Laymen Supporting Y2K Prepgreenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
I wonder if there are any just plain everyday endusers of both technology and society that are grateful that billions were spent on avoiding disaster. 1.) The fire insurance analogy is apt: because I didn't have a house fire in '99, should I cancel my insurance? Or, conversely, does the possibility that I might have a fire justify overinsuring my house and then blaming the insuror for my high premiums? 2.) Human nature being what it is, will PR Depts. ever let Corps. tell us what disasters were avoided? or fixed on Jan. 1,2 & 3? 3.) We are so used to technology, taking it for granted, that we expect the lamp to light when the wall switch is thrown. This whole thing isn't about computers, per se, it's about complacency and expectations. The wonder of it all has been lost. 4.) Legacy systems aren't going anywhere, but the men and women who built them are--into retirement, old age and death. Maybe the next bellringer will be the LS Crisis. All I'm saying is be grateful that there was no disaster, and move on.
-- Edi Garcia (edig@mindspring.com), January 03, 2000
The fire insurance analogy is NOT APT. Fires EXIST.The threat of Y2K leading to loss of power grid, no water supply, no telecomm, nuclear meltdown, chemical plant explosions NEVER EXISTED.
The doomsday scenerio was made up, invented by folks with limited technical expertise, pessimistic outlooks and active imaginations. This obscured the real y2k problem, the one involving businesses needing to upgrade or replace older systems. That's all it ever was, but folks turned it into something much larger.
Don't be mad at your canned food or generators, but you should be mad at all the unnecessary fear and anxiety. Learn from it. And if necessary, get off-line and ignore the news. People who do are generally happier methinks.
-- Mike (mike@noemail.net), January 03, 2000.
Mike,No, the fire that never took place at my house this year obviously never existed. I was more than happy to pay for it, though (regardless of legal requirements). I rested easier, and that's important to me.
Serious Y2K problems may or may not arise. But I think you're just hurting your credibility by jumping in midstream and shouting absolute declarations about the eventual outcome. Don't be in such a hurry -- you'll gain more respect that way.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 03, 2000.
People who do are generally happier methinks. Mike, ignorance has always been blissful...!
-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), January 03, 2000.
Mike -...The threat of Y2K leading to loss of power grid, no water supply, no telecomm, nuclear meltdown, chemical plant explosions NEVER EXISTED.
The doomsday scenerio was made up, invented by folks with limited technical expertise, pessimistic outlooks and active imaginations...
You mean Gartner Group and all the rest of those "experts" testifying before the Senate were just a bunch of rubes? Wow. Coulda fooled me...
Interesting new "meme": there was never a truly serious threat, and all the folks who were clocking 60-80 hour weeks to fix all those mission-critical systems just suffered from "limited technical expertise, pessimistic outlooks and active imaginations". What a bunch of sillies they were, eh?
-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), January 03, 2000.
"No, the fire that never took place at my house this year obviously never existed" Read my post again (or I didn't get your response). fire insurance is smart because fires are a possibility. car insurance is smart because accidents are common. asteroid insurance is not smart because asteroid hits are rare. teotwawki insurance for y2k isn't smart because y2k-as-teotwawki never existed."jumping in midstream and shouting absolute declarations about the eventual outcome" you read too much into my post. I think there will be problems. Maybe enough to trigger some sort of economic downturn (unlikely though imho - because folks have been working - as the other poster said - 60-80 weeks), but not enough to require indiviuals to process their own electricity heat and water, and eat their own food stores.
I never bought into teotwawki and thankfully neither did most of the world's citizens. The embedded systems crisis was exagerrated (at least as an UNFIXABLE problem). Even Gartner got off that bandwagon in the end.
I guess that's it.
(for me, I gave up on the idea of teotwawki when I asked a friend a couple months ago what his brother, an electrical engineer who dealt directly with powerplants and delivery, thought of the whole grid- going-down business. He said, "It's bullsh*t.")
-- Mike (mike@noemail.net), January 03, 2000.
Mike,From hundreds of thousands of documents that were available, testimony from experts, the IEEE, etc. etc., with opinions all over the map, you chose to base your opinion on the brother (an engineer) of a friend who said that it (TEOTWAWKI, I assume) was B.S. And did you just accept that carte blanche? Or did you try to see if it made sense to you?
In any case, that reliance sounds pretty risky to me. Evidently to you, that statement automatically made the situation completely risk-free, at least in terms of TEOTWAWKI. But I guess that's what insurance is all about -- assessment of risk. And we're all different in that regard.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 03, 2000.
Eve,I didn't follow the y2k hype until this past summer. To my own benefit apparently. At that point, the big players had calmed down their predictions (dejager, gartner, yardeni, the senate subcommittee). By fall 99, the few folks still predicting grid failure had abandoned science and engineering in favor of vague "compliance statistics," rumor and heresay. the same applied to water/sewer. Already being swayed by what I read from NERC reports and listening to the 100 Day material, that's when I talked to my friend. He was more the icing on the cake then the sole reason. Here's a guy who knows how the stuff works and how to work around it. That was his job (not now, but was head of electrical for small town for years, working for town). He's the guy that convinved me that the good news was not spin, but simply the facts.
However, if I had made up my mind based on 1997, 1998 data, yeah I just might have bought a generator and solar home poopie processor. I'm glad I didn't and I don't blame those who did. I think those who chose to ignore all the reassuring news of the past six months, claiming it was all lies and spin, well - no need to get into all that.
-- Mike (mike@noemail.net), January 03, 2000.
Mike,I don't necessarily agree with all you said, but my time is a bit more limited right now. In any case, your responses were cogent and civil; I really appreciate that. And I hope we'll speak again soon.
Thank you, and take care.
-- eve (123@4567.com), January 04, 2000.