Doomers are a Scream; my (*cough) professional opinion of our group dynamics:

Clearly Doomers are nothing more to the Polly regulars than entertainment.

First recognize that persons today are repulsed by terror (eg: getting mugged or raped) yet drawn to horror (eg: watching horror movies, rubber-necking car accidents).

We Doomers consider the issue of y2k to be "terrifying", meaning it could hurt us in a *personal* way. We are *revolted* by our doom scenarios. We become motivated to change our lifestyles in order to avoid such a terrifying fate.

Pollies on the other hand experience the y2k issue as "horrifying", meaning the scenarios are scary, but *can't* effect them personally.

Remember the book "1984" in which moviegoers laugh at grotesque scenes? This is the Polly response to our y2k doom scenarios. We then react by escalating our description of potential scenarios, thinking we will motivate them to prep like us, but in their minds we are just crossing the line from The Adams Family to Clive Barker. They get hooked on the horror, with the comic twist of our seriousness (consider the blockbuster Scream which offered horror and comedy).

Pollies have learned how to antagonize Doomers. This is how they manipulate us into raising the dose of "horror" we dish out to them. They get hooked on the horrific head trip we provide.

We Doomers on the other hand feel aggravated and drained in this exchange. Our goal is to work out a corner of order for our families in a potential sea of chaos. When we interact with Pollies, they dish out what feels to us like even more chaos.

Throw into the Polly mix the psychopathic tendencies of our media raised youth, and  viola!  our group dynamics in less than 300 words.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999

Answers

Donna:

Hear hear from southern California. It ain't over yet. My best friend and his staff lost a full day two days ago when they "discovered" that they had a four day look-ahead algorhythm in an application. And they were officially compliant since early 99. Meanwhile the local Carl's Junior had big time computer problems that the workers freely blamed on Y2K.

-- Dana (A_Non_O_Moose@xxx.com), December 31, 1999.

Hokie........Good post and good point!

-- Polly-Morphic Doomer (greenem31@aol.com), December 31, 1999.

Agreed.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 31, 1999.