Each day I hear this myth restated, nearly word for word. While it is true that the future is inherently unpredictable, it is also true that we predict it regularly and with great accuracy. We build skyscrapers that don't fall down, we harvest what we plant, we put Neil Armstrong on the moon. The point of the hard sciences is to be ABLE to predict the future. When predictions fail it is because not all factors were accounted for, and when human behavior plays a significant part in the outcome this is particularly true. Thus predicting a stock market crash date, or whether a marriage will succeed or fail, or how well a crisis will be weathered, is almost impossible. To some extent our predictions about y2k outcomes depends on such unknowable factors. However: I believe there are some certain consequences we know. I will list some, and I invite others. # The government will continue lying to us. # The IRS will resort to a contingency plan for tax collection. # The federal government will be virtually paralyzed due to the failure of non-mission critical systems. # The Russian/Ukrainian power grid will shut down and nuclear meltdowns, as well as mass deaths, will result. # The financial markets will suffer a global liquidity crisis, which will be followed by either extreme inflation or deflation or both, depending on how governments respond. # World trade and travel will dramatically contract. # The prices of essentials like food and fuel (in real terms) will skyrocket. # Manual operations will become necessary in many businesses and processes, causing a substantial reduction in productivity and enormous dislocations in labor/employment. # The failure of a percentage of infrastructural embedded chips will result in a huge burden on emergency relief agencies, and at least isolated instances of States of Emergency. # Governments around the world will totter and some will fall. # The world population will shrink next year for the first time in centuries. Based on what we KNOW, are any of these arguable? And what certainties can be added? Let's not be disingenuous about our abilities to predict the future, please. No more of this "Nobody knows what will really happen..." I think we do.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 15, 1999

Answers

I agree with your first "certainty" ("The government will continue lying to us"). All others are pure conjecture. They may be likely, but are far from certain.

My "certainties": There will be many failures. People's lives will be impacted. Any crisis will be magnified due to the lack of preparedness by those impacted.

Sorry, that's as "certain" as I get these days.

-- Steve (hartsman@ticon.net), December 15, 1999.

I agree with Steve, but just to give you the benefit of the doubt would you care to enlighten us with the "hard scientific facts" on which you based all of your "certain consequences" as being "certain" (which I take to mean irrefutable).

The rest of us obviously missed something over the past 2 years.

-- Interested Spectator (is@aol.com), December 15, 1999.

EVERYTHING StanTheMan predicted will come true.

Here is the link to back it up.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a.tcl?topic=TimeBomb%202000%20(Y 2000)

***

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-- Zen Angel (EndOfDays@Now.com), December 15, 1999.

Okay, guys. I asked you not to be disingenuous. If you have really spent two years learning about this problem and can't admit to having arrived at similar conclusions, why on earth do you continue reading on this forum? Is it like watching a cobra? "Nawww.,.. what makes you think that cobra will strike?" Why is it so hard for GI's to GI? This really bewilders me. For God's sake, we have two weeks to go, find the cajones to stand up and say, "hey, X and Y and Z are certainties."

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 15, 1999.

Stan, you yourself already point at the impossibility of certainty: "When predictions fail it is because not all factors were accounted for, and when human behavior plays a significant part in the outcome this is particularly true."

You also underestimate how much EXPERIENCE supplements all hard sciences! Neil Armstrong on the moon was preceded by some bitter experiences. We are still crash landing stuff on Mars. Science and Engineering are not the same. Programming is more Engineering than science.

In this case, we have no experience with a step change in a parameter (or factor as you call it). Where I have seen in the past BIG screw- ups, the reason was always an important parameter that we either thought was insignificant or that we didn't fully understand.

Agree, that it is frustrating to hear that message again and again. I agree with your #1, because the pattern is established, and add to it that widespread data corruption is certain.

-- W (me@home.now), December 15, 1999.

Stan,

I'm not sure if all or even most of your predictions will come true. But thank you for mentioning this:

"# The federal government will be virtually paralyzed due to the failure of non-mission critical systems."

One of the things that really amazes me about the government is that they keep mentioning ONLY their "mission-critical" systems. And while its a pretty good guess that they are fudging the numbers on these "M.C." systems, THEY NEVER EVEN MENTION THE NON MISSION-CRITICAL SYSTEMS. It's as if all of these thousands of systems suddenly don't even exist. Sort of like all the "non mission-critical" personnel sent home during the last government shut down. Although its certainly true that Washington D.C. is one of the least efficient places on earth, no one is going to convivnce me that we can just "do without" all of these computer systems in Jan. 2000.

