Programmer draft I am sure you've thought of it any geek with any imagination at all has thought of it. Hamasaki told me the csy2k asked Senator Bennett about it and he said that the government had the means to pay programmers. The question is when things go bad, when it's not safe to go into the cities anymore then what? When people are dying because there is no water in the cities or no power who will they need the most? Who can fix the problem, only the programmers. I had the chance to go to work for the government as an Oracle programmer but turned them down because I am scared. Some where in a database is your name and my name if you're a geek and they know we can crank the code and when they need us because lives are at stake then what? Oh they haven't done it before. Wrong remember the people of German descent in Brazil that were kid napped and traded to Hitler for American prisoners of war? Or the Japanese American citizens that were placed in prison camps, that never happened either. I could be wrong and I hope I am but you have to admit it makes you think. Tman

-- Tman (Tman@IBAgeek.com), February 12, 1999

Answers

I can also see the programmers being really pissed off, and building all kinds of backdoors and timebombs into the software that they are "fixing". The Feds would probably get alot more trouble than they expected.

I personally would resist any attempt to "draft" me for labor, unpaid or not. I'm not a programmer either.

-- Bill (billclo@hotmail.com), February 13, 1999.

I admit it's a worry.....hope it's just paranoia, but I swear I actually had a nightmare about it...no kidding. Conscription...the whole works....guess it helps to know that someone else considered it a possibility also...

-- seagreen (seagreen@justlurking.com), February 13, 1999.

I'd LOVE to have a chance to get at just about any government code, especially the IRS, Treasury, DEA, FTB, FBI, CIA ... heh heh heh

-- Not me (NotMe@JustTryIt.Com), February 13, 1999.

Not Me's comment has it right and feds know it: conscripting programmers would be more dangerous than beneficial ......

What I would see as far more likely is a new, um, partnership between government (that is still functioning) and Fortune 500 (still functioning) to help each other climb back up the curve, with a new, uh, closer elationship between public-private sector at the end. This is foreshadowed by the Y2K industry council.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 13, 1999.

"What I would see as far more likely is a new, um, partnership between government (that is still functioning) and Fortune 500 (still functioning) to help each other climb back up the curve, with a new, uh, closer elationship between public-private sector at the end. This is foreshadowed by the Y2K industry council."

This is sort of what Janet Abrams (Koskinen's #2 person) was speaking of in the video-teleconference with Italy a couple of months back (when Italy finally decided to do an assesment...). They spoke of geeks from both Government and private-industry working together, and possibly being sent to Y2K trouble-spots, possibly internationally.

I'm not clear if these people would be "volunteers" or "draftees" though.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), February 13, 1999.