When the electricity was out in New York, a woman called either city hall or the electric co. (don't remember which due to my advanced age), and said something like this, "What about all the people that depend on electricity for their life support?" The person at the other end of the phone said, "They will just have to die."

The electricity had been out no more than a day when this exchange happened. A management type later said the employee was under stress when that statement was made to the caller. I was struck by the disregard for life after such a short period without power. I believe this disregard WILL happen this quickly if a region is without power on or after January. We will not be able to depend on anyone but ourselves to provide what we need in the way of power and other life sustaining needs. Kostinen has already said the government cannot respond to every problem that may arise across the country. FEMA and the Red Cross cannot help everyone if we have crises across the country. Don't wait to hear, "You will just have to die." Start taking control now for your own life. I don't want to bet my life on Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, foreign ports. foreign ships, and refineries working. Do you?

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Answers

How did our grandparents survive all those years without electricity ?

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Please, please, PLEASE, tell me that is not a serious question.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

How did our grandparents survive all those years without electricity?

Please, please, PLEASE, tell me that is not a serious question.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Actually, that response was originally spouted by one of the helpful people in London. When the 100,000 people had their power go down there, that was one of the responses from one of the online help folks. Some guy in New York may have said it as well, but that was a quote from the London article I read.

Please excuse the low IQ wording of the above, I'm riding on 2 hours of sleep!

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

I also read about that alleged statement from the utility rep. In all fairness, I bet that was the umpteenth call, many of which come from very abusive customers, and perhaps the rep just lashed out. Hate to admit it, but I am guilty of that myself sometimes, only to regret it later.

Lane,

Well, we could eliminate all the Y2k related electric utility problems by living like our great-grandparents. Hmmm, wonder how they did that? No electric, no phone, not even a car. Hand pump for water. Outhouse for waste products. Woodstove for heating and cooking. My own great-grandparents lived like that. Saw it on a visit. They seemed to be pretty happy people too. Hmmmm.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Calm thyself, Lane. Take deep breaths..in..out..in..out. (wink) Of course it was a serious question, and one I've gotten previously from several people I know. Sometimes it is hard to focus on how much life has changed in just forty or fifty years.

Menno, to begin with, in our grandparents generation the population was approximately 40 to 45% less than it is today. (This is a U.S. census based approximate, and I'm assuming it would hold fairly true on a global basis.) The number of people living in a very small town or on a farm was equal to or above, those who lived in cities. An agrarian-based (farm) lifestyle was still the norm. The average life expectancy for men was around 58, for women 62.

Hospitals outside of the biggest cities were usually just a house bought by a local doctor and outfitted with beds. Penicillin, although first observed by Fleming in 1928, did not begin to be studied for another ten years and didn't come into use until mid W.W.II. , when it was credited with saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

I once did a study which indicated that if I had lived in my grandparents time, only three of my four children would have lived to adulthood, considering the medical care they needed which would not have been available then. My paternal grandmother did live the majority of her life on a farm without electricity. She was only about five feet tall and probably didn't even weigh a hundred pounds, but she could sling cast iron pans with ease. She worked from 4:00 in the morning, cooking on the wood stove, until 10 or 11:00 at night, 365 days a year. My dad still remembers digging a well or repairing one, how to dig a new pit for the outhouse, how to milk cows and deliver calves, how to butcher pigs, take care of chickens, and make cider. How to shoot squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks, pheasants, and all manner of other wildlife -- not for sport, but to put meat on the table. He knows how to bash frogs so you can take the legs to cook.

When you lived without electricity, you needed to know all these things, including how to bank a fire so it would go through the night to be restarted in the morning. How to make and pile on down quilts because bedrooms were usually unheated and they were COLD. You also needed hand tools - buck saws, planers, all sorts of myriad implements to be able to survive. You learned these skills because you grew up with them, lived with and by them, and because there was no other option. You were either strong and survived, or you died young.

In your country, wooden shoes were commonly used, a vital, utilitarian and inexpensive footwear. We still have a pair of my husband's grandfather's wooden shoes -- and they were well worn in.

It's very difficult for people nowadays to realize that over the last fifty or sixty years the world has changed so very much. There have been more technological changes in the twentieth century than there were in the previous FIVE centuries. The old skills have nearly vanished, and even those who remember them now no longer have the physical stamina necessary to implement them. As an example of the physical stamina required to live in a non-electric world, researchers once did a comparison of the average daily amount of stool put out by people of two generations ago and now. ounds like a weird and unpleasant bit of research, granted, but they did it anyway.) What was discovered is that modern people defecate about one-third less than those in their grandparents or great-grandparents generation. Why? Because the amount of daily work was so much more in earlier years, that three times the amount of calories had to be consumed just to support what an individual worked off.

