix the relatively small percent of the real killer problems. The remainder will be cropping up long after the deadline, but hopefully these will fall into the category of inconveniences, delays, fairly minor snafus, etc. Hopefully we can keep up with this category of bugs, even with really dirty kludges, without the loss of most organizations' ability to function at all.

I notice today that Gary North has applied his spin to ComEd's statement of progress. ComEd says that they have identified and repaired/replaced every noncompliance that could have interfered with the actual generation and distribution of power, although they have in fact only fixed 35% of all of the compliance problems found.

North, of course, contributes his sarcastic comments (ComEd says they're ready. They're only 35% complete but they're ready. Suuuure they are! They say they have no y2k issues. Riiiight! And here it is 1999 already. I hope you have warm clothing, etc.)

Based on my experience, 35% fixed is easily enough to guarantee that the power will flow, if ComEd has (as they claim) focused on the important, functional issues. I confess that my myopic experience is limited to hardware and firmware, and I have no experience with enterprise IT systems. I'd suspect the the bug-curve, graphed over time, would show a very steep drop very quickly, before flattening out and never quite reaching zero. Perhaps someone with more expertise with IT knows better than I.

Can anyone help? How long into the testing process do you expect to have a usable, if not particularly reliable, system? A month? Two years? How long should it take before these systems can do enough to permit the organization to continue to function?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 12, 1999.

I'm trying to appreciate this, really I am...

>> Yes, the geeks in the trenches are pretty pessimistic. But their noses are buried in the problems, perhaps their perspective is warped.

So, do we disregard their input (or anyone else's) because they're hard at it in the trenches? Their technical perspective is irreplacable. No other source is more knowledgable about the nuts-and-bolts remediation/contingency planning. Questionable motives can be found for anyone, but that still doesn't change the fact that these people are in a unique position to judge. Do we pooh-pooh a fireman's respect for fire or his thoughts on fire prevention, because his "nose is buried in the problem"?

>> immediately confuse a failure to guarantee, with a guarantee of failure

No. As many others have said, not a guarantee. There is a subset of Doomists that hold that view, but they do not 'smear' the whole. A risk of sufficient probability, or a gigantic risk of even less probability, is prudent reason to take precautions.

>> We rely heavily on computers ...

Having worked in DP for 20 years, most recently on Y2K remediation, I would think this sentence is as concrete (non-abstract) as it possibly could be. We are facing the possibility of something *without parallel*. There is no past model to refer to with absolute certainty, for Doomers or Pollyannas. And until a few months ago, I had no idea how interconnected the power distribution, telecomm and shipping industries were. "We rely heavily on computers" is understatement almost to the point of absurdity, for the Western world. It almost implies an option or alternative where there is none - for the sheer volume of messages communicated between trading and commerce partners cannot be met with manual human effort.

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), January 12, 1999.

I saw this thread after posting to "Does y2k Start This April?" I wish I'd posted it here.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), January 12, 1999.

>PART THREE: >A GATHERING OF EAGLES >SHOCK TREATMENTS & ELEPHANTS

Now I understand why my husband (who is doing major Y2k remediation at work and helping with our preps at home) has been wandering around the house lately muttering, "I want to go and be a druid"!!!

LOL!

Seriously, this piece touched home. Husband and I both read it out loud and then looked at each other and agreed we felt the same way. Something *is* in the wind.

Bobbi http://www.buzzbyte.com/

-- Bobbi (bobbia@slic.com), January 12, 1999.

Ted,

Thanks for that post. It reminds me that I need to shut down the computer and take a walk! BTW, I'm in the Bay Area and want to play too! I'll send you and "e."

Yes. There IS something in the wind. I smell a whiff of smoke and it's uncertain, acrid perfume won't let me rest. There is something strange happening here. My intuition tells me so. And my gut feeling sinks with it too. And I'm suffering from Y2K battle fatigue as well.

Can't help sensing that the "better clues" are wrapped up somehow with FEMA, the "members" of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the U.S. Senate, the National Guard, State and local Emergency Preparedness organizations, Fire departments, the United Nations, the USIA and the DoD. Go figure. Actually, go search.

