Hello, I was just wondering where everyone stands on the "distruptions scale", with 0 a non-event and 10 TEOTWAWKI. In my opinion, Y2K will be between a 7 and a 10, with my "money" on n 8.5 now. I have checked with my power plant. They aren't finished with code repair yet!! They are a nuclear plant too! :( Well, I'm trying to stockpile as best I can. :) I hope to get some responses.

-- Crono (Crono@Timedend.com), March 31, 1999

Answers

You don't need a survey - just read the posts and you'll find out, theres not a lot of shy people around here.

For the record, about the same as you, Crono.

Although occasionally I revert back to "maybe it'll only be a 3", I then read one of Norms posts and realize how stupid that position is.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), March 31, 1999.

Most here are like you Cronos, they read Lucifers Hammer and the Stand and wait with slavish abandon for the end of the world. The educated amongst us predict a one or a two...

"So, of course I want to see y2k bring down the system, all over the world. I have hoped for this all of my adult life." -- Gary North

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), March 31, 1999.

You sure like to repeat thinks Y2K Prophylactic. Repeat after me, I am a moron, I am a moron, I am a moron..........

-- Wiseguy (got@it.gov), March 31, 1999.

...you are a moron, you are a moron, you are a moron...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), March 31, 1999.

Crono - I'm about a 7 now.

You never did answer my question Y2K Prostitute, have you reached your 10th birthday yet? Polly want a cracker? People usually throw away a broken record, so how do we get rid of you? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 31, 1999.

I subscribe heartily to Ed Yourdon's scenario: not TEOTWAWKI, but ongoing power, phone and telecom outage; a 10-year recession; the end of the fractional banking system; and a breakdown of government, especially at the Federal level. IT will no longer stand for Information Technology, but for Intermediate Technology, in which Americans reinvent the industrial revolution to compensate for the undependability (or loss) of the power grid. The population will be substantially reduced, and Americans will become members of extended families or tribes (in the anthropological sense). IMHO

-- Novacop (Sandmann2000@alasbab.com), March 31, 1999.

It seems to me that if the power grid goes down, and a lot of people die, that's about TEOTWAWKI. Maybe not though. I hope that I'm wrong about that. And for the record Y2KPro, no I don't want the system to collapse, but I belive it will, because off the failure of the power grid. So SHUT THE F&*@ UP, unless you have REAL evidence that it won't, fool!

-- Crono (Crono@Timesend.com), March 31, 1999.

I'm a y2k "middle grounder", somewhere in between Yourdon and Yardeni. This puts me at 7-8 on the scale, i suppose. Nevertheless, there are a lot of wild cards (terrorism, panic & social problems, power grid failure) which could be thrown into the scenario to make things MUCH worse. So I don't think a 9 is out of the question and thus it ain't unreasonable to get prepared for a 1-3 month breakdown in infrastructure. 10 is so horrible that few of us here have the resoursces to prepare for it (except for a shovel with which to dig our own graves). I am not psychologically prepared for a 10, but the slope between 9 and 10 is very slippery. The thing that stops the slide between 9 and 10 is community involvement and a charitable and loving sense of duty toward our neighbors.

There are a few rays of hope. Numerous first hand accounts are saying the the embedded chips problem might not be as bad as we thought. Most domestic banks are ready to process post-2000 dates (though not ready for what could be a massive bank run on the horizon). And behind the scenes, it looks like our armed forces, nat guard, and emergency preparedness officials are busting their butts to prepare for the worst so no one Logs Out from starvation or bad water. Sometimes I am quite skeptical of any "good news," though, in lieu of all the obvious spin and outright lies that have come from some areas of y2k.

In short, I expect bad economic disruption here and around the world. Deep recession in the States and elsewhere a depression. There will some disasters and failures of infrastructure but they will be localized. Therefore, to some of us, it really WILL be a 9 if we stay put. It doesn't hurt to prepare for 9 (and stay put) or to prepare to evacuate for greener pastures where the situation may be a 6 (that is, if the National Guard lets you use the highways).

Thus, I really resent all the negative spin our media and government puts on preparedness (those damn maggots!). People may die because of the way they've stereotpyed all y2kers as right-wing-racist-tax- evadin-inbred-ufo-sightin-nwo-fearin-kooks. Talk about "Hate Speech...!" Y2kers have been the brunt of more than their fair share.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), March 31, 1999.

"right-wing-racist-tax- evadin-inbred-ufo-sightin-nwo-fearin-kooks"

...you forgot tabacky chewin' and trailer park livin'...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), March 31, 1999.

Hi, I just found this site and this is the first post that I've looked at. My opinion is a 5 or less. The real threat is the globalist agenda. I think they will use y2k to implement a lot of their agenda, but the bug will be survived.

-- Army Girl (tsitter@aol.com), March 31, 1999.

Starting at a 7 sliding into a 9.5.

-- SCOTTY (BLehman202@aol.com), March 31, 1999.

Armygirl, I am going to hunt up some threads for you, penned by our AWOL and brilliant E. Coli...... you'll be amazed.

-- Lisa (volunteer@work.fun), March 31, 1999.

Y2K Pro said: "The educated amongst us predict a one or a two..."

The fruits of America's public education system once again displayed for all the world to see.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), March 31, 1999.

I,too,agree with Yourdon on most days, except I have to read it as depression not recession. We had a recession when we lost 5% of our oil, so this looks like it may be much worse than that. Depending on what I read I slide between 6 and 9 here in the states. There are just too many lies and variables to know anymore.There are days I think all these countries will go to war and it will become a 25 !