A couple of years after the end of World War II, my parents traveled out to the farm valley where my father had grown up. They went to see and celebrate the electrification of the valley. All the lines had been strung, lightbulbs were in the sockets, and that night the switch was going to be thrown by the power company and a new world was going to come into existance. My parents still remember how they felt, watching from a hill, when the whole valley suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree that night. They watched the old world die and the new one shine out. And now the quality and very continuance of life for the majority of people in industrialized nations depends on electricity and the many functions it empowers, and on the fuel which generates that power.

It's a new world, but not as brave as the old one was.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Okay, I'll calm myself. :-)

It's just that those kind of questions -- "Gee, what did people do before electricity?" "Gee, what did people do before computers?" -- were the kind I first encountered more than a year ago when I became Y2K-aware. The answers are, of course, "They lived in a world where electricity was not an essential taken-for-granted part of the fabric of daily life" and "They lived in a world where computers were not an essential taken-for-granted part of the fabric of daily life".

When everybody had cord after cord of firewood stacked against the side of the house, and fireplaces and/or wood-burning stoves in at least one room, they didn't have to worry about having no electricity in the dead of winter.... I'm sorry... I just don't have the patience now to deal with such obvious absurdities.............

Now, I'm not saying the electricity is going to go . I'm just responding to the question.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Bonnie,

Nice story. Thanks. So, if I get the gist of what you're saying (this will be like a Koskinen take) we need only reduce our population by about 50% and get cracking on the old "recipes" for daily survival. Did I get that right? Some really scary doomers say that the population reduction is coming, but I haven't seen any good courses in grandparent-life-styles in my own area. And if we were to lose electric, well, non-electric living is kinda OT here, isn't it? I think that's what the new Yourdon Humpty Dumpty Forum is for.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

for another rather 'scary' component regarding 'the good old days'...

i read somewhere last year that the average farm in 'those' days...

you know, the ones without the tractors and other modern equipment that require petrol, without the chemical fertilizers, without the pesticides, without the bio genetically engineered seeds could produce only enough to supply an average of 8 adults with food... those same sized farms now supply an average of 258 adults.

sounds impossible?

welcome to the wonderful world of technology.

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Remember;

DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE, OR MUTILATE.

It comes from a day when computer errors were a daily affair.....

Things will get worse before they get better......

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Fold- that's when a horse gives birth. Spindle- a device used to turn cotton into wool, I think. Mutilate- liquid left over after the cream and milk are removed.

These are all farming terms, aren't they helium?

What's that got to do with electric and y2k?

-- Anonymous, August 19, 1999

Another difference between pre- and post electric eras, was the age strata of the population. In pre-electric days the age/survivers chart was cone shaped, that is, most were young and died off at increasing rate as the group aged. Today, the chart is more rectangular in shape in that most people born survive into their later years, where they bump into their DNA limits.

-- Anonymous, August 21, 1999

On "they will just have to die", Sure M you are in error. Previously, life expectancy was decreased primarily by infant mortality, however, families were often large. Those surviving into adulthood could expect a good chance at a long life. There is a different reason for the decreased percentage of youth or young adults of my generation in modern society.

-- Anonymous, August 21, 1999

Thank you all for being so calm and patient with me. Bonnie I can buy you a pair of wooden shoes if you want. Lane, you're right that question is as old as the stone age.

There is a big difference between years without and 1 or 2 days without electricity. Organisations like FEMA and Red Cross are taken care off people in danger, the rest have to do it self. Can you imagine what life is without electricity. No computer, no radio, no TV, no coffee?! ,no heating?!, no airco , no news, no sport, no soap, no Oprah. To experience this kind of life you can go to countries like Ukrain or Egypt where it is normal to live a couple of hours without electricity.

In their eyes you're acting like little spoiled children.

-- Anonymous, August 23, 1999

Menno, most of the people in highly industrialized countries are spoiled, no question about it. It's all a matter of relativity. Once individuals get used to a certain lifestyle, they adjust their habits according to the dependability of the infrastructure around them. If the infrastructure is often subject to disruptions, then a different mindset takes hold.

The problem arises if you've ever seen a spoiled child have a temper tantrum. It's often violent, far from pleasant, and you usually can't stop it from happening. I can relate that there are already some upper level business managers who have demonstrated what those in their employ might term a temper tantrum when Y2K projects have not gone as well as expected. And if even a few days disruption in electricity or communications occurs because of Y2K problems, I'd venture to say that the tempers among business owners whose production is stopped will tend to be much hotter than the average person on the street who has to try to find a heated shelter for their family in January. (Although certainly there will be high emotional levels among consumers, too, if that happens, especially if they feel they were not warned appropriately.)