But first, attend to the more important things. Refresh the spirit and reach a different vantage point.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 12, 1999.

yes diane, there is something in the wind...a lot of y2k hot air from Washington.

-- a (a@a.a), January 12, 1999.

The following was posted on csy2k by Paul Milne. I don't know why it wasn't posted on this thread, so in fairness to both parties, here goes:- My comments in those square box thingies [xxx]Andy...

"Again, Why Flint Insists On Being An Idiot"

"Most Doomist analyses seem to be based primarily on the preponderance of information available to us. Taken as a whole, this information implies (mostly indirectly) a high probability of widespread, serious problems throughout our government and economy. Of course, preparation for a lengthy period of dislocations and shortages is prudent. This is Pascal's wager -- better to be overprepared and be thought a fool, than to be underprepared and remove all doubt. The problem is, we have no clean information."

ROTFLAMO ROTFLMAO

All of it suffers from one or more problems -- it is based on self- interested or uninformed assessments,

A self assessment that says that they have spent less than 25% of their budget is what...... ? Lying to hide the fact that they are actually 75% done? You are a knucklehead Flint.

"it is often ambiguous,"

Ambiguous? Yes, ambiguaous in the way that the FACTS do not square with their assurances, the way that their repoerts and PR Flak is self contradictoery and internally inconsistent.

"it presents such high-level summaries as to mask any useful detail or it provides such narrowly focused detail as to be ungereralizable,"

The only thing nasked here is your willingness to absorb the truth.

"it quotes speculations by pundits whose information is no better than ours, it relies on clearly flawed metaphors or comparisons, and so on. We are left to read entrails in the hope of discovering meaning."

If Flint is SO monumantally stupid as to asert that the information that we have is analagous to reading entrails, then you readily see what a moronic simpleton that he is.

"We read that US corporations have spent less than half their remediation budget on average,"

You said that that that was not 'clear' information above. Sounds clear and unambiguous to me.

"and utilities have spent less than one fifth."

Sounds pretty clear again.

"IF those budgets were an accurate reflection of the size of the tasks, this is very bad news."

And now we will hear why Flint will not accept it.

"The problem is, we have no way of knowing if we're way behind or if the problems have in most cases turned out to be overestimated."

Like I said, no matter what the info, Flint insists that it is always nothing that can tell us anything. No matter what comes up, Flint says we can gainnothing from it. It is always that we don't know. He insists that we do not know and that we can not know. That is why Flint is a rube and a moron.

"(We know of individual cases of both over- and underestimation, but not in any detail). Are the utilities really way behind, or did they systematically overbudget for the size their problems turned out to be?"

He is an ASS to even think such a thing. Their budgets were not made once for all three years ago. They have constantly re-assessed their shortfall and the budgets have gone up incrementally constantly. This is clearly not a budget over estimation. It is the cold hard facts that they have underbudgeted dramatically. But, when Flint insists that you can not know anything everything must be interpretted that wya. No matter what is said, you can not know.

"Ambiguous data like this allows either interpretation, and guides us toward neither."

It is only ambiguous in the mind of one who insists that it is ambiguous.

"Yes, the geeks in the trenches are pretty pessimistic."

[COUNT ME IN :) Andy)

Always with the "yes, but." "Yes, but it might be underbudgeting" Yes, but it might be geeks that are pessimistic." Always the "yes, but."

"But their noses are buried in the problems, perhaps their perspective is warped."

[WHOA BOY!!! Andy]

Now the people who are doing the job have warped perspectives. The people laying the bricks can not see if the wall is going up. You see my point? No matter what evidence id given Flint finds an excuse to fit it in his paradigm that YOU CAN NOT KNOW. This allows him to be comfortable in the highly populated area in which he lives and from which he will not leave. It does not fit the facts, it is only FORCED into his 'can not know' paradigm.

"The bigwigs should have the big picture, and they're almost all confident of success (except maybe those who are retiring the week after they see the assessment), but they have a vested interest in being optimistic, at least in pronouncements for our consumption."

