I received this from a friend. Makes a lot of sense to me:

Preparing to Be Wrong About Y2K

When the new year comes and we have a couple or three months to see what Y2K is going to bring, then some of us will be wrong about Y2K and will need to figure out how we miscalculated and what we must do to recover from it. On the one hand will be the polyannas who said that the thing would be a bump in the road, on the other extreme the doomers who say that Y2K will be a dire happening for us all.

If the polys are right the doomers will have a lot of thinking to do. Why, they must figure out, didnt they believe President Clinton and his Y2K Koskinen? They will need to figure out why Parettos 80/20 law was false in this instance, and why the rule that 85% of large software projects dont finish on time and 25% are cancelled did not apply in this instance. They will need to figure out why a shortage of 600,000 COBOL programmers did not materially effect the outcome of preparations in the United States. Further, they will need to comprehend why the usual rate of failure of successfully tested software in the range of 7% did not apply to Y2K.

Then there will be the question of embedded chips. How could it be that so many devices (40 billion) in so many places, that could not be identified in advance, and which required to be fixed on failure, were not a material cause of harm to the infrastructure in any meaningful way. Again, why, with the hundreds of thousands of electronic interconnections, the Federal Reserve was able to stay up and keep Banking operable. And there will be the question as to why the almost total failure of Russia and China and South America and Asia to remediate code, had no effect on the world economy or the American economy in particular? Finally, what will they do with the admissions of Tenneco and Chevron in their 3rd Quarter SEC reports- why was their projection that they would be able to produce only 30 percent of current levels of product next year wrong?

The deluded doomers will need to look deeply into their psychology? Why was it that they didnt trust the PR mechanisms of Big Industry, and Big Government, and Big Banking? Havent these entities always been forthcoming with the Truth? Didnt Big Tobacco, for instance, tell us early on that smoking was dangerous to our health? Didnt Big Government warn us immediately when the discovered the dire health consequences of open air nuclear testing, and of agent orange in Viet Nam? Wasnt President Clinton courageous and self abnegating in his admissions of failure in the Lewinsky affair? Why, then was Y2K an exception to the self-serving nature of the worlds bureaucracies?

The deluded doomers may need re-education camps. Perhaps those empty internment camps which have been put up around the country would be an ideal place. the Marines trained for Urban Unrest could keep the peace in them. We would need to be taught to believe the bureaucrats, and to embrace the one world government that the President so loves, and to accept with open arms the imposition of Biospheres in our wilderness areas, and find agreeable the idea of forced relocations of people out of them, for example, depopulate the Ozarks so that the deer and turkeys are not threatend- stuff like that.

What will the doomers do with their survival supplies? Well, they will simply have to use the TP over the next year. The propane stored up will be used to heat and cook. The camping gear will be used for family outings. The gardening skills and small farming skills will simply make the families more self-reliant and connect them with the more normal rhythms of country life. The potassium iodate may sit on the shelves for years and may actually help a few people in the event of a nuclear accident somewhere. The survival skills may help a few in a car accident . All that leaves are the generators, and they will be useful for any three day winter storm.

On the other hand, if the polys are wrong and the doomers are right. The polys will need to figure out while they are shivering in cold, and cant find the next meal, why they believed a president and administration who gives all the appearances of sociopathy. Why they believed the PR Agents and Lawyers and Bureuacrats of the Fortune 500 Companies, and Big Government, with almost no corroborating evidence. They will have to contemplate why they remodelled their houses and were building bigger barns on the base of such a fragile and complex infrastructure when ordinary prudence would have suggested that preparation for difficulty was the sensible thing to do regardless of the existence of Y2K. They will have to figure out whether they will join the masses in FEMA surivival camps, or whether they should go to the folks who have prepared and either beg or steal supplies for basic survival. They will have to contemplate why they ignored the nature and necessity of Gods judgments and sided with the peace and safety crowd, and the all things continue as they did as from the beginning crowd, and the marrying and giving in marriage crowd, instead of the fellowship of Joseph and the builders of arks.

