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Heroes and Cowards
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The debate about the non-event was settled to nearly everyone's satisfaction 9.5 months ago. I have enjoyed reading about the influences of the influencial recently. Who were the heroes? Who were the zeroes?
Heroes
I believe those who were literally persecuted for their right-ness deserve the most credit, though I will exclude myself from their esteemed company. And those individuals are the people whose names can still be found proudly displayed in
red lettering at the Hysterium (may they ever remain as a memorial to the historically-proven correct).But also, others, who, though not so visibly the victims of fascism that passed for moderation at the Hysterium, deserve recognition. Though my list is incomplete, I would like to mention CD, Y2K Pro, CPR, Mr. Poole, Mr. Davis, and Patricia. I found their individual styles of writing informative and entertaining. Especially entertaining was Mr. Poole's hoax that most doomers fell for hook, line, and sinker! What a laugh!
Zeroes
At the top of this list, if for no other reason than he should have known better, is Mr. Edward Yourdon. The only question remaining for me about the entire debacle is "Why did Yourdon do it?"
I do not believe the man stupid, but I cannot dismiss the possibility. Was it ego, then? A chance to appear on national television a few times? An opportunity to sell some more depressing and complaining books about an industry - his industry - for goodness' sake? I admit I am stymied.
There are others, to be sure, but I don't think I'll mention them. They don't utilise their old aliases anymore - an admission of their shame, in my opinion - and a proper one, at that. They "escaped" into "Ed-World," where they can follow the writings of the Ed without fear of dissent...and yet, alas, dissent followed and continues...so very very sad. Yet every now and again one will run out from beneath the protective cover of Ed-World and post here or there...only under another alias...the only word for them is "cowards."
Regards,
Andy Ray
-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), September 15, 2000Answers
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-- (mr@teal.man), September 16, 2000.
Andy Ray, you are one of the heroes of Y2k. You're a hero because you did what you believed was your civic duty.However, different people have different ideas about what their civic duty is. For some it's being a Democrat or Republican, Labour or Conservative. There did happen to be a difference in opinion last year bout what the proper national policy should be for Y2k in regards to awareness and preparedness for individuals and families.
Although I thought it was a bad idea to ban the people whose names were in red lettering (because it would be controversial and make the flame wars even worse), I do not feel sorry for them. One reason I don't is because they were on a forum they knew wasn't conceived and started with them in mind. It would be like a Republican going to the Democratic National Convention, louding accusing the Democrats there of screwing up the country with their policies, and then the Republican feeling hurt...first when booed and later when escorted outside.
For the record, though, I had no role in getting the red lettering people banned.
I believe those who were literally persecuted for their right-ness deserve the most credit. . . .
It would be for their rightness if these people had kept it a fact based discussion, but more often than not their tactics of choice were ad hominem ones, or trying to get MIT to shut the forum down, or HTML tricks or spamming.
I do agree there were 'doomers' just as extreme and unfair too, however.
Especially entertaining was Mr. Poole's hoax that most doomers fell for hook, line, and sinker!
I didn't see anyone on that thread take Poole's message as proof of anything, and there were some technically oriented people there who were suspicious of the post. It was spotted as a phony quickly, in my opinion. To see it, go to...
Why The Power Will Fail In 2000
The only question remaining for me about the entire debacle is "Why did Yourdon do it?"
Why did Yourdon do what? I shouldn't try to speak for the man since I don't know him and have never talked to him, but I do know he never predicted Y2k would be a '10' nor did he predict a collapse of civilization. I took his basic message to be that Y2k problems of varying degrees of severity and duration were possible in differing locales and differing sectors of the economy. Did Ed Yourdon ever claim to know how much food and water people would need?
I think Ed Yourdon wanted people to think about Y2k, consider the risks, follow the news and make their own judgement on how much preparation was prudent. His book took a risk management approach to Y2k.
There are others, to be sure, but I don't think I'll mention them. They don't utilise their old aliases anymore - an admission of their shame, in my opinion - and a proper one, at that.
I wouldn't make too big of a deal out of that, Andy Ray. You've never used your real name, and some people like contributing to discussions without getting bogged down in the name calling and flame wars.
They "escaped" into "Ed-World," where they can follow the writings of the Ed without fear of dissent...and yet, alas, dissent followed and continues...so very very sad. Yet every now and again one will run out from beneath the protective cover of Ed-World and post here or there...only under another alias...the only word for them is "cowards."
I've noticed most messages here by those who think they had good reasons for taking precautions for Y2k are posted in response to threads started by 'pollys'. 'Doomers' don't start threads about Y2k nearly as much as 'pollys' do; and cpr starts more new threads about Y2k than all the 'doomers' and 'pollys' combined.
Also, I'm sure there are people who post here who post even more messages on EZBoard, but don't assume that's always true. I for one have never posted anything on EZBoard -- not once. Zero. Zip. Nada. I do not have an account/password there. I don't like EZBoard's software, and there is a greater difference of opinion here than over there. I do like hearing both sides of an argument and am more likely to find that here.