Actually, nothing further from the truth is the case. Flint has no concept of business as usual. The programmer is ORDERED to get it done. Time runs out and he is ORDERED to go onto the next thing and mark it complete. The boss passes this on up the line and the CEO puts out PR releases that they expect to be in good shape.

Notice that flint still offers NOT ONE FACT or shred of evidence? Do you notice that it is PURE rhetoric?

"The Doomists paint endless disaster scenarios, never mentioning that not all events are equally probable."

This is the 'democratic' bent of Flint. He wants all events to have an equal probability. They do not. Especially in light of the facts and the evidence. Like I said, Flint forces everything into his paradig, "You can not know" and all events have an equal probability of occurring. Given the facts and the evidence there is no 'equal probability'. That is the purpose of gathering evidence. If all thing shad an equal probability of occurring there would be no need to gather any evidence at all, it would be a flip of the coin.

"They emphasize that nobody has guaranteed success, and immediately confuse a failure to guarantee, with a guarantee of failure."

No, we don not 'confuse' that at all. WE IGNORE IT. I could not care less about a gurantee of success. It is a no-issue. I do not need a guarantee of that which I already know can not happen. that is another of Flint's red-herrings.

I do not extrapolate a lack of 100% to a failure. I equate the EVIDENCE that not nearly enough is being done to a FAILURE.

"They tend to extrapolate from single observations,"

On the contrary again. In EVERY way I take the big picture of ALL the evidence that is available. The ENTIRE electric utility industry has spent less than half of its budgets. 30% of them have spent less than 25% of those budgets. THAT is the big picture. But, Flint, insisting that 'you can not know' and in an attempt to 'equalize the probabilities in his own mind' asserts with NO facts at all that **MAYBE** they have overbudgetted. LOL LOL LOL

No facts, No evidence. Just Rhetric in the face of the evidence that the budgets go higher and higher each day and the announcements of slipped milestones and deadlines increase each day.

"which themselves are artifacts of dubious assumptions. Gary North has been incorrectly predicting a bank failure for decades."

Not one of his failed predictions is germain to the discussion. Another attempt to divert from the facts and the issues onto irrelevancies that have nothing to do with the fatcs. Flint is so feeble that he now launches into persomalities instead of discussing the FACTS and the EVIDENCE, once again.

"Paul Milne saw an economic meltdown 5 years ago, and by running away to the boonies 'protected' his family from the most sustained economic boom in US history. As prophets, they are unreliable. As spin doctors, they are unmatched."

And I suppose that Flint does not see the economic meltdown that is all around us and growing worse and gathering speed every moment. He calls my posture 'running away'. I have no problem with removing my family to a safer place than where we were. However, my actions have nothing to do with the EVIDENCE and the FACTS concerning Y2K. The facts and evidence are crystal clear. Flint mere refuses themly.

"The most convincing Doomist argument is fairly abstract: We rely heavily on computers (and have no fallback positions in most cases), computers make extensive use of dates, most of these dates will be mishandled with unpredictable but undesired consequences if not fixed, we're way behind in the fixing process and introducing new errors as we make fixes, we lack the combined expertise to either forestall or recover gracefully from all of the problems sure to happen."

Beyond this, we're left arguing about dominoes, resiliance, redundency, repair rates, workarounds, failure probabilities, historical IT track records, safe havens and the like. All of this falls into the category of pure speculation."

Not in the leats. But it fits Flint's paradigm. Everyhting is conjecture speculation and 'no one can know'. Again he fails to address the evidence and the facts.

"I really don't think this argument will ever be resolved."

The argument is only in your mind. I am quite certain indeed. You are only wrestling with yourself, publically and making an ass of yourself in the process.

"The pessimists will always point to all the car wrecks, while the optimists will point out that we continue to drive cars and it works quite well almost all the time."

irrelevant as usual, as the issue is not one of pessimism or optimism, but of assessing the FACTS.

"After the UPS strike, the Doomists pointed out the large number of domino bankruptcies during that period, and the Pollyannas noted that the bankruptcy rate for the period was well within the normal range."