Which crowd would you rather be in? xxx xxxxxxxxx I'm gruntled! How about you?

-- BB (peace2u@Xbellatlantic.net), November 20, 1999

Answers

I'd rather be in the

"Have my keyboard correctly configured so that it doesn't produce an annoying square whenever I try to type an apostrophe" crowd.

You are clearly someone with much credibility when it comes to discussing a technology issue.

Got KEYBUS ???

W

-- ASCII errors (are@for.squares.com), November 20, 1999.

Excellent, BB! Thanks for posting this :-)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 20, 1999.

Wolfie, if you would read what BB said, that is a copy of what he received from a friend. The errors were not from HIS keyboard. You of all people should know that copying from Word can cause those types of changes.

Thanks, BB for sharing the article. Well worth considering. :-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 20, 1999.

I'm prepared to be wrong about Y2K, are you?

-- JB (noway@jose.com), November 20, 1999.

Chances are... we'll ALL be "wrong" about Y2K... in wierd and wonderful ways. Or not.

Expect the unexpected!

And be prepared for it.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 20, 1999.

I'm prepared to be wrong. But there is more!!!

Having essentials set aside is a great feeling.

Learning more about gardening and self-sufficiency makes me feel more confident. Good planning and good training does that.

I don't see any negatives in gaining competence in new skills.

Maybe we've all been lulled to sleep for too long...being dependent instead of self-reliant.

These are great things to learn and then teach our children.

This IS the optimistic life-style.

Like the saying goes: "If you haven't tried it, you don't know what your missing."

From my viewpoint, if someone is not learning self-sufficiency skills now, then they are betting on losing everything they have, if the economy takes a big hit.

When's the last time you had home made bread ? Well that's too long.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), November 20, 1999.

I would love to be wrong about Y2K. It would be fantastic to be free of the fear of gasoline at $3 or $4 a gallon...or rationed. It would be sheer bliss not to have to worry about the JIT food distribution system, or the financial systems in this nation getting bogged down, or people freezing to death because they had no heat for 2 or 3 months in winter. Yes, that would be wonderful. Unfortunately, I have seen no evidence that tells me this will be so. As a result, I will stay camped out on the ridge about 200 yards from the doomer camp.

BTW...Clinton is not courageous. He is an impeached President who has a severe problem. He can't tell the truth...about anything.

Let's hope for the best, but be prepared for something else.

Regards,

Irving

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), November 20, 1999.

ANY good financial planner will tell you to have 3 to 6 months of resources readily handy to keep your head above water should ANY "TSHTF" situation happens. Be it cash,canned goods,etc,etc,,ad naseum,blah,blah,blah! If it took "Y2K" to make you aware of this,well,lets face it,you are 5 cans short of a six pack!! Back to your original question,"Are you prepared to be wrong?", scenairo,If you listened to the "profits of doom",chances are you have parted with more then a few bucks and some sanity in your quest for "preparedness". How wrong are you if you cashed in your IRA with a 20,30,40% penalty, and are now sitting on dead money? I know,I know,here comes the Joe Kennedy Quote. How wrong are you if you if you bought gold at $800.00oz.in the early 80s and still sitting on it? How long do you wait? I suspect that TEOTWAWKI came for a lot of people who were waiting. Preparedness is a two edged sword!Be prepared to be wrong!,Be prepared to be right! Don't get stuck in a rut. Is your ego that big that you don't want to hear the good news,or the bad news? Had I listened to the Non-experts advice about the stock market,I would be out BIG bucks.But thanks to the stock market,I'm debt free, {yes, I take the money and run},and I'm ready for whatever comes down the road. The key point is "use your head."

-- inquiring mind (notafraid@home.com), November 20, 1999.

--I am answering this generally, not speaking to anyone in particular, I think it's an important point, and would like to show the difference in viewpoints regardings this "problem" of y2k and preparedness in general.

