If nothing happens will life (people)change or just go back to the way they were. Like people that have moved out to the country will they stay or go back to the city and if it is the end of the world as we know it will we rebuild our lifes excately the way they are now or use what we have learned and do it diffrently. I guess I don't really fear the future as I think I will be as ready as I can be to deal with anything that come's up. I would like my kids to grow up in a world alittle better than the one we have now and I would like to help.

-- Steve (stambela@midway.tds.net), January 28, 1999

Answers

That's a good question. I guess it depends on how bad it is. If the New Age crowd is right, the planet is about to undergo major changes anyway, and Y2K could just be the final push that we need to really change as a society. And I'm sure there is enough pent-up dissatisfaction with the way things are, that a lot of people will embrace a new way of life, but not without some serious pain along the way. If the New Age doesn't happen, then we may move back to a new "dark age". According to Hindu philosophy, we're a little more than 1% into the Kali Yuga or Iron Age, which is the darkest of the four "ages" that this world goes through. It started around 3102 BC, but lasts for 432,000 years! Here's a link describing this stuff: and another interesting one :

-- Dave (dfassett@king.cts.com), January 28, 1999.

Oops, let try again:

www.wenet.net/~budrye/india/yuga.htm

www.engr.ucdavis.edu/~das/rao/How_old_are_we.html

-- Dave Fassett (dfassett@king.cts.com), January 28, 1999.

If nothing else, we'll have seen an increase in the number of people who will work to maintain their independence, due to their realization of how fragile the system really is...and we'll also have seen a definite increase in the number of armed citizens in this country - always a positive thing in my book!

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 29, 1999.

As a child, in fact until I was about 25 years old,I had the belief that the government had a plan. They had motive and reason and were nearly god-like as far as I was concerned. For example, we fought in wars because the evil enemy forced us to. We dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for everyone's own good. We sent our soldiers to Vietnam because we had to protect freedom in other countries. When I would see Presidents speaking of the USSR, I'd imagine a dark dungeon of evil, and on and on. In one semester during college an American History course covering the detailed facts and events of the Civil War, WWI, and WWII combined with an American National Goverment Course my world view was turned on it's head. I realized our leaders were "wingin' it." Not to say there isn't policy, but for the most part what the policy seems to be centered on is today, not the future, and an ethnocentric view of the world. My hope is that Y2K will bring this to an end. However, I won't hold my breath and wait for it to happen. But maybe, just maybe it will expand our worldviews a bit.

On a personal level it's already a good thing. As noted in previous posts above, the awareness of how fragile the things we've depended on for our survival really are will no doubt cause a number of folks to become more self-sufficient and not take so much for granted. And hopefully use a little foresight in their decisions. Bump in the road or TEOTWAKI, either way it's been a good thing for me and my immdediate family.

-- Other Lisa (LisaWard2@aol.com), January 29, 1999.

You can never go back...

Whether or not Y2K is a big TEOTWawki or a teotwAWKI of nuisiances, some positive changes are going to come out of it. Of course if it's a horrendous TEOTWAWKI, it will be a very long time before people will be able to recognize the silver from the gray in the clouds.

The alternative electric power industry has needed this kind of public exposure and involvement all along.

All the people who have or are buying property in the country are going to use it some way or another. Many will probably stay rural and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. Others will keep their property as a vacation getaway or retirement spot.

A "serious stumble but not a fall" Y2K will shake up the way business and governments do things. Decentralization may be the result in both cases and we could see a return to more local forms of problem solving and not just local branches dispensing "one size fits all" solutions.

And a Y2K fizzle certainly isn't going to cause all of us who've become hot and heavy internetters from logging-on and looking for other issues to form cyber-communities with. In fact if we get through Y2K with a modicum of success, there could be a new generation of political up-and-comers to rise from the ranks of the Y2K forums. (Paul, Diane, I think I hear political consultants dialing your numbers. JBD, don't call us, nobody will call you.)

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 29, 1999.

As always, we will become more deeply ourselves.

For the "survivalists", even if it fizzles it'll be just one more sharp reminder of the potential for trouble from any unexpected angle.

For the tvsheeple, it'll be one more example showing that doomsayers are always just plain nuts.

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), January 29, 1999.

One change that I see clearly is in the way that electrical power is generated and distributed to individual residences.

If the grid, or significant portions of it, go down, the results should motivate everyone to hasten a trend that is even now emerging.

There has been some mention of deregulation in the electric power industry, but not a lot. The most significant comment in my memory is Rick Cowles', to the effect that deregulation and Y2K remediation are not mutually exclusive but are in fact, mutually supportive.

If I remember what I've read correctly, deregulation is already a fact in California and the power companies are discovering that the profit in power generation and distribution is to industry, not to residential customers. I believe that I read that at least one company withdrew from the competition for consumers' electric business in California.

The advent of fuel cell technology which allows on site generation for residential customers is a fact, and is in the process of ramp up right now. If Y2K allows, I think it likely that we will see a future grid that is largely devoted to industry or perhaps the elimination of a grid altogether.

I see the drive for such a future in electric power as the usual--profit. I see the fact of Y2K, however it turns out, as pushing in the same direction.

I also see the stability advantages of such a decentralized or distributed method of power delivery.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), January 29, 1999.