-- Sue (deco100@aol.com), March 31, 1999.

It depends on how much St. Johns Wort I have taken. Also the temperature and amount of clouds in the sky. It also varies with how much time I spend on this board. :-)

The more I spend preparing, the more I become convinced it will be for nothing. It's the story of my life. The stocks I buy go down and the rain comes down when I don't have a dime on the mudders. :-)

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), March 31, 1999.

In addition to the Y2K horror/mess, don't forget computers crashing, microcontrollers screwing up.

-- Tickle (Tickle_yer_fancy@hotmail.com), March 31, 1999.

About a 5. A 4 on good days, a 6 on days when I see some trite comment from someone in charge saying that everything will be fine and that we shouldn't prepare. The wild cards for me are panic, loss of power grids for extended periods (more than a day) with cold weather in northern lattitudes, industrial accidents, bank or grocery store runs, the loss of critical transportation to resupply urban areas.

Rant mode on: Regardless of what some of the 1 or 2 folks say, it just makes sense for us to prepare within bounds of reason. I personally can't let the government's happy face prognosticators blow smoke up my skirt and consequently not prepare to care for myself and family. I am familiar with the smoke blowing language, I've had a lot of smoke blown at me over the course of the years, (and seen a lot of smoke blown) mostly over minor matters and it doesn't help that I know the behind the scenes "poop". I've seen too many managers, bean counters and staff support specialists, both locally and nationally, that are far removed from the actual action making decisions and pronouncements that are unrealistic, unworkable or unsupportable from the trenches. I can't help but to compare this Y2K scenario with my experiences over the years at least as far as the federal government preparedness goes. We are all hoping that the worst doesn't happen while telling the public that all is well. A small snow storm, yea, that's the ticket, a snow storm.

As for my own agency, I am amazed at their proclaimed level of progress. How did we get so far in such a short period of time? The only answer I have is knocking back the number of "mission critical" systems. Just what the hell is mission critical anyway? I work in a very Y2K highlighted agency and I have yet to hear from my employer as to what constitutes mission critical and what they plan if things go crump. As far as I know there has been no broad based contingency plan made and I know that no plan has been made for my particular work place. What's up with that? The old contingency plans are laughable and folks, they won't work. It's as simple as that. There was never any thought put forward in the past regarding a potential system wide failure. It just wasn't feasible. Only components of the system were prone to failure. That's why the contingency plans of the past are moot, they assume that all parts of the system work and only a component/facility has failed. If one component goes down due to Y2K issues, it is likely that other similar components will be having problems as well. My agency needs to take a serious look at contingency planning and get it out to the folks that are in the trenches ASAP so that we know what to do and act in a coordinated manner if there are failures of broader scope than we are accustomed to.

Maybe my agency will be getting it's act together soon. I hope so. It is imparitive that they do. Just like the power grid, it's critical infrastructure that we deal with. Rant mode off, thanks for your forbearance.

I could become cautiously optimistic depending upon what I see in the next few months or I could be running out for more supplies. Time will tell. I will continue to take my stances as things develop but it is not encouraging to be in the dark at this somewhat late date.

-- Ramp Rat (Aviation_R_us@noname.nocity), March 31, 1999.

The Y2K scenario that sounds the most plausible to me is the one described by Jo Anne Slaven in issue 99 of Cory's Y2K Weather Report:

http://www.kiyoinc.com/WRP99.HTM

And let's hope there aren't any chemical plant accidents or wars as a result of Y2K...

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 31, 1999.

Floyd --- Take a lot of Wort. I have much the same experience as you do. But, hey, look at it this way. YOU have the power to make sure Y2K is a non-event by your preparation, since you are clearly so powerful. So prepare like the dickens for the sake of the rest of us, ok?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 31, 1999.

Crono,

my take is still that it's going to vary widely from place to place - overall in the US it will eventually slide to something like a 7.5, though there will be places within CONUS which will be at both ends oft the scale - a few that never get past 3 and a few that simply self-destruct due to civil unrest and service failures during inclement weather.

OTOH there are any number of places around the world where it could be substantially worse (Russia, the Ukraine, most of Central Europe, and parts of the Middle East, for example).

Arlin Adams

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), March 31, 1999.

On the scale 8-10. For two simple reasons:supply chain failures leading to the domino effect.

I think the domino effect will be increasingly manifest touching every facet of life as we know it through the last 9 months of year 2000 .

This will be the year in which everything fell apart.

2001 will be a critical period.Probably piecemeal recovery leading to fundemental changes in the way society is ordered.The global implications of Y2k for the resumption of international trade in the early years are not good and this will impede economic recovery in the developed nations which reply on importing a high percentage of their raw materials.

Got Coffee,Tea ??

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), March 31, 1999.

I'm still at a 7-8 after all this time. Hope everyone has seeds for the garden...

-- sparks (wireless@home.here), March 31, 1999.

**"Most here are like you Cronos, they read Lucifers Hammer and the Stand and wait with slavish abandon for the end of the world. The educated amongst us predict a one or a two..."**

Y2KPro, do you have anything to offer besides the veiled and unveiled ad hominem attacks, and Straw Man arguments?

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 01, 1999.

BigDog

The only problem with my power is once I try and make use of it, its gone. Like the old guy with the magic pants... If he took them off, it was gone. :-)

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), April 01, 1999.