-- (cavscout@fix.net), December 15, 1999.

Stan

We don't know what will happen because, as you yourself stated, "when predictions fail, it is because not all factors were accounted for". When and more importantly, how, do we know, that we have been given access to all the true "factors" that would make Y2K predictions infallible?

On the other side, if even half of the conjecture on this forum comes to pass, I would predict that we are about to enter a twilight zone of somewhere past a 6...

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.xnet), December 15, 1999.

Re: "acounting for all factors." Thanks in large part to the tremendous range of experience and knowledge of contributors to this forum, we have accounted for a heck of a lot of factors. I stand by my inevitables. Anyone care to explain how I am wrong in any specific case?

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 15, 1999.

cavscout, Your point about the so-called non-critical systems is well taken. Of 70,000 [US] federal systems, only 6,300 (that's just 9%) have been given serious Y2K attention. Let's face it, most of the government's business involves the handling of data (there is very little actual production) and the huge bulk of this data is handled by computers. In other words, the bulk of government workforce is, in a very real sense, computers. If you can accept this premise, we now therefore effectively face a "temporary layoff" of approximately 91% of our [US] federal workforce.

Although some might argue that such a cutback would amount to a healthy pruning, I'm afraid that such a severe cutback will be more than the typical citizen will be able to stomach.

My question is "What will emerge out of all of this?" Organized crime?

-- Zach Anderson (z@figure.8m.com), December 15, 1999.

Stan,

I pretty much agree with you. The probabilities are very high in most of the areas you mentioned not to have a disasterous effect.

But I think one of the most important points you made was about the phrase "Nobody knows what will happen..." .

The biggest damage that phrase did was to give people a false hope that "If mobody knows..." then maybe nothing will happen.

The scale was never 0-10. Zero or 1 or even 2 was probably *never* a possibility... WITH WHAT WE ALL KNOW AS THE FACTS.

But that single phrase gave people an out. It gave people an excuse not to prepare. "Hey, it could be a 1... that's not so bad"

It's kinda like the military speaking of "acceptable losses" in a nuclear war.

I have been saying this for two years that "No, somebody does know...'. The independant Y2K analysts who have been "connecting the dots" and piecing facts together have a pretty good idea of the range of probabilities. And "zero or one" was never an option. And when the government began lying and the deadlines were missed we had sufficient proof that believe that 3 or 4 may be the best case scenario.

I have a small company that has been doing extensive research and producing a television show on Y2K and we have to combat that phrase almost on a daily basis. The people who have stayed independant still believe we are in for tough times.

de Jager and the Gartner Group found out that the bread was buttered better on the other side. It's amazing what a few million will do to a person's integrity.

And if I see another media public opinion poll about "How bad is y2K going to be?" I'm going to throw up!

That's like standing up in a movie theater and saying to the audience "So... do you people think I should have the chemotherapy of should I just forget the whole thing?"

What the hell do they know? Who cares what they think?

rant off.

Keith

-- Keith Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), December 15, 1999.

Zach,

Now you're getting to the interesting part of the question: What's next.

Here's one scenario. Computer programing (and associated skills) become regulated in much the same way that doctors, lawyers and engineers are now. Clearly (some people will conclude) the free market didn't work, because it produced a monster like Y2K. Thus we need to have a regulated system.

This could easily be compounded by a public outcry, along the lines of: "why didn't anyone tell us that Y2K would be a problem?"

Here's another -- far less likely -- scenario. People wake up and realize that their governments have been less than truthful, and decide to hold their elected officials accountable. If enough people watched a family member die, and made the logical connection between government inaction and the death of a loved one, this could happen.

But these two ideas are based on the assumption that there is a functioning social infrastructure post rollover. If not, then organized crime might well be the way things go.

-- Midas (midas_mulligan_2000@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.

No one can predict the future. However if the engineer who designed the bridge discovers some problems, such as, the nuts and bolts used in the building of the bridge were not up to the engineers specs, or he misapplied the specs and latter upon revue discovers the mistake, would you tend to ignore the warnings, repair the bridge, let people use it anyway, fix on failure?