---simple. If you are a "Survivalist" with a "Survivalist Mindset", you'll be ok. No matter WHAT happens. If you are a "Y2K preparer", and nothing happens, you'll suffer angst at a minimum, and won't probably pay any attention to other "signs" around you. If you are a pooh poohing polly, you are neither a preparer nor a survivalist. You are a NON survivalist. You are a NON preparer. You live in a fantasy world.< P> Of the four choices, I choose Survivalist. It's not a religion, it's not a cause, it's not anything but a mindset that you recognize that you are an adult, with adult responsibilites and duties, and that manure happens sometimes, and you'd rather be prepared to deal with them, rather than being forced to rely on other's largesse and skills and resources.

Frankly, people who are Survivalists are getting real tired of folks who rely on charity and tax money to take care of them in an emergency. We'd rather hang onto our tax money. We would rather you (a non specific, generalized "you") would grow up and accept some responsibility besides buying big houses and learning to hang out at starbucks and watching oprah.

If you live on the coast-the gulf or s.e. states, get your hurricane act together now. Midwest, how about digging a tornado shelter, and spreading your stuff out to friends and relatives so we don't see you on tv wailing about losing "everything" when a twister hits? You city guys in condos and apartments, same thing with fires. Fire "insurance" doesn't put clothes on your back the night of a fire, doesn't feed you, doesn't ever replace those one of a kind personal things that money can't buy. Skip that urban B-ball game or that "must go" screaming,wailing concert, and instead put the ticket money into a small storage unit someplace, stash a little of everything there. Or a relatives in the burbs or something--a back yard little steel building, with some clothes and blankets and an extra set of cooking gear, etc.< BR> That's REAL "insurance".
If you wait, then it's too late! Get skills and gear in advance, that's being responsible.
Of course, no one can prepare for every single little eventuality, but some common sense stuff goes a REALLY long way in potentially alleviating some unforseen nasty event in the future.
It's like oatmeal -"the right thing to do"

boy sprout zog

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), November 20, 1999.

If it turns out that Y2K is a BITR, will this mean that the "doomers" react differently to the government as a whole? Will they trust the government more? Will the more extremist doomers discount the NWO, martial law, chemtrails and such?

-- Steve (sron123@aol.com), November 20, 1999.

Steve: No, I think that what it will mean is that Y2K was ALWAYS innocuous, and was NEVER that big a deal in the first place. This in no way absolves the powers that be from PREPARING for the worst case (including martial law) while telling the people to hardly prepare at all. The point is, NOBODY KNOWS what will happen, yet Clinton et al are assuring us that it's no biggie, in spite of the lack of evidence supporting that assertion. I hope that the assertion turns out to be correct, but if it is not, unprepared people are going to find out the hard way about being so trusting.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 20, 1999.

Excellent post, BB and "Here! Here!" to Diane, as well.

I know it sounds like a joke, but basic cynicism makes me pretty surprise proof. Murphy's Law about "Anything that can go wrong, will", also applies, somewhat ironically, to predictions about disaster.

No disrespect intended to the people who have the knowledge to understand the technology behind the problem, but it's been my experience that given enough time, every expert tends to "box outside his/her weight". After exhausting the things they CAN make accurate predictions about, they tend to move onto the things they SORTA KINDA can make accurate predictions about. After those things are exhausted, many will move into the twilight zone of wild guesses and speculation, which they will attempt to defend with their knowledge of that first group of concepts and topics. Just a "human nature" thing, really.

My best prediction, is that everyone, doomers and pollies alike, will end up with a little egg on their face. Unfortunately for the pollies, the egg they end up with, will be an inedible variety.

That's why I prepare, even if there ends up being some consequences for it.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), November 20, 1999.

King of Spain,

I guess what I am asking is IF the governemt actually looked at the evidence at hand and decided, in their HONEST OPINION that Y2K was going to a BITR, doesn't that validate their saying that Y2K was nothing to concerned about?

Like you said, "NOBODY KNOW'S what will happen", but if turns out to be a "NO BIGGIE" as the government declares, doesn't that mean that the government was CORRECT?

