Cf my recent thread, The Simplicity of Y2K Revisited: FOF ......

Flint on that thread: "My expectation is that to the degree that y2k errors cause publicly felt problems, these will take the form of mixups to get straightened out, higher prices for some items, fewer choices at the WalMart, longer waits for backordered items (and more backordered items), and many other similar disruptions."

By comparison, Decker, with his prediction of a sharp recession, is a doomer. Heck, CPR expects more, last I looked.

People are entitled to their own convictions: I am not flaming Flint. People's convictions can change. Mine have shifted about Y2K over the months.

Meanwhile, this provides a baseline by which to evaluate Flint's "maybe, maybe not" postings through the rest of the year. Including his "insurance never hurts" angle.

Time may prove Flint right ... hope it does. Meanwhile, my opinion is that, as a sheer diagnosis of what to "expect" from Y2K based on the evidence to date, this statement invalidates the presumed rationality of anything Flint ever posts. It is breath-takingly pollyanna. He is indeed, and quite precisely, the "anti-Milne". No wonder Paul and Flint square off like Holmes and Moriarty.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 05, 1999

Answers

Flint = nobody knows for sure.

We may never figure him out. Hope he's watching CNNfm. The co-anchor just announced, "an oxygen mask is dangling from the ceiling"....wheww. This comment was found on the Clinton News Network....oooops. Trouble with a capitol 'T'.

Do you smell coffee Flint?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint will never understand how many of us hope he's right.

Not being ageist, but he's 75 and been around the block. One of the reasons I voted him most deserving of respect (even though I generally disagree with him) along with Tom Carey.

I was kinda nodding along with him until I realized he wasn't factoring petroleum into his take.

At any rate, he should be commended for not having given up on we doomers. I'd hate it if he disappeared.......

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), August 05, 1999.

On a recent thread, Flint said that my 50% odds of a 10 year depression were "absurd even if no one had lifted a finger in y2k remediation"

Strange bird that Flint...

-- a (a@a.a), August 05, 1999.

I suspect there was a Polly plenary session somewhere last night. Good grief! These people have really come out of the woodwork this morning. I can't recall seeing this many polly postings on a given day. What does this portend? Hmmm?

-- Vic (Rdrunner@internetwork.net), August 05, 1999.

Maybe they heard that Diane's taking a break and want to test Dah Night Driver a little bit...

Or maybe the Hartz Polly-Off wears off more quickly than anyone thought...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 05, 1999.

Flint is 75?

-- a (a@a.a), August 05, 1999.

I seem to remember that... Tom Carey is, too.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 05, 1999.

If'n it's a test, the answer is wroiten (no not on subway walls and tenement halls0 on the original change of weather htread. Haven't seen an AWFUL LOT of stuff to be removed, but have done a bit here and there to clean up the discussions.

Y'all forget, I didn't sign on to referee the Doombrood vs Broomdood (both (tm)) battles on data points or opinions. I indicated that I wnated a clean discussion space. Now, if the sniping is on topic and used data points, I'm QUITE happy.

THere are, unfortunately, places that, due to thread drift, i really CAN'T do much except grit my teeth, and watch as someone actually brings it back to the topic. I've seen it happen about 12 times in the last 3 days. Gladdens the calcified cockles of my heart.

Chuck(ling a lot today)

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 05, 1999.

gads rented fingers strike again!

Chuck who REALLY CAN SPELL, it's just the keyboard that can't

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 05, 1999.

My mother is 75 too, but that doesn't mean she's got all of her marbles.

-- ~~~~~ (~~~@~~~.com), August 05, 1999.

Big Dog:

(1) Certainly I disagree with your position that it's a *virtue* to maintain an unchanging conviction in the face of changing and conflicting evidence. If your convictions do not track the material on which you claim they are based, then this claim is dishonest. If (like most here) you maintain your unchanging convictions by interpreting all material as *supporting* them, this is even less honest -- a deliberate process of letting your conclusions determine your evidence. Whether you can admit this or not. Yes, you claim to have changed your position -- but this isn't visible to anyone else.

(2) You are misrepresenting my position flagrantly in any case. It's as though I predicted y2k effects on one's health would amount to migraines, abrasions, bruises, nausea, and bee stings -- and you interpreted this as "nil", perfect health! You are NOT making an effort to understand a position different from your own, you are attempting to build a false case for use as a weapon to attack me, in the hopes of forcing me to adopt expections based on quasi-religious precepts rather than tangible evidence. I reserve the right to change my mind as the evidence changes, just as you are free to distort all evidence to fit your convictions. But don't expect me to respect you for it.

(3) Without doubt the material being reported is becoming much more positive. Successful test reports are common, (and only a tiny minority of the tests are being reported), remediation is in the final throes of completion in those places where computers are most relied on, public concern is fading as cause for that concern evaporates. The major threats continue to be based far more on hypothetical scenarios than any quantitative evidence.