Not knowing anything about bridges or computers I tend to listen to the designers who claim "there is a problem."

"Shoot fire Jim Luke!" We have a bridge over New Melones Resevoir, Stanislaus River, in Calaveras County, CA, that has a definite slope in it where it was supposed to rise. The county refuses to accept the responsiblity for the goof and leaves it in the hands of the Corp of Engineers. The Corp reinforced the sloping area and we drive over it but it is not right. They goofed!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), December 15, 1999.

The main "Mission Critical" issue is the protection of our elected/appointed leaders' retirement funds and their political power base.

Gerald

-- Gerald R. Cox (grcox@internetwork.net), December 15, 1999.

Prediction;TPTB will need a scapegoat, a "Herbert Hoover" for the coming collapse. The new Hoover will be Bill Clinton. Our next Pres??? As in most times of crisis the people will rally to a strong, "military" leader. MCCAIN. Someone who has been to hell and back. MCCAIN. I not sure who that would be? MCCAIN. Bush and gore are just too wishy washy, too wimpy even. MCCAIN.No I think the country will demand a strong, decisive leader.MCCAIN. Let's see Eisenhower and Audie Murphy are dead. So who does that leave?? MCCAIN. Oh well, I'm sure they'll find someone.

-- Ralph Kramden (And@AwayWeGo.com), December 15, 1999.

Anybody here ever hear of "Galloping Gertie?" It was a bridge across the Tacoma Narrows, and not too long after it was built there came a windstorm... You have all heard that when soldiers walk across a bridge they fall out of step, right? This is becuase certain frequencies can shake even a bridge apart. Well, that's just what happened to the Tacoma Narrows bridge. The wind blew at just the right (or wrong) frequencies, and the film footage is increadable. You can see this little car getting tossed about as the waves ripple along the bridge, then the bridge just sort of crumbles. So even the best laid plans and the best known engeneering can go wrong. Find the film clip if you can. It's spectacular.

-- Titania Baildon (tbaildon@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.

I should have done this before posting, but here are some sites with pictures and films of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. There were plenty more, just search for "Galloping Gertie."

http://www.ketchum.org/bridgecollapse.html

http://www.vislab.usyd.edu.au/photonics/fibres/fibre/tacoma0.html

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may98/892678504.Eg.r.html

-- Titania Baildon (tbaildon@yahoo.com), December 15, 1999.

Dr. Gordon's phrase "Chernobyls and Bhopals" strikes us as an indication ...

StanTheMan, we feel Y2K is knowable too, and will be watching (not during rollover!) to see what the batting average is.

May God intervene and arrange Strike Out for all our projections!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 15, 1999.

"Nobody knows what will happen." Actually, I take that as one of the only two Y2K "truths" there are (the other being that 1-Jan-2000 is a known date - it is 'x' amount of time away). Nobody knows what will happen simply because of the size of the problem. It is everywhere and it encompasses everything. There is no central command and control of worldwide Y2K remediation and contingency efforts. We are all relying on (mostly) self-reported information. Noone wants a problem, but not everyone recognized the severity of the problem (worldwide). We *can't* know because the size and scope of the entire problem is too big for one person or even a group of people to coherently understand. We (the world) haven't even collectively defined what a 'problem' is, so some people will think we are having problems and others won't (perceptions). It could land anywhere between a 0 and a 10 and I wouldn't be surprised one bit. THERE ARE NO Y2K EXPERTS
NOBODY KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN
HOPE FOR THE BEST, PREPARE FOR THE WORST
Y2K CANNOT BE FIXED!!

-- Jim (x@x.x), December 15, 1999.

Thanks for all pertinent responses, esp. Zen, cavscout, Zach, Keith, Midas, A&L in C. What I hoped for was a base of foregone conclusions. (My predictions are far more dire, but I don't feel comfortable calling them inevitables.) Let's all stop with the nitpicking and idle conjecture. What's coming is NOT hypothetical. It's real. And it's going to be bad. Kiss the myth goodbye.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 15, 1999.