This is the social problem which is of such concern to many in the Y2K arena. Whether citizens are spoiled or not becomes basically irrelevant because that kind of mindset either exists or it doesn't. How any mindset reacts to changes outside the perceived norm is what matters. The no-problem assurances people read and hear, whether for power or banking or the company where they work, will create a severe backlash IF they turn out not to be true. That's why the stakes are so high in the Y2K Press Release game of "Don't worry". Those don't-worry predictions MUST come to pass or there will be hell to pay from all the people who have known only infrastructure reliability their whole lives, except for Acts of God like winter storms or summer tornados. And the Year 2000 computer problem is an Act of Man which puts it into a different category when it comes to the emotional response. Assuming various disruptions do happen, I would not be surprised to see the American slang phrase "going postal" change into something like "Y2K Whacked". (If you're not familiar with "going postal" it refers to people flipping out under a lot of stress and going on a shooting spree to get back at those they blame for their problems. Often they end up killing themselves, too, but not until they've taken others down with them.)

When addressing the human emotions I think it's a given that it's better and less stressful to be pleasantly surprised about less negative effects (for whatever issue, not just Y2K) than it is to be surprised with more negatives than were expected. In my opinion the various U.S. governments (State, Federal and local) and most businesses are taking a _huge_ risk in sending out lulling messages. They have to be right and they'd better be right or they've created a public situation with consequences even more unpredictable and with just as much potential danger as other segments of the Y2K situation.

I wouldn't want to be a politician right now, that's for sure. I'd be seeing my "career dissipation light" blinking fast when I thought about the the possibility of losing the gamble by betting on the wrong infrastructure and economic effects of Y2K.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Bonnie,

As usual you are spot on with your analogy.

I lived in the Los Angeles area during that Norhridge earthquake, which was about ten miles from my home. That Act of God brought out the better side of people.

I also experienced the L.A. Riots over the Rodney King beatings. That Act of Man brought out the worst side of people.

The temper tantrum effect is quite apt. However; when you have a sizeable portion of the population doing it at the same time we call it a riot. I've lived through several riots. The energy the rioters put out is raw, near primal, and altogether different from anything the same people would be putting out at any other time of their life. It's very ugly.

"Everyone" who saw the Rodney King video tape knew those cops were in the wrong, and very badly so. It was perfectly clear, "everyone" could see it plainly. That was the mindset. We had certainty the system would not let those men in authority get away with that.

As soon as the verdict came out "not guilty" people started snapping. Mostly in L.A. but in other cities across the U.S. as well, a relatively small number of people reacted violently to the betrayal of trust and sparked very damaging riots and committed incredibly brutal, senseless acts of violence on other individuals.

Having experienced riots has contributed greatly to my decision to prepare for self sufficiency for a few weeks at least. The risk of having to deal with that sort of stuff is just far too great to ignore. I'm really not all that concerned about temporary utility failures. I'm much more concerned about what the human reactions to the betrayal could spark off.

And it does seem likely that should the effects of Y2K be very bad then many, most or all politicians could get the boot A.S.A.P. a

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Bonnie, I think Menno's point touches on something I've been wondering about for some time. Most debate and discussion about Y2K is focused on the situation in the US, as is most concern, worry and fear. In my home country (UK) and the country I am now resident in (Denmark), Y2K awareness is quite high. People expect there will be problems. They are even anticipating that there may be runs on banks and excessive stockpiling in some quarters perhaps leading to self-fulfilling Y2K shortages prior to and in the immediate aftermath of the millenium rollover. But I get the feeling people are not really worried in the same sense that people worry in the US (with the exception of environmental disasters). There just isn't the same 'people fear'. Whether this is because there just isn't the same degree of gun ownership, I'm really not sure. But it is interesting that the Southern Poverty Law Centre and such groups have in the past brought up the issue of how Y2K is attracting and playing on many illiberal and sometimes racist themes that have always been popular in US society. I'm thinking in particular of the 'moral degeneration' themes (personified in 'Klinton' in this view) that somehow get joined dot-to-dot with other 'degenerative' aspects of democratic politics, welfare dependency, the urban underclass (read: non-white), the secularisation of society, UN and global banking conspiracies etc. Some of the most vociferous Y2K debators, e.g Paul Milne and Gary North, seem to me to represent this tendency of the Y2K debate spectrum. Their talk of 'location location location', fleeing the cities, you're toast if you live near a 7-11, save yourselves, remember the LA riots etc. - I know I'm joining dots myself here, but I don't think you have to scratch too far beneath the surface of their statements to uncover, at the very least, protestant moralism at its most virulent. I'm pretty sure the moralist (and sometimes racist) tendency in Y2K can find fertile soil in the minds of the 'going postal' guy, searching desperately for something someone on which to project his disillusionmnent. Enter stage right, the potential betrayal of Y2K. Who knows ...but I'm pretty sure that when this is all over a bunch of post modernist academics are going to make careers out of dissecting the different discourses that run through Y2K technical and political debate to see how they chime with pre-existing popular themes found in US culture.