I myself have looked at the evidence here on this board and have contacted my local utiities locally, and feel confident that my local utlities are ready. I can't say that globally. But I feel that if everyone were to work together, we can accomplish the impossible and get through Y2K together.

BTW, my wife loves to mudwrestle.

-- Steve (sron123@aol.com), November 20, 1999.

I'm with Zog 100%. I'm not sure "survivalism" is the right name, but "prepper" isn't either.

And consider that threats (take cyber-, nuke-, bio- and chem- terrorist ones just for starters) to our infrastructure over the next two decades are not theoretical but here right now (or else why is the .gov and .mil concerned about them for 01/01/2000 ... they don't go away after 01/02/2000 but will grow more perilous according to same .gov and .mil).

Ironically, for the first time in nearly two centuries perhaps, the most patriotic thing is also the most wise personally: back up the magic of JIT with the earned joys of SITting (surviving-in-time).

I would just, almost, maybe, perhaps be willing to wager that when the Y2K PR blows away (April, 2000 whether Y2K is BITR or "9"), TPTB will start unveiling local, regional and national agendas for a "robust infrastructure" against long-term threats, including, mirabile dictu, individual citizen preps.

And if they don't? Don't change nuttin about the facts.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 20, 1999.

We are all going to have to learn to live without the babysitter (Government etc) one day so its time some of you started to understand this fact. I may be wrong to protect my family from a remote danger, i do this every day when i make them put their seat belts on.The information i have learned here and the threads i have read will stay with me for a long time regardless. if Y2K is a non event i for one will be happy but that happyness will be short lived i.e. population growth,pollution,deforestation,global warming, depletion of world resourses need i continue. one day mankind will be knocked off his pedastal that is fact.

BEST WISHES

-- bob (bob@ghoward-oxley.demon.co.uk), November 20, 1999.

Funny - A polly will tell you that they can anticipate, find, fix and reinstallion billions of computer-induced problems worlwide so readily that there will virtually no economic or social impact from any induced failures.

But - then we look at a simple posting on a standard internet bulletin board - and can't figure out how he gets squares instead of ';

.... and wonder why we can't afford to automate a spell-checker into a simple ASCII database.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 20, 1999.

Steve:

Re your wife: you are one lucky man!!!!

Re the other stuff: I cannot believe that the government's bump-in-the-road spin is an honest assessment, and will not believe that it is even if, in fact, Y2K does turn out to be a BITR!! We are going to enter 2000 with LOTS AND LOTS OF BROKEN CODE. Make no mistake about that. What the EFFECT is going to be is where a lot of speculation comes in.

It may be that the Y2K problem really never was that serious in the first place. I'm not saying that it was fabricated hype, just that the actual effects may POSSIBLY turn out to not be so bad. If that is the case (and I hope that it is) then we all luck out.

It's like if I knew that a hurricane that could cause you to lose your house was coming dead on, but told you to just expect some wind and rain, advising you to close your windows. Maybe indeed you will luck out, and just get a little wind and rain. But it is still irresponsible for me to not tell you the full implications of what this hurricane can cause. Especially if that is what I am actually under obligation to do.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 20, 1999.

This is a repost of an Art Welling piece. Thinking about the time left and what things we all may have left to do before rollover, I thought it would be good to dust this one off and repost it again. Thanks again Art!

"Am I prepared to be wrong about Y2K"

Art welling 3-22-1999

Have you all asked yourself that question? "Am I prepared to be wrong about the Y2K issue?". I know 'prepared' is a word that means careful planning if you are a business and wacko survivalism if you are an individual. At least, that's how the major media portrays it. Take it whatever way you want, I consider prepared as being ready for possible futures. I was a boy scout. My pocket knife has a can opener.