No. The issue was the DIRECT corelation of 600 companies that went out of business as a DIRECT recult of the UPS stike. All manner of alternatives were available. A myriad of other shipping companies still eager for their buisness. But they went out of business. A single point of failure, with no widpread loss of infrastructure and 600 business go down the drain.

"I expect we'll need historians with the perspective of a couple of decades to provide the best understanding of what happened."

Of course, again, this is the same old paradigm. We can not know. we can ONLY know looking back. Childish childish behavior.

"We'll all be too busy putting out our own fires to worry about just how much of the forest actually burned. For some of us it will be a bump, and for others it will be fatal. It won't be so much a falling tide lowering all boats, as it'll be a firefight where some die and others are untouched. The world as we know it is constantly changing. That change rate will accelerate, for sure. Once the dust settles, we may feel the net change was for the better, although the learning experience was far from pleasant."

This last paragraph is a mishmash of confused sentimantalities whoilly unrelated the the FACTS AND THE EVIDENCE yet again.

Flint attempts to force everything into his tiny little box. No one can know anything at all, in THIS, **THE INFORMATION AGE**. No wonder Flint is so dazed and confused and does not know anything. He insists that he can not know. And he has succedded. He knows nothing. And he knows it.

I only wonder.....how does he know it?

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000NVt

Paul Milne If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast."

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 13, 1999.

"Can anyone help? How long into the testing process do you expect to have a usable, if not particularly reliable, system? A month? Two years? How long should it take before these systems can do enough to permit the organization to continue to function?"

Well Flint, these systems have been around for 20/30/40 years, y2k has been known about since the 60's, sensible entities like VISA started remediation several years ago...we're not talking PC's here, we're not talking installing a new accounting package fer crissakes - ever heard about a concept called "the rest of the world"??? As in THEY ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!!!

GOT IT???

I take great exception to your premise that my perception is warped!

"Yes, the geeks in the trenches are pretty pessimistic. But their noses are buried in the problems, perhaps their perspective is warped."

I beg to differ, some of the most accurate and in depth research regarding this whole sorry mess is being done by mainframe dinosaurs like myself who've been around for 20-30 years and can see the wood from the trees technically, economically, societally and governmentally if there is such a word.

Get real Flint, you're wishy washy and condescending posts have really pissed me off!!!

Y2K being "far from pleasant" - codswallop my myopic friend!!!

Andy

"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about."

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, 1922 (Sufi Prophet)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 13, 1999.

"The problem is, we have no clean information" Flint.

Flint, I've studied philosophy of science for the last seven years and concluded that, outside of math/logic, there IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN INFORMATION. If you want certainty you've come to the wrong universe. There certainly (?!) is such a thing as truth, it's just that humans vary greatly in their abilities to obtain and process the stuff. Processing information so as to obtain something-approximating-truth is the trickiest of artforms. There's no rulebook to it, and what works in some circumstances fails in others. But common-sense shows the obvious stupidity of claiming that we cannot know anything. Likewise, to point out that more than one interpretation of a particular data point is possible does not nullify the fact that often one interpretation has a lot more going for it than the other does. The topic of y2k is so broad, all-encompassing, and challenging that one can put together a sizeable list of nifty-sounding doubts, each of which has some legs, so as to form a collection of teotwawki-doubts that would perhaps be sufficient to half-justify a pollyanic conclusion (at first glance, or to the inexpert eye.) And many of these doubts often play on the mind of convinced teotwackers, no doubt. Look also at the academic gits who are so chuffed that they even know about the 999 a.d. scene, and who are smugly led to the conclusion that y2k "mania" is just a repeat perfomance because of numbers "mystical powers". (some other thread..) A couple of inferences plus a bit of history equals a warm fuzzy feeling that diverts them from the choicest information on y2k.

Anywho, all we have to guide us is our curiosity and our nous.

But where is the smart money???

8.5 plus.

-- humptydumpty (no.6@thevillage.com), January 13, 1999.