Stan, I must say that I admire your spirit. While you are putting your views clearly on the line, the majority of the Doom leaders are backpedaling like crazy. First came all the lame excuses for why we have not seen the promised pre-Y2K shocks. Now they are busy preparing their exit strategies - denying their most outlandish predictions, shying away from talk about embedded systems, now saying it will take months into 2000 before we will know if Y2K will be a significant problem or not. And as you point out they hide behind the silly claim that "nobody knows" and to prepare to "be on the safe side", even putting forth the silly analogy to Pascal's Wager. All of this is a shoddy - no your word is better - a disingenuous effort, to create a justification of why they will have no apologies to offer when they are proved wrong. These are the same people who have sold their views until lately with such certainty, and labeled anyone who disagreed with them a stupid moron.

For the record, in a few weeks you will find out that all of your predictions will be quite wrong, with the probable exception of the first one. Unfortunately, our elected officials are rarely as candid as we would like them to be, but I don't think this has anything to do with Y2K. And as you have so ably shown, politicians have no monopoly on talking out of both sides of their mouths. My question to you Stan is this: if not a single one of these disasters comes to pass, who will you conclude lied to you then?

-- Computer Pro (first_minister@hotmail.com), December 15, 1999.

Computer Pro: To answer your final question, I walked into this mess with my eyes wide open, unlike the rest of the population, and lies don't have much effect on me. I have forgotten more than you will ever know, about philosophy, reality, psychology, epistemology, human cognition, sociology, history, literature, and every other soft science you can name, as well as most hard sciences. I was Ivy League, Mensan, if those terms mean anything to you. So don't try to patronize me. Go back to your puppeteers and tell them it's over. I stand by the postulated inevitables. And they're only the beginning.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 15, 1999.

Stan:

OK, you have a big brain. Good for you. I notice that with one exception, you don't put a time limit on your predictions. I notice also that you carefully refrain from quantifying terms like "virtually", "dramatically", "skyrocket", "substantial", "enormous", and "large". This leaves a LOT of wiggle room, don't you think?

Would I be far from your intentions if I rephrased your predictions as follows:

[# The IRS will resort to a contingency plan for tax collection.]

More than half of Federal revenues will be collected during calendar 2000 by nonstandard means.

[# The federal government will be virtually paralyzed due to the failure of non-mission critical systems.]

I don't even know how to approach this one. Non critical systems by definition cannot paralyze operations. If they could, they'd be critical. I suppose since it's been announced that 99.9% of critical systems are OK (hehehe), such paralysis must have been caused by critical systems misclassified as noncritical. But what could you mean by "virtual" paralysis. Can you make a suggestion? How about, say, less than 50% of entitlement transfer payments made within a month of their due date in any one month over the next year?

[# The Russian/Ukrainian power grid will shut down and nuclear meltdowns, as well as mass deaths, will result.]

OK, this seems clear. But during 2000, right? And "mass deaths" numbering, say, at least 10,000? And does the grid shutting down mean that every working power plant is an island?

[# The financial markets will suffer a global liquidity crisis, which will be followed by either extreme inflation or deflation or both, depending on how governments respond.]

OK, during 2000. And by "extreme", let's say the rate of either one must exceed a monthly average of 50% during the year.

[# World trade and travel will dramatically contract.]

By "dramatically", let's say less than 50% of 1999 levels, for the entire year of 2000.

[# The prices of essentials like food and fuel (in real terms) will skyrocket.]

By the end of 2000, the cost of living will double, using current means of measuring it, and measured in 1999 dollars.

[# Manual operations will become necessary in many businesses and processes, causing a substantial reduction in productivity and enormous dislocations in labor/employment.]

During 2000, unemployment will exceed 15% at some point, and GDP will decrease 15% from 1999, measured in 1999 dollars.

[# The failure of a percentage of infrastructural embedded chips will result in a huge burden on emergency relief agencies, and at least isolated instances of States of Emergency.]

During 2000, right? Would you say a burden matching the 1993 midwest flood would be a good measure?

[# Governments around the world will totter and some will fall.]

This is pretty normal, though. Most of them are tottering at the best of times. Coups are the institutionalized means of changing heads of government in most countries. How about we say that 30 more countries will change governments than the last 10-year average?

[# The world population will shrink next year for the first time in centuries.]

Even if this happens, unless it's some truly flagrant dieback, the global population can only be estimated to day to within about a half billion. So let's say the decrease is clear enough so that even the rabid anti-population-growth advocacy groups concede that it happened.

So how about it, Stan. Are you willing to go along with these attempts to quantify your certainties? Adjustments to my numbers are welcome.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 15, 1999.

