In all seriousness, a polly simply cannot grasp the enormity of the problem. For a polly, a bank wouldn't fudge the truth, because a bank is a really big institution and something THAT large, with THAT much responsibility carries alot of credibility. Therefore, how could something like a bank, or a utility, possibility lie. Pollies believe the messanger. They can't get past their stoic belief in society...

-- za (--@--.com), October 12, 1999

Answers

I guess this is why "doomers" are leaders of the free world, captains of industry and scientific visionaries. Why, with such incredible genius, pessimists must be in the top few percentile of influence, wealth and power.

What reason can they have for hiding under the guise of disaffected, mostly white, mostly male, mostly middle class Internet posters? Perhaps their intelligence is... not of this world! Alien pod people who will use Y2K to their own sinister ends? Perhaps. See "Sightings" for more info.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), October 12, 1999.

You are right, "za", pollies have a lot of FAITH -- blind faith in the government, and all facets of the powers that be. They cannot comprehend otherwise.

In fact, this why they don't really understand the doomer arguments at all -- because they always assume that a doomer's argument is likewise based on blind faith in Gary North, Ed Yourdon, etc. The pollies try ever so hard to discredit the MESSENGERS, but are at a loss to ever come up with anything of substance against the MESSAGE.

The ultimate polly view, of course, is that a doomer believes that Y2K will cause serious problems due to "memes", those mischevious little brain chemicals or whatever the heck the little buggers are, that trick us into believing the way we do. Rather than objective data that indicates that the code is broken and won't be fixed.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 12, 1999.

I'm married to a raging Polly. After fights, debates, silence and ultimate surrender that she will never change, I've recalled all my old Psych stuff and formulated an opinion. I've found that she and her friends, all raging Pollies, have very fundementally preconcieved beliefs about the true nature of the world around them. All are invariably very insecure and violently opposed to change. A 'bump in the road' in any form, or area of life is a hard enough change to deal with. Anything more is just suicide. (figuratively, of course) These people will do anything (or nothing) to assure themselves the illusion of stability around them. They have eyes set on one option, typically, and have a difficult time refocusing on a new possibility. I have learned to prepare as much as possible for a full range of possibilities and not discuss any 'alarming' issues with them. Even though she has done well to stock our shelves with food and basic necessities for several months, she now wants to put her head back in the sand and look the other way.

-- Wild Celt (caelomaolain@netscape.com), October 12, 1999.

QOS

Clever little way you corrected the spelling of one of your doomer buddies.

Deano wonders why you used a different approach with him??? :-)

It's a hive I tell ya!! A freaking hive!!!

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), October 12, 1999.

Sometimes the truth is a little too close to home, eh Decker?

Za

-- za (--@--.com), October 12, 1999.

Yes, Deano, you have found us out. Spell-checking is our primiary tinfoil tool, we conspire to make YOUR spelling errors look blatantly horrible so that you APPEAR to be a stupid moron. Meanwhile, secretly, we conspire to hide ours from you so that WE appear to be the smart ones.

Please, make all the typos that you want to, continue to post the silly things that you do. We will no longer persecute you for it. The tinfoil conspiracy against Deano is officially terminated. And the world is a far, far better place for it.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 12, 1999.

Wild Celt's description here may describe the majority of the public (what many here like to call the "sheeple"), but it's not even close to the mark with the internet Y2K-pollies. In fact, most of the internet Y2K-pollies understand the issues better than most of the Y2K -doomers do.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), October 12, 1999.

Deano,

I'm the only one here who can correct spelling errors. Don't listen to that nutcase called King of Spam. Old spam. Two year old spam. You open the can and it's greenspam. haaaaaaaaaaaaa

-- (EnglishTeacher@yourdumb.com), October 12, 1999.

oo oo interesting thread. More like this please.

lofty Tone

-- lofty tone (gvidioy@hotmail.com), October 12, 1999.

What a cold, cynical thread (almost every post here). I guess za wanted to start a fight? Please DELETE.

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), October 13, 1999.