Humpty, I think we are largely in agreement on most of this. You write:

>there IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN INFORMATION.

I agree. In fact, that was the entire point of one paragraph

>Processing information so as to obtain something-approximating-truth >is the trickiest of artforms.

Absolutely. What I'm fighting against is those who claim the truth is obvious, that their future isn't a prediction or extrapolation, it's an undeniable fact, readily apparant to all but nitwits. For an excellent example of pure, mindless hysteria, see Paul Milne's response as posted above by Andy (who beat me to it, I was going to post that here today). I could hardly ask for a better contrast between the effort to weigh, sift, and interpret what we know, and the effort to defend absolute, thought-free certainty in the face of an uncertain and changing reality. Trying to kill the messenger in the hopes that the message goes away is a wonderful illustration of the intellectual bankruptcy of that mindset.

> But common-sense shows the obvious stupidity of claiming that we >cannot know anything.

There's a difference between not knowing critical details about the future, and not knowing the odds. That's why I've prepared for at least a year with no outside source of power, water, food, and many other supplies. I regard this as prudent in case things are bad, rather than a guarantee that things will be bad just because I've prepared.

> Look also at the academic gits who are so chuffed that they even >know about the 999 a.d. scene, and who are smugly led to the >conclusion that y2k "mania" is just a repeat perfomance because of >numbers "mystical powers".

Stephen Jay Gould has repeatedly gone to some lengths to document that there *never was* a 999 mania. That actual date was known only in the monasteries, and even they weren't hung up on zeroes or any mathmatical definition of a millennium. The '999 mania' was an 18th century fabrication, created during the perceived conceptual battle between science and theology. Not that that's your point, just thought you'd like to know.

Andy, I meant no insult to the geeks in the trenches. In csy2k the geek-in-trenches input is about 50/50 between those who say we're doomed and those who say they're ready. Also, I explained how things work in my business, and asked if there were any parallel in yours. Your response is to act insulted and start attacking me. If there's no parallel, fine, say so and explain why not. Acting insulted may make you feel better, but it leaves the rest of us no wiser.

-- Flint (flintc@mindpsring.com), January 13, 1999.

First, there was

>>Yes, the geeks in the trenches are pretty pessimistic. But their noses are buried in the problems, perhaps their perspective is warped.

and then there was

>> In csy2k the geek-in-trenches input is about 50/50 between those who say we're doomed and those who say they're ready.

So which of these statements are we to accept? Or are they both valid simultaneously? If so, which half of the '50/50' has the warped perspective?

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), January 13, 1999.

Grr, glad you asked.

First, both statements are correct as far as I know. It's possible to be both ready and pessimistic -- I am, maybe you are too?

The csy2k programmers fall into all camps from the no-problem types to the no-hope types, with the average (according to their own self- assessment) being pretty pessimistic.

Now, they certainly can't all be right. Those who are ready tend to vote for a more pleasant future than those who are not. Is it possible that that their experiences have shaped their perspectives? Is the bear Catholic?

Somehow, I think the use of the word 'warped' as a synonym for 'shaped' or 'influenced' is the cause of your heartburn. Paul Milne is the only person I know who lays claim to complete, unbiased objectivity. And as I wrote when starting this thread, his track record stinks.

What I'm trying to do in this thread is engage in a discussion about what Humpty accurately called the tricky artform of approximating the truth. It shouldn't be necessary to have to spend time trying to mollify tender sensibilities. I'm a bit-twiddler, not a diplomat.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 13, 1999.

Flint - I appreciate your tact. Sorry I get a mite testy at times.

>> Those who are ready tend to vote for a more pleasant future than those who are not. Is it possible that that their experiences have shaped their perspectives?

I hope I just didn't understand that first sentence. It just raises too many protests in my dazed little brain, so it's gotta be "misperceived" here. That last sentence, though - true of everyone, pessimist or optimist - isn't it? Barring due diligence?

And as for "tender sensibilities" - we're all hindered equally by exchanging text. In the absence of your facial expressions, I can only take your words at face value. And, of course, vice versa.