Ahh, a return to the substantive! Thanks, Flint. BTW, are you a statistician? I won't quarrel with your specifics--mild for the most part--but what exactly is the purpose of them? I believe the date change devastation will rank with World War II, and how could I conceiveably wriggle out of an evidentiary proof that it corresponded more to, say, the Savings and Loan debacle? By end of year 2000, it will be transparent that my "foregone conclusions" were accurate or were merely wrongheaded "predictions." By way of example, suppose I had made similar statements in 1937 about the coming global conflagration--would you and I be later arguing about exactly how many governments toppled, or how many Russian civilians died (actually still unknown, plus or minus five million), or whether it was truly a WORLD war? Hardly. Focus on the question: Are these "foregone conclusions" disputable? What do you think, Flint? Would you add or subtract any? You have devoted much time to studying and critiquing all this information. Are you--disingenuously?--claiming still that you have formed no definite conclusions about how the new year will greet us? # Example: the GAO's Joel Willemson acknowledges that NO non-mission critical systems have been fixed. This means over 85% of total federal systems are unremediated. You say that "non-mission critical systems by definition cannot paralyze operations." Oh? If all your BODY's non-mission critical systems stopped, wouldn't YOU be paralyzed? Incidentally, why did you classify issuance of entitlement checks as non-critical? One out of three households in America depend on them to pay bills. # Example: The Russians announced last month they intend to run their power grid manually after 1/1. Do you believe it will be more than 25% functional by 1/31? Given all you know about Russia's current and coming problems in all other sectors? And if it isn't, what chance is there of continuous cooling of cores and pools? The US Commerce Dep't is sending them generators because their nukes don't have them! What about fuel for the generators, maintenance, parts? Sorry, no way. Foregone conclusion: meltdowns, MILLIONS of deaths from radioactivity, cold, starvation. Kiss Russia sayonara. # Final point: you ignored the reference to States of Emergency. Is that because you already know they're coming?

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 16, 1999.

Stan:

Only time for a quick reply this morning...

[Are you--disingenuously?--claiming still that you have formed no definite conclusions about how the new year will greet us?]

Something bothers me about forming definite conclusions about the future. The future has a way of being unpredictable. I have some predictions, yes. Any predictions not obvious to everyone ("the sun will rise tomorrow") can't be considered definite.

[# Example: the GAO's Joel Willemson acknowledges that NO non-mission critical systems have been fixed. This means over 85% of total federal systems are unremediated. You say that "non-mission critical systems by definition cannot paralyze operations." Oh? If all your BODY's non-mission critical systems stopped, wouldn't YOU be paralyzed?]

By definition, I would not. However, it seems clear to me that my body doesn't have all that many noncritical systems. The problem, as I implied, is one of classification. If the government can really operate satisfactorily without 90% of their sytsems, they should shut those systems down and reduce the size of government.

[Incidentally, why did you classify issuance of entitlement checks as non-critical? One out of three households in America depend on them to pay bills.]

I was trying to come up with *something* that we could all look at and say "yup, that's paralysis OK". I already complained about the classification system, which I consider self-serving.

[# Example: The Russians announced last month they intend to run their power grid manually after 1/1. Do you believe it will be more than 25% functional by 1/31? Given all you know about Russia's current and coming problems in all other sectors? And if it isn't, what chance is there of continuous cooling of cores and pools? The US Commerce Dep't is sending them generators because their nukes don't have them! What about fuel for the generators, maintenance, parts? Sorry, no way. Foregone conclusion: meltdowns, MILLIONS of deaths from radioactivity, cold, starvation. Kiss Russia sayonara.]

OK, clear enough.

[# Final point: you ignored the reference to States of Emergency. Is that because you already know they're coming?]

I wouldn't be surprised by *requests* for states of emergency, which is one way governors get more federal tax dollars allocated to their states. Some might be granted.

My expectation is that taxes will be collected normally, government functionality will suffer only minor impairments, we'll see neither inflation nor deflation to any unusual degree, trade and travel might suffer a dip for a month or so, then recover to normal levels, bankruptcies will exceed normal rates, but unemployment won't even double the current rate, and the world population will continue to rise. I don't have enough information to comment about Russia.

And the government will continue to lie.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 16, 1999.

I think we've about beaten that horse to death. I'd have to characterize our positions as intractably polarized.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 16, 1999.