Its also for a who obviously has such a broad and deep knowledge of mathematics.

Now hardliner I know that in the two minutes it took you to read my post, you were able to see that the logic used in solving mathematical and scientific theories was garbage. I wish you would publish your findings so that the rest of the scientific community can benefit from your thinking. Ok enough of the sarcasm.

I will restrict my lesson to IF THEN statements to keep the question short.

Let if p then q represent some statement such as: if its Tuesday, then this must be Belgium. p represents its Tuesday and q represents this must be Belgium. Mathematics has developed something known as Truth Tables to be assigned to IF THEN statements (as well as EITHER OR statements and AND statements). The truth table for the IF THEN looks like:

P Q Statement True True True True False False False True True False False True

You will note that the first row contains the header for each portion of the statement and the final validity of the statement. Each subsequent row contains the possible (all) combinations of true and false for p and q. Notice that an IF THEN statement is only false when p is true and q is false. All other instances are true. In mathematics, one can not make any conclusions about IF THEN statements when p is false; basically its a innocent until proven guilty kind of thing. But for the most part, the scientific community concentrates on the first two cases, that is when p is true. To disprove an IF THEN statement, only one example of the negative q phrase needs to be given. For example: the statement All men are pigs can be translated into an IF THEN statement, if you are a man, then you are a pig. (This translation is left as an exercise to the reader). Prez is a man and he is a pig. Well that doesnt really disprove the premise. However, my son is a man and he is not a pig. That does disprove the premise, therefore the original IF THEN statement is false.

Now Hardliner, you made some statements that were true. Something to the effect: If a few cities experience a significant lose of power for two or more weeks, the world is capute. This is a true statement because few and significant are undefined. However if we restrict to just one city, then I remember an incident where a city in New Zealand lost power for some six months and the world still rotated. Can this be used to disprove your premise?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 02, 1999

Answers

Maria, re your comment "...I remember an incident where a city in New Zealand lost power for some six months and the world still rotated."

I suspect that the world will keep rotating even if all human life disappears; but that's not much comfort. As for the folks in Auckland, they might be a little grumpy at having been so casually dismissed by your statement that the world didn't end. Take a look at the "Black Issue" of Wired magazine to get a more detailed description of what it was actually like for the folks there.

I have a feeling that if it was your city that lost power for six weeks because of bureaucratic bungling, you wouldn't treat it as such an academic affair. And the nature of Y2K is such that, even if you take the optimistic attitude that it will have only "localized" effects, you don't know whether it's going to be your city, or Auckland, or Washington, DC. Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), April 02, 1999.

Maria,

Not sure of your point. Logic tables presume an underlying set of agreed upon conditions as a defined Truth. (A man is defined as bipedal, mammalian and has opposeable thumb/finger on upper extremities. A pig is quadrapedal and is found on a farm.) The reason you disagree with Hardliner et. al. is that you don't agree with the GI premise set. Hardliner & friends posit that Y2K will likely cause a critical mass of failures in multiple places that will (at best) seriously degrade quality of life and at worst may actually destroy the fabric of our culture. No GI can accurately predict what that critical mass will be. For example, how much power generation (and/or distribution) can be interrupted regionally before other failures cause MORE power generation/distribution failures. Is it 10%, 20%, 30%? The answer probably depends on where you live. Northern Florida is a net importer of electric power. Knock down one or two power stations, and voila, rolling brownouts or blackouts. Another example, how many of the reional Air Traffic Control centers can you lose before the national air traffic sytem comes to a halt? I can't tell you. But, I can tell you that if 1/1/2000 were tomorrow, the ATC system would be down! Will they somehow, magically get the system fixed in the next 9 months? Hey, anything is possible. But, to wait until 12/99 to prepare in case it isn't, is simply foolish. You should try a logic table on the following, If Y2K is catastrophic AND I do/don't prepare THEN.....happens to me. If Y2K is Not catastrophic AND I do/don't prepare THEN .... happens to me. Simple logic, unpleasant reality.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), April 02, 1999.

And here's some too:

1) Smart people disagree about what will happen

2) Nearly every knowledgeable statement on the subject contains the following caveat, "Nobody really knows what will happen".

3) Laying in a supply of things that will be used anyway costs nothing extra in the long run.

4) People eat better when they actually have food to consume.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), April 02, 1999.

Hardliner wrote: "If, and it doesn't matter whether it's a big "if" or a little "if", there is a significant loss of electrical power for two weeks or longer in more than a few major cities, Western Civilization as we know it will end.

If, and it doesn't matter whether it's a big "if" or a little "if", there is a significant loss of potable water for two weeks or longer in more than a few major cities, Western Civilization as we know it will end.