Doubts about the Iron Triangle have been reduced to desperate accusations that they've failed to meet impossible standards of verification (combined with personal attacks). Even oil (yes, Lisa) is symptomatic -- Exxon, Texaco, Chevron are confident of their operations. The Big Worries are NOT due to known problems, but as usual due to unknown *lack* of problems. We don't know what difficulties Saudi or Venezuelan oilfields might experience, therefore they'll fail! We don't know what problems ports or ships might experience, therefore they'll fail! The pessimists' case isn't built on what we've done or what we've learned, it's based on worst- case assumptions when we don't know, more than anything else.

Even Big Dog's concerns are based on woolly statistical guesses -- well, IF we reach 80% compliance, and IF the remaining noncompliance causes big problems, etc. Reducing these guesses (which might be accurate for all I or anyone else knows) to practice is sheerest guesswork. To use a golf analogy, we stand now on the tee, knowing we'll have to play our next shot wherever it lies. And that in turn depends on precise details unknowable as yet. Assuming the worst until proven otherwise may be prudent, but that doesn't make it probable.

So what I tried to describe was what I called public impacts -- that is, the experience MOST people are likely to have. Right now, barring evidence clearly to the contrary, this is what I see. Considering how eager Big Dog was to jump to a misinterpretation, I can see that I shouldn't have said 'many other similar disruptions.' Instead, I should have filled screen after screen with detailed lists so that Big Dog couldn't so easily distort my statement. By failing to list enough disruptions, I failed to sufficiently emphasize the scope of the inconveniences. I should have known that rather than try to understand, Big Dog would try to distort. My fault.

And I should also say that there will be significant numbers of people who will experience much worse, for various reasons. I expect them to be a fairly small minority, but nonetheless real. For one example, those in hospitals will fare poorly according to what I've read so far. And a note to Big Dog: please don't infer that because I only list one group, I only expect one group to have problems, OK? This was an *illustration*, not an exhaustive list. Sheesh.

And I love this "I'm not flaming Flint, I'm just pointing out that his opinion invalidates any presumption of rationality!" Riiight. Well, I'm not flaming Big Dog either. He can't help working backwards from conclusions to data, he can't help distorting differing opinions, he can't help taking a SINGLE paragraph out of (what is by now) a very large context of what I've written, ignoring the last clause in it, and calling it conclusive. He's doing his best.

PS -- no, I'm not 75, I'm 52. I'm also now entering my 3rd day of not smoking after chain smoking for 35 years. The effort to think AT ALL is nearly insurmountable!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Awww shucks, and I was hoping it was just a simple case of senile dementia...

Second thoughts - IT IS - premature senile dementia...

Bwwwwwaaaa hahahahahahahaha ha ha

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 05, 1999.

Oops, sorry, Flint.

FWIW, names like "Flint", "Koskinen", "INVAR" and others will be remembered for the rest of my life, no matter how this thing turns out.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 05, 1999.

Good luck Flint!

I suppose that you could always just get hooked on the frickin gum like I did, but hey, I ain't smoking.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint -- Chill out. Hey, YOU said this stuff, I didn't. And what you said was clear as can be. No way to fudge it. And no reason for you to feel bad about it, you're entitled to your opinion and I stated that quite clearly. It ISN'T flaming you! And I'm not looking for some kind of list. If you made a mistake and I don't view it that way, it was that you simply said something clear about your expectations. What's wrong with that? You expect the OVERALL impact to be a BITR. Cool.

As to how I have changed, I have said often in the past couple of months that I am quite a bit more optimistic about util than I was a year ago. Then, I expected large chunks of the grid to fail, if not the entire grid. Now, I don't (although I still expect some bad outages in some places). That is a VERY major change, my friend.

As a corollary to that, I am more optimistic about telecom in U.S. staying up or mostly up than I was a year ago, even though some of my close friends think I've lost my marbles on that one. Another VERY major change.

I am also somewhat more optimistic than I was six months ago about U.S. banking remaining functional, though I am very suspicious and mistrustful of their entire approach and don't think data corruption can be ruled out.

Finally, I am more optimistic about embeddeds than I was six months ago, though their potential impact, especially upon oil and natural gas, scares me.

I have stated these things on multiple occasions.

What's the prob? I'm missing it.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint, there is a simple technique that you can do to yourself in the comfort of your own home, nothing to buy, that will assist you in reducing your persisting nicotine cravings. If you are interested, I will direct you to where you can read about it on the net. Email me.

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), August 05, 1999.

Hi Flint

Best of luck. I am ready to quit smoking myself and I am not looking forward to it.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint

Good luck on the smoking thing. Definitely not easy to do. I'm getting better at it though as I have 'quit' 3 times in the last 5 years.