This doesn't mean I don't think Y2K is real, of course it is. But it might be 'real' in more ways than one. Perception will (already does) play its part, and differently in different national cultures.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Another really interesting thread. I agree with Bonnie and Steve as far as a political backlash is concerned. Joe Public is going to get blindsided by this, and he is going to be very, very angry. Heads will roll. The blame game will be very popular sport.

That said, I mostly agree with Chris:

But I get the feeling people are not really worried in the same sense that people worry in the US (with the exception of environmental disasters). There just isn't the same 'people fear'.

Canadians are not nearly as worried about it either. I think survivalism is fairly unique to the American culture. Even in my worst case scenarios, I find it difficult to imagine widespread violence. There will be more violence in the US than in Canada because there is more violence there period, but it will be isolated.

The vast number of Americans I have met - and that's a lot - are pretty much like I am. They are a good people even though they have some strange ideas. They make good neighbours. Yet there seems to be a powerful belief among them that if the existing social order collapsed, Road Warrior would spring from the ashes. Without the cops, it will be every ordinary guy for himself. To my way of thinking that is all Hollywood horror.

Americans will do what people always do if there is no food or water. They flee toward that food and water. They become refugees. Tent cities and RV's parked around grain silos.

Location is not nearly as important as preparation. Whether you are in the city or the countryside, the issues are shelter, heat, food, water, and perhaps, disease. These are, generally speaking, harder problems to solve in the city than in rural areas, but they can be solved. In a complete collapse there are advantages as well as disadvantages to being in the city. In any of the really bad scenarios, it will pretty much suck everywhere.

Shelter, heat, food, water, and perhaps, disease. Stay at home and ride it out.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Chris and Tom, you've brought up some interesting points about the difference in outlook between Americans and the citizens of other countries. I have a consultant friend who recently spent several months in London on a contract, and who made some close friends while he was there. He also reports that Y2K awareness was higher among the general U.K public (for the time frame of his contract there)than it appeared to be here, and that the attitude could be summed up by a man he knew who was volunteering for some type of local watch or neighborhood security teams which were being set up. "Rather looking forward to it. Pretty boring here. Could use some excitement. Thought I was going to live my whole life and not have anything really change in the world before I died. Maybe Y2K will liven things up. Give us a challenge. Hope so." The impression my friend got was that even though his London acquaintances were not old enough to have been alive in W.W.II, the hang-together, put-a-good-face-on, don't-let-the-blighters-get-you-down Blitz mentality was still quite pervasive among them. Except in this case the "blighters" were Y2K failures.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, since it's my own observation that how a culture has dealt with past crises is handed down over generations, much like genetic structure is on an individual level. Which brings me to the American crisis "hand-down".

I've had conversations before with others of different nationalities who have wondered about the variety of survivalist, pro-gun, anti-urban, anti-welfare, etc. concepts you mention, and while all the observations are accurate on the surface, they tend to miss what I see as the underlying thought pattern which has engendered all the rest of it. The Road Warrior concept has been picked up by the younger generation of Americans, but it's just a new and more futuristic name for something so endemic to American culture that it hasn't been modified all that much over our relatively short history.

Stick a bandanna around Mel Gibson's Road Warrior neck, and a Stetson on his head (he already has the weapons) and you've got a Cowboy, plain and simple. Cowboys were the offshoot and recipients of the original pioneering mindset which founded this country. Once the pioneering came to an inevitable end, with the country explored and tentatively settled, that independent, make-your-own-way, rely-on-yourself, fend-for-yourself and take-no-crap-from-anybody perspective, which powered the initial pioneering, transmitted itself to the Cowboy era with ease. The bad guys are out there and there's no law to protect you so -- ya gotta do it yourself. That's the way life actually was for decades in a large part of this country, and that's the cultural "hand-down". No matter how much, how little, or what kind of education people in this country have, even little kids know about Cowboys and Indians. As with anything in life, there are trade-offs; pros and cons. This ingrained streak of individualism and independence has proved to be a powerful benefit in some ways and a detriment in others.