If, and it doesn't matter whether it's a big "if" or a little "if", there is a significant loss of sewage facilities for two weeks or longer in more than a few major cities, Western Civilization as we know it will end."

Ed, I am answering Hardliners questions. His "q" statement implied TEOTWAWKI will occur. I agree that being without power is not a fun thing but it is not the end of the world as we know it, but rather the end of their world as they know it. And I think that "end of their world" is going a little too far, for they still have family and friends and a means to survive. As I recall an article about the incident, the author spent more words on how they handled human waste than any other hardship combined.

I assume the "we" in Hardliner's statements means the entire globe. Does it not?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 02, 1999.

There GrandMaster of Fear himself has spoken...

Assuring that no matter how secure things are there is always reason to be extremely paranoid and buy His books and videos. Well gee, what if it's your city! (Even though again and again we get statements from cities all over the country that the power supply is safe)

Ed Yourdon, a little honesty goes a long way. Just get real and tell everyone that your in it for the money and the more the better. If your such a smart guy how come you didn't publish your books fifteen years ago?? I know why, because no one was scared back then and THEY WOULD NOT HAVE SOLD !! ( Oh and BTW mass fear isn't an indicator of something real to be scared. The irrational fear of April 1, 1999 is a good example as will be the rest of your "spike dates"). You want to be scared of something? Be scared of greed. It's one of the seven deadly.

Hell I imagine you'll make a few million before the New Year is here. And after that who cares if your reputation is shot. You'll be rich and the people who spent money on your books will be too ashamed of being a fool to hunt you down and collect back the money they gave believing you. You and Scary Gary don't give a damn helping people prepare. If you two were in the helping business you'd have become preists.

This is your God... $$$$$$$$

I hope you get some sort of punishment for adding fuel to this fire. After the year 2000 is over it will be apparent what drove you to act the way you did. You can't take it with you Ed, not one red penny.

-Silent Soul STA 2/23 R/S Team

-- (Silent Souls @ Leave .308 Holes), April 02, 1999.

Here is an example to illustrate the pollyanna's feeble understanding of probability as it applies to y2k risk:

"If, and it doesn't matter whether it's a big "if" or a little "if", there is a significant loss of solar energy for two weeks or longer in more than a few major cities, Western Civilization as we know it will end.

Nothing wrong with this statement either but no one will believe that the sun won't rise tomorrow.

Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 01, 1999.

Paul Davis, in another thread, compares the probability of TEOTWAWKI with the probability that all the protons in the universe will suddenly converge into one point.

-- a (a@a.a), April 02, 1999.

Silent Soul - I don't have Ed's book, or Rick Cowles' book, or the Les Rayburn's Millennium Factor video, or any book/video on this topic. I don't need 'em, I have the WWW. This problem is very real, and was not caused by Ed, Rick or Les. I understand that Ed's book was available on his site for FREE for quite a while, to anybody that and internet access. I must salute Ed for making the book available to those that don't have a computer, the majority of people in this country.

Welcome to America. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 02, 1999.

Troll Maria,

I'm afraid that I have to disappoint you about your "lesson". Knowledge of Boolean algebra and truth tables are basic to the understanding of computer hardware, as is Modolo 3 arithmetic, complementary addition and many other arcane ways of turning 1s and 0s into 7s and 9s and As and Bs and making circuitry that only "knows" how to add, appear to multiply and divide and do all the other mathematical operations that computers perform with cybernetic "smoke and mirrors". I spent a number of years as a global technical support engineer for one of the manufacturers of IBM compatible mainframes and fared quite nicely, thank you.

My "garbage" label was not directed at your mathematical logic, but at your attempt to categorize the syllogistic IF-THEN-SINCE logic that I used as such.

In any case, your truth table is really not much different since the two conditions "p" and "q" are used to determine the state of a third condition, "true" or "false". Your example describes an extremely simple two legged "and" or "or" circuit, but any computer contains millions of multi-legged "ands" and "ors" which make the truth tables much larger.

But, since you seem to like "lessons" so well, let me point out that it's "kaputt" (German for broken or ruined, or in English "kaput" as slang for the same) not, "capute".

As it happens, when Auckland lost its power, I was in communication with an Aussie who was then in Auckland. His reports were quite detailed. Among other things that he reported was that every generator that the N. Zed-land authorities could beg, borrow or steal around the entire world, began to head toward Auckland. Another thing that he reported was that an ocean going vessel tied up at the port and fed part of the city power. The remainder of the country was helping out as well as they could and as many of the businesses as could, moved out of the CBD into the suburbs and operated off of laptops and out of motels. Even the courts were operating out of motels!