Andy Ray, I'm not saying the way I saw Y2k was the way you should have seen Y2k, because everyone saw it differently. That was especially true of TB2000 where one's opinion of the place was likely to be influenced by what threads one considered to be important enough to read. Some wanted to read humor threads; others, news threads or maybe threads about growing food; and then there were some who actually wanted to participate in threads with flames.
The heroes of Y2k are those who thought what they were doing was their civic duty, regardless of what they thought Y2k's outcome might be, and who used reasoned arguments and information in support of their opinions.
The zeroes of Y2k are those who, instead of using facts and information to make their points, relied on attitude, name calling and flames to try to change minds.
When you think about it, all of us have wasted our time on Y2k. There were very, very few reported problems in January but there were also no bank runs, no empty grocery store shelves caused by panic, and no cases that I know of of 'doomers' going postal on neighbors because the rollover went so well.
The flame wars on TB2000 were a tempest in a teapot. Government, business and most of the population did not rely on Gary North or Ed Yourdon for their information about Y2k. I also doubt there was ever much chance of widespread, public panic, especially if one believed there was no chance of noticeable problems happening--either at the rollover or at spike dates like April 1, 1999.
If you ask the average non-Internet using person if there were Y2k problems in Jan. 2000, they would say no. Similarly, if you asked them if they saw signs of Y2k panic in January 2000, they would say no to that too.
I don't think what you thought about Y2k or what I thought about Y2k, Andy Ray, ever had much of a chance of determining what would happen to the average non-Internet using person. Both of us wasted our time if you look at it that way.
I'd say it's time all of us start talking about something else.
-- (people@Events.IDEAS), September 16, 2000.
people@EVENTS.ideas:I thought you made excellent points throughout. However, I think that NOW is the time to talk about Y2K, as obviously does Andy Ray, and probably about a dozen other people on this forum. Y2K is "old" enough to where it is no longer the big emotional worry that it was in times past. But "young" enough to where memories are still fresh. And, best of all, we know the outcome of Y2K; it is no longer a mystery. This makes discussion much more definitive.
And who knows what the result of further discussion might be? Doomers may say, "There was NEVER any credible evidence that Y2K would be bad! Never again will I be so easily fooled by hucksters!" On the other hand, pollies may say, "With all that credibe evidence, I can't believe that I foolishly did not prepare for an event that could very well have turned out to be TEOTWAWKI! Never again will I be so negligent with my life and the lives of my loved ones!"
-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), September 16, 2000.
Andy Ray,The list of Heros you gave made me want to laugh, as did some of your cowards. I guess that I am a coward in your eyes, since I have changed my name. Oh, but my name change came long before the actual event of the rollover and had nothing to do with my thoughts or views of Y2K.
To me, my list of Heros are the men and women that actually did work to correct a situation that would have been a terrible headache for those that would have had to deal with the output of programs if they had not been fixed. I, along with 98% of the people that even had Y2K on their radar screen never thought it would be the end of the world.
I had to perform duties related to Y2K. I installed OS patches on three different operating systems. I upgraded software from vendors so that we would not have as many problems as we could have had. I spent my entire two week Christmas break performing multiple system backups that my organization thought should be made, just in case. I wrote up business continuation plans, at their request, just in case. See, it was my job, assigned to me, to cover all of the bases of "What If...". If something had happened, where I work, actual human beings could have died. We are all very glad that nothing major occured, just a few minor glitches that only caused the developers problems with dealing with other state agencies that were not quite as compliant as we were.
So, if I am a coward by my name change, please color me Yellow. I shall wear my stripe with pride. As for an admission of shame due to my name change... don't look for it. I'm proud of what I did!
Sheeple (aka - cannot-say)
-- (Sheeple@Greener.Pastures), September 16, 2000.
Here's an earlier thread, mining the same territory in a different way:"Y2k Heroes, and an Alternative View"
http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003Fgj
I think Ken had one prior with the same subject matter - though hero was not in the title.
-- flora (***@__._), September 16, 2000.
-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 16, 2000Answers
-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 16, 2000.
html clean
-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 16, 2000.
-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 16, 2000
-- (i@love.art), September 16, 2000.
-- (i@love.art), September 16, 2000.
You tried something? And it didn't work?Try this:
8-#
Go look it up.
-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 16, 2000.
What's that, your I.Q.?
LOLOLOL!!
-- (creep@da.dimwit), September 16, 2000.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
See the NAZIs PLAY
body background="http://SPACE1.homestead.com/files/SHAPES.GIF"> What's that, your I.Q.?
LOLOLOL!!
a href="mailto:creep@da.dimwit">creep@da.dimwit), September 16, 2000.
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a href="mailto:hmm@hmm.hmm">hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
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-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
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-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 16, 2000.
No, I'm done thanks.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 17, 2000.
-- (Playing@around.again), September 17, 2000.
-- (Playing@around.inhere), September 17, 2000.
-- (Playing@around.inhere), September 17, 2000.
-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 17, 2000.