I know some people point to the Puritan morality of some of our founding groups as a motivating force in the American cultural perspective, but we were out killing Indians not too long after the Puritan era, not sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner with them. Religion is certainly part of our culture, but I don't see it as the basic driving force for the types of things mentioned on this thread. Survivalism is. Do It Yourself Individualism is. Don't trust the other guy unless you've shot a bear with him, and all strangers are suspect as enemies.

Welfare? Take something without working to get it yourself? An admission you can't survive on your own says the Cowboy culture. Cities? Those are places where the weaklings gather together -- like the bankers and the tenderfoot with the soft hands, making a living from the sweat of other people's brows. I think you can see how this cultural outlook could be translated both for good, or perverted for ill by various splinter groups. That's the way of all philosophies when taken to extremes at either end. Motherhood is commonly held to be something good, but either abandonment or having the apron strings tied so tight a child is strangled can both be destructive.

Much of the Y2K passion you notice in America is basically nothing more than "Circle the Wagons! The Injun's is coming!" Only in this case, it's often the government who gets to play the part of the Indians. I hope readers will realize that I'm not giving opinions about the rightness or wrongness of the Cowboy cultural hand-down. I'm just saying that it exists, and is alive and well in America.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Bonnie wrote:

Chris and Tom, you've brought up some interesting points about the difference in outlook between Americans and the citizens of other countries.

I can't tell whether Y2k awareness is higher or lower here in Canada than in the US. Canadians are very polite, a reserved lot, and Y2k is a subject that polite people simply do not bring up. Everybody knows Aunt Agnes has a drinking problem, and everybody knows Cousin John is gay, and everybody knows Nephew Harold is a worthless layabout. Nobody would dream of mentioning it.

The Road Warrior concept has been picked up by the younger generation of Americans, but it's just a new and more futuristic name for something so endemic to American culture that it hasn't been modified all that much over our relatively short history.

I agree entirely. We are all to some extent prisoners of our culture, and our culture is unconcious. The rugged individualism of High Noon is a powerful meme in the American culture, and it leaks across the border. There are people in the Y2k underground who look forward to playing Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood, single handedly protecting the frontier town against overwhelming odds.

Most people, however, see themselves as cowering townfolk in the story, and the myth makes real Y2k consequences more difficult to believe and accept. We go from crashing computers to fighting Dennis Hopper in Waterworld with hardly a thought in between. Y2k = We're all gonna die! Offer the average person a choice between death and denial...

I hope readers will realize that I'm not giving opinions about the rightness or wrongness of the Cowboy cultural hand-down. I'm just saying that it exists, and is alive and well in America.

I think it is a meme that will influence behaviour up until rollover. It already is influencing behaviour. It is fear of this cowboy culture that provides the urgency on the happyface in the US. In Canada, we get... nothing. Silence.

Defense seems to be a standard part of the American preparation package. To me, security is a non-issue in my preparations. It is a waste of my time and my limited resources.

But I do not think the myth will have a significant impact after Y2k. You cannot construct a reasonable scenario that takes us from crashing computers to a version of High Noon. Americans are preparing to play either the hero or the coward. Who is preparing to be Dennis Hopper? There is nobody to play the bad guys. How many of us can imagine our neighbours lighting Dennis Hopper's cigarettes?

In other words what Americans tend to expect because of their cultural beliefs won't happen. After the crash, Americans will deal with the reality of the situation, not the myths. There will be incidents as a result of the cultural expectations - accidental shootings of people perceived to be Dennis Hopper and so on, isolated riots, increased levels of violence - but for the most part, Americans will do what everybody else will do, which is to endure very hard times.

TEOTWAWKI means "Road Warrior" to most people and I see that as an impossible scenario. To me, the USA circa 1932 will be TEOTWAWKI. Russia, 1999 is TEOTWAWKI. Leningrad during the siege is TEOTWAWKI. Those are the scenarios worth preparing for because they are not unrealistic.

It is impossible to predict how individuals will react, but I do think it is possible to predict the behaviour of populations no matter what the culture. Individuals will react irrationally, but the population will not.

The invisible hand of Adam Smith does not depend on computer chips. It is a direct function of the sum of our individual decision making. I have very little faith in individuals, but I have enormous faith in the collective. Dennis Hopper is economically impossible and the invisible hand will not let the human race commit suicide.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999