The major lesson of Auckland however, was that the "impossible" happened. As I recall, there were four major cables in gas filled pipes that were designed to provide enough redundancy that they could "never" fail all at once. One by one, they all failed.

Auckland was never completely without power, and the power was completely restored in something like three weeks; not six months. Still, I suspect that you might find the story interesting reading. It's available in several places on the web.

TM, you've still got that chip on your shoulder and the amiability that you seemed to think was an inherent part of civility is really slipping. If you actually have any intention of engaging in meaningful discourse on this forum, you're going to need a bit thicker skin than you've displayed so far.

And, since you addressed your "lesson" to "a" as well, I know that you've seen the post where I removed the "waffle words" as you called them, but I have not seen your promised arguments ("Of course I will argue if you had simply said two weeks.")

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), April 02, 1999.

Hardliner, get your head out of boolean algebra. I'm not going there; I'm talking simple logic. Argue the logic.

A, you are an idiot (just like Chris). The point was about logic moron and when the p is false is really doesn't matter what the q statement says, the statement will always be true.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 02, 1999.

oops! Just notice when I typed the truth table it came out like a table but the question doesn't show it as a table.

P Q Statement

True True True

True False False

False False True

False True True

Hardliner, thanks for the more detailed info on the Aukland power outage. The net articles said it lasted six months. I guess you can't believe everything you read here. If you want to discuss this further, you'll need to put some more words in your p and q statements. My example proves one city won't create TEOTWAWKI.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 02, 1999.

Ed Yourdon, thank you very much for your calm, reasonable, well-thought-out posts, and your excellent speeches and books and *free* articles on your website. All the more power & good karma to you. Hope you also make a lot of money this year and help your community make it through next year and beyond. You have our respect, which you have more than earned. Thank you.

xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), April 02, 1999.

PMFJIH but it IS a public thread:

Before you suggest that failures in a couple cities will not cause the end of whatever civility the residents know, you might like to evaluate the differences (real world) between current practice and what will (in a VERY HIGH PROBABILITY) be practice in early 2000.

CURRENT PRACTICE: (AM. RED CROSS (defacto and de jure lead disaster response agency in the US), SALVATION ARMY, FEMA) All of teh previous currently bring in staff and/or volunteers from all of the US for disaster relief in any area that needs it, FLA for hurricanes, any where for Tornados, or floods, or forest fires, etc. The relief efforts DEPEND on staff and materiel from MANY places, almost ALL of them at a considerable distance from the affected area. (For instance, Cleveland has provided at least 5 disaster workers for the last 5 Nat'l Disasters. Cuyahoga County has had 0 (zero) national disasters in the last two years.)

The relief agencies are typically fully set up in about 4 days, though the standard for ARC (about which I can speak from experience) is to be FULLY working relief efforts in 3 days, with the detailed damage assessment done within 72 hours of the onset of the disaster.

2000 PRACTICE (All above agencies) Each of these agencies has stated, either on or off the record, that problems in 2000 will be handled WITHOUT the aid of out-of-town people. Both Koskinen and the head of FEMA have stated that the expectation that FEMA et al will swoop in and be set up in 3 days is not a valid expectation. (I believe the words used at one point were "utter nonsense" but can't seem to find the quote.)

Chuck, been there, done that, on Nat'l Assignment

-- Chuck, a night driver (reinzoo@en.com), April 02, 1999.

Chuck: a good point. Enduring the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane a while back, then realizing what would happen if one hit in late 99 or 2000 was another reason I chose to buy bugout property in them thar hills.

-- Hugo (been there@done.that), April 02, 1999.

Maria, who calls herself a troll but really isn't, wrote in fancied refutation of Hardliner (or somebody!):

" My example proves one city won't create TEOTWAWKI."

Here's a classic case of pseudo-scepticism. Invent an argument that no one has made, then demolish it. Not even the dimmest bulb in the contiguous 48 (aside from Maria) would ever conceive that a catastrophe in one city would end the world as we know it.

Boolean logic is great for some applications, but in the real world of interacting people, a working "logic" must be fuzzy. True and False are buzzwords isolating the speaker from the environment. Our particular language permits their use, but they are not useful in living situations.

None of this should be taken to mean that I hold the view that the WAWKI will end. I do think that's a possibility, but a very remote one. I think we face rather more likely possibilities of some serious disruptions in infrastructure. If these are widespread (no, I can't define "widespread") severe degradation of the economy and the supply chain in general seems very probable. That's not the end of the world, but the consequences may range from inconvenient to utterly disastrous, depending on situation and circumstance.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 03, 1999.