So... are you prepared to be wrong? No matter who you are or what you think about Y2K are you ready to be wrong in your conclusions? Lets take the wacko survivalist side first. You know, us family types who are putting away some food and water, maybe a generator, gathering some simple first aid supplies, all that kind of wacky stuff. What if we are wrong? I guess the answer lies in how far we go to calm our fears. If we sell our souls to the fear and go all out, have we been careful enough to allow room to be wrong? I know at least three people who have sold out everything and bought small farms. Sounds extreme, doesn't it? Well... Not really. In each case they are happier now and owning that farm is something they always wanted anyway. If they are wrong about Y2K being real bad they don't care, they did what they would have done anyway.

How about filling the basement with food, getting drums to fill with water, buying a wood stove and putting all your worldly money in mason jars under the porch? In each case, unless the house burns down, you get robbers with shovels, or decide to stop eating food sometime soon, you have lost nothing but some time and interest. A credible argument can be made that you might actually SAVE money with all that food, as long as it's stuff you eat anyway and not some kind of freeze dried moose meat which cost it's weight in gold dust.

How about.... you quit your job, cash out the 401K at a loss, buy a small cabin on two acres of woods up in North Jabip, tell your family to either join up or die, and hunker down with an AK and 100 cases of MRE's at $50 a case? See a problem there? I do. There is no back door, no way to come back if you are wrong, or they are wrong, or the magic microchip fairy waves her wand and all is well. Besides which, it's a recipe for disaster. After you eat the first ten cases of MRE's you'll want the AK for a purpose other than what you planned. One MRE is an adventure, two are a chore, a steady diet of MRE's is a short trip to insanity.

The guy with the AK and the cabin filled with MRE's is not prepared to be wrong. He'll tell you he is ready for anything but he's incorrect. He's not prepared to be wrong in his assessment. Unless of course his life's goal was to live in a backwoods cabin in North Jabip with indigestion for the next five years.

Please don't take me the wrong way. I am all for, 100% behind, and determined to be ready for Y2K with preparation. My assessment is that society is likely to take a big hit and hard times are on their way. However, I give myself the same advice I do friends who are getting ready. Don't sell your soul to Y2K.

Take whatever precautions will make you comfortable with the risk you perceive but leave that backdoor. If you are truly into being prepared then you must also prepare to be wrong in your assessment. What makes me comfortable is some food and water, sources of heat and light that don't need the power company, a way to defend it all, communications so we won't be 'in the dark', and plans to go further if we must. Much further. What if I am wrong? Well, we are ready for that too. We have made plans to continue eating the rest of our lives, to continue making the power company whine by leaving our electric heat off as much as possible, and to make ham radio a life long family hobby the same as shooting is now.

So, what about those folks who's assessment of Y2K is 'no big deal', or 'it's all hype', or 'they'll take care of it', or 'I have a snickers bar and a bottle of Evian water so I'm ready'? What if they are wrong and are not ready for being wrong?

Somebody with these attitudes, if they are honest, will not bother to stock up on anything or prepare for a loss of power. The average home already has a three day supply of food and a three hour supply of water. The average home does not have a way of heating the home without power, nor a way to have light more than a few days from candles or maybe an oil lamp.

The average family might, maybe, possibly, but probably not, have a weeks worth of cash laying around. Half the homes in America have a weapon in them but at best only 10% of those people are prepared for defense. Maybe 1/2 of 1% have communications other than a phone or computer modem.

So... what if the polyanna's are wrong and are not 'prepared' to be wrong? What's in store for them? Hmm... Maybe Paul Milne's remark is right. "If I'm wrong, so what. If you are wrong, you die" or something close to that. Maybe it's won't be so extreme but those are the stakes we are playing with. A polyanna by definition won't prepare to be wrong. Polyanna's don't have life insurance, don't wear seat belts, do curse at bikers, and consider life vests on small watercraft to be style cramping.

Someone who honestly has decided Y2K is not a big deal is another story. If you have come to the conclusion Y2K is a flash in the pan or a bump in the road, think about the question. What if you are wrong? Are you prepared to be wrong? Forget about 'survivalism' for a moment, are you prepared to wrong in your assessment?

-- ExCop (yinadral@juno.com), November 22, 1999.