Even though I'm also a "bit-twiddler" the objection to that statement has nothing to do with bruised egos. Is there a more authoritative source on solving this problem than the "hard techs" doing the work? Dispensing with the views of *the* experts is sorta breathtaking.

Isn't every occupational group at equal risk of unbalanced perspective, in one direction or another? It's the same thing as above - IMO it gets very dicey to question the outlook or (gasp!) bias of any *group* of people, because the objections boomerang right back at the 'objectee'...

At any rate, you're making me think. (Has there ever been a thread started for 'good solid news' - see my post elsewhere ?)

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), January 13, 1999.

Flint - yes you pissed me off, and I apologise for letting you get to me, call it Y2KDK (geddit?), it's all getting a little too much for my pea brain to handle :) - most regulars reading this forum know my background and views by now - they are not going to change - what also ticked me off was your abject unwillingness to look at the evidence that you see all around you worldwide every single day - you keep repeating the mantra there is no credible information out there - bullshit, read between the lines, it's all over the place - and analysing this situation up the kazoo is not going to change anything whatsoever. Sorry! Y2KDK again.......

The simple fact is time has already run out.

The US will not make it in time. The "rest of the world" has no chance.

Don't believe me?

By my reckoning we have about 230 working days left to get every single entity on earth up to speed. Let's take the USA for example as it has the lowest amount of vacation days in the world. (e.g. Saudia Arabia takes 3 months off, Ramadan plus regular vacation. France takes the month of August off every year plus 15 public holidays, plus strikes (their national sport) - you get the picture...) Factor in public holidays. 220. Factor in sickness. 210. Factor in vacation time. 190. You could also factor in Friday afternoons in most shops and water cooler and fag breaks and long lunches and burn out and *unknown factors* (Martial Law anyone???) if you wish.

So - about <190 days is all we have left to fix everything in the USA. Whup-ee-do.

On the plus side - there may be overtime and death marches for geeks. A tired geek is not a good or careful remediator. It will not work. Entities have seriously underestimated the scope of the problem. Testing has all but gone out the window for many of them.

Factor in the great geek exodus from the ciities (for I am one) late next year. I will *NOT* be at a mainframe site in a big city at rollover unless there is a helicopter standing by to take me home and they pay me mucho gold coins.

Time has run out. Face it.

Andy

"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about."

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, 1922 (Sufi Prophet)

By my reckoning we in this country have about

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 13, 1999.

>> Those who are ready tend to vote for a more pleasant future than those who are not. Is it possible that that their experiences have shaped their perspectives?

I hope I just didn't understand that first sentence.

---

On a scale of 1 to 10, as I recall those programmers who were confident of being finished and tested with their systems in time averaged somewhere around 5, and those who saw no hope of coming close with theirs were about 9.5. Maybe 'pleasant' isn't the right word.

---

And as for "tender sensibilities" - we're all hindered equally by exchanging text. In the absence of your facial expressions, I can only take your words at face value. And, of course, vice versa.

---

Well, I try to apply the Golden Rule and most of the time I think I come close. For all I know, Paul Milne (see post above) does too, but if so he's a clinical masochist.

---

Is there a more authoritative source on solving this problem than the "hard techs" doing the work? Dispensing with the views of *the* experts is sorta breathtaking.

---

If the 'hard techs' are the most authoritative source, we've got problems, since their expectations are all over the map. On the other hand, the most determined all-good-news-is-lies people I've run into yet are a writer, a farmer, and an historian. As I've posted elsewhere, for some people certainty is preferable to doubt *even if* it's certainty of doom.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 13, 1999.

There, I absolutely agree with you - "for some people certainty is preferable to doubt *even if* it's certainty of doom." And that does muddle things.

And, too, while the geeks' opinions are indeed all over the map, I'm glad I managed to convey that their expertise is our best defense. They're human, with foibles and varying perspectives. But they're *the* solvers - not the politicians or PR flacks or preachers. I wonder if the perspectives of any other occupational group can matter as much as the programmer/analysts and engineers...

'Nuff said (well, too much said)...

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), January 14, 1999.