Troll Maria,

You continue to be more of a simple irritant than a contributor of an opposing view, but I suppose that is worth something after all. Perhaps your "Troll Blood" causes you to act like a troll unconsciously; maybe you can't help yourself.

My head was not and is not in Boolean algebra. It remains where it has been from the start; using simple syllogistic logic. I have never had, nor do I now have, an intention to argue logic with you. Your "switch-and-bait" tactic of trying to move the focus from the issues of infrastructure failure to the format of a logic mode different than the one offered simply detracts from the debate as to whether or not the supposed failures would have the supposed effects. That's what Trolls try to do too.

Your verbal animosity towards members of this forum ("A, you are an idiot (just like Chris). The point was about logic moron. . .") belies your previously stated desire to conduct a civil debate. It appears that you have been less than honest with us or are more capable of deceiving yourself than you might realize.

As for believing everything that you read on the net, it seems likely that if such is news to you that you are way out of your league in this forum.

Finally, although your ". . .example proves (emphasis mine) one city won't create TEOTWAWKI", history would seem to favor the conclusion that one city and what happens to it can change our view of the world as demonstrated by Harry Truman and the Enola Gay (there are many other examples to demonstrate the point, but that one should be sufficient).

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), April 03, 1999.

HEY!!! Maria said (on another thread) that she is game for mudwrestling. So she is all right in my book!!!

Go Maria!!!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), April 04, 1999.

Maria: I'll take you up, but I prefer jello (I like the green jello).

-- a (a@a.a), April 04, 1999.

TM, you've still got that chip on your shoulder and the amiability that you seemed to think was an inherent part of civility is really slipping. You continue to be more of a simple irritant than a contributor of an opposing view, but I suppose that is worth something after all. Perhaps your "Troll Blood" causes you to act like a troll unconsciously; maybe you can't help yourself. You know me about as well as I know you. Ive called you a pitbull and I think that description still applies. Stop trying to analyze me and get to the point of the argument.

Your verbal animosity towards members of this forum belies your previously stated desire to conduct a civil debate. It appears that you have been less than honest with us or are more capable of deceiving yourself than you might realize. Once again hardliner why do you spend so many words on me and not the issue? How can you judge my honesty, not knowing anything about me? I cant judge yours through this medium. You cant tell anyones vocal expressions from typed words unless its written precisely to convey expressions. Are you that good at knowing people without looking into their faces or hearing their voices?

As for believing everything that you read on the net, it seems likely that if such is news to you that you are way out of your league [how do you know my league?] in this forum. My statement was written with tongue in check. If youve read my previous posts, you would have seen that Ive stated (many times) I dont believe the media and this medium in particular and I rely on my knowledge and experience to make my evaluations. I guess you really dont know me.

BTW thank you so much for correcting my spelling of kaputt

As for my name calling to A: A wrote the same comment twice after I tried to explain my point twice. A could have at least changed the wording somewhat or asked a question for me to further explain my point. No, instead A just repeated. I got frustrated and reduced to name calling. A wrote, Here is an example to illustrate the pollyanna's feeble understanding of probability as it applies to y2k risk My statement did not refer to probability or Y2K risk. It referred to logic. When the IF clause is false, the IF THEN statement is true no matter what is included in the THEN clause. This is one of the rules of mathematical logic. Scientists give the postulate the benefit of the doubt until it can be proven otherwise. But A if you would like to discuss probability, I can do that. My degree is in Math and Ive taken many probability and statistics courses. Ive also used optimization techniques and Operations Research to model real world events and determine outcomes.

A, BTW, jello sounds like fun. Is it good for the skin?

My "garbage" label was not directed at your mathematical logic, but at your attempt to categorize the syllogistic IF-THEN-SINCE logic that I used as such. Ive stated that Im talking about mathematical logic which has nothing to do with the translation into 0s and 1s for the computer. I dont care about the SINCE. The third column in the truth table represents the validity of the IF THEN statement. Mathematicians are only concerned with the validity of the statement when trying to prove postulations and turn them into theorems.

In any case, your truth table is really not much different since the two conditions "p" and "q" are used to determine the state of a third condition, "true" or "false". Then stop trying to steer away from the topic and into computer language. And once again it does not refer to the third conditon. It's not a condition but the statement validity.

Your statement If, and it doesn't matter whether it's a big "if" or a little "if", there is a significant loss of electrical power for two weeks or longer in more than a few major cities, Western Civilization as we know it will end. I stated that this is a true statement based on the rules of logic. Harliner, you asked that I ignore the waffle words. Since I dont want to put words in your mouth, would you please state the new postulation without the waffle words as I requested above? I fear that if I change your statement, you will accuse me of twisting what you said.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), April 05, 1999.