Here's hoping your will-power is a lot stronger than mine.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), August 05, 1999.

Quitting smoking is easy. Hell, I've done it dozens of times.

-- CD (not@here.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint will be ***RIGHT*** no matter what happens !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint is 52???

For goodness sake! His argumentation sounds like that of a 25 year old... 30 at most... There goes another of my delusions! :-D

-- Elbow Grease (LBO Grise@aol.com), August 05, 1999.

Ray:

Not really. I predicted an 80% chance of no worse than a Yardeni. Since Yardeni himself seems to be backing down now, this leaves me lots of room to be wrong.

Mr Grease:

I tend to associate black-and-white positions with youth. After you've been around the block a few times, you come to realize that reality is always all shades of grey and very messy. I repeat: I expect that no matter *what* happens, everyone here will be able to select what they want to see and say "I told you so". In fact, if rollover had been last January, they could do the same thing -- just look at all those explosions, all those serial killers, the Taiwan power outage, the horrible fractional reserve system, the high gasoline prices in California, the war in Kosovo, the train wreck in India, why, y2k has been just terrible -- oh, it's *next* year?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Not me, Flint. If we had/have the events you describe, I will admit with delight to having been very, very, very wrong. Maybe you and others are playing with words and ideas on this forum for your own entertainment, but I'm not. Yes, there will be disagreements about impact. But as you described it? Uh-uh. Not in my case. I'm not into playing spin games.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 05, 1999.

Big Dog:

If you can separate out y2k problems from the normal fairly high noise of normal disasters and quantify them, you are much better than I am. Spin is almost unavoidable -- certainly I make no pretense that I can avoid it, since anything you say is spun. After all, you chose to say what you did rather than anything else, which is a kind of spin. Keeping silent is a kind of spin. And you are the judge of these? Excuse my skepticism.

One example -- that train wreck killed maybe 300 people. Now, let's say instead of a train wreck we have 300 deaths directly attributable to y2k errors in devices in hospitals in the US. If the number of deaths is still the same, is it still normal conditions? In general, if the normal global mortality rate remains within the range of normal variation (but many are y2k-induced deaths), then is it still a BITR? Or if the market drops 30% next year, would that have happened anyway (many think so)?

To me, everything that happens next year *must* be seen in the perspective of normal variation, to provide a context, a "compared to what?" Not "Were there bankruptcies?" but rather how the bankruptcy rate compares to normal rates. Not whether banks failed, but whether more of them failed than, say, during the S&L crisis. I don't even know if we have data on power outages -- but I know where I am, outages of a second or less are almost daily occurrances, and outages of 20 minutes to two hours happen at least yearly.

So the question isn't whether things were bad, but rather how things compared to normal, quantitatively. And I sincerely doubt we'll see any effort at such comparisons, where such comparisons would tend to undermine an opinion.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint: "If you can separate out y2k problems from the normal fairly high noise of normal disasters and quantify them, you are much better than I am. Spin is almost unavoidable -- certainly I make no pretense that I can avoid it, since anything you say is spun. After all, you chose to say what you did rather than anything else, which is a kind of spin. Keeping silent is a kind of spin. And you are the judge of these? Excuse my skepticism."

In one paragraph, you have captured and embodied the essence of the disintegration of truth, discourse and simple meaning in our culture. Sadly, I doubt you have the philosophical tools to grasp that. No offense intended. I have never said this to you before, but I will pray for you, not because I'm better than you (probably I'm worse) but because I hope that God will truly deliver you into a life based on truth and reality. There is such a life, Flint.

You may certainly have the last word. After all, the thread has your name on it. But this will be my last comment here.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 05, 1999.

OK, Big Dog, I really do appreciate that. I admit I lack your philosophical tools, and must fall back on mathmatical descriptions of probabilities to approximate a truth I can understand. Who knows, maybe some day I'll see the light -- it looks so much easier that way. The problem I see is that those who live by Received Truth, tend to Receive such different truths, which bear such an uncanny resemblance to what they wanted to hear in the first place. When each person's simple truth is the other person's spin, I always see the need for some standard of measurement. So I proposed one.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint,

Sorry, no offense intended. We are, after all, contemporaries. Your association of youth with black/white argumentation is erroneous, however. The younger they are, the more expert they are at shaving hairs finely. The shaving is often devoid of logic nonetheless.

If Y2K problems cannot be perceived above the "background" next year, we will have dodged a very big bullet indeed. For the most part, the forum's optimists have been more likely than the pessimists to confuse this year with next.

One last thing. Jesus said He came not to save the righteous, but to bring sinners unto repentance. He did not promise that henceforth they would live perfect lives, as perceived by the non-Christian world. But wisdom and intellect are different things, and too often confused. Living the Christian life only *seems* easier from the other side of the fence. Try it sometime.

-- Elbow Grease (LBO Grise@aol.com), August 06, 1999.