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Wondering About It:
A few days ago, William received an e-mail missive from a Wesoomi
website visitor. We always reply to e-mail unless it is obviously
spam. Here is the message along with William's reply.
On Wed, 1 Aug 2001 13:12:48 -0700, Mr. X wrote:
How is it possible that, after so much hype, there was NO Y2K
disaster? No one, not China or even France seemed to be affected.
How could so many experts be so massively wrong? This has been
bugging me for quite some time.
Sincerely,
Mr. X
William replies:
Me too!
I'll ask Willie Gaffer to wonder about it again.
Thanks for your note:
William E. Steinman, Editor, Wesoomi Publishing
So, here I am, wondering again. I have taken the time to look
up and review what we at Wesoomi wrote about this. All of our
stuff was produced while the so called Y2K bug was still an issue.
As I usually like to do, I was able to treat the issue with humor.
You might enjoy rereading my piece. Just look for "Y2K Compliance"
in Willie Gaffer's Archives.
I do not mean to imply that I did not take the situation seriously. I did and still do advocated the Boy Scout's motto. "Be prepared!" For all of us at Wesoomi, that means taking reasonable precautions for the future. Whether we are planning a trip, a project, or considering Y2K, we do this. To put what we do in life management terms, it is nothing more than simple risk analysis.
The formal risk analysis process, which we sometimes use, is a technique for doing what the Boy Scouts advise. In essence, we look at a situation and try to list the scenarios which could grow out of it. Mainly we look at what could go wrong. We then consider the possibility of each outcome occurring and assign it a number between zero and ten. Zero means it is not at all possible. Ten means that we consider it to be a certainty.
Next, we consider the effect the outcome would have on us if it did occurred. We assign another number between zero and one to that. Zero means it would have no effect at all. One means that it would cause a total disaster. When we multiply our two numbers, we will get a result between zero and ten. Can you guess that a result of ten means that we must act to prepare for that outcome by any and all means possible? We act to prevent it if we can. If not, we prepare for it.
We did not get any tens when we considered the Y2K bug. Most of our numbers were quite small. The biggest concern was the possible failure of the power grid. We considered a total and long term failure very unlikely. However, our analysis warned us to be ready for short term local failures. When I check William and Evie's columns about Y2K, I find that this is basically what they advised. The advice we gave was mostly to prepare for a short term power outage and to stay cool.
Now what really happened? Not much. In the aftermath there were preliminary reports of some local system failures. So far as I could tell, the reports were false. I could not find one verifiable case of a Y2K failure. After all of the hype, how could this be? I believe the situation simply got out of hand.
I think it was not the experts which were massively wrong. The ones I know about simply warned about a possible problem and suggested that we get on top of it. In many cases, companies did get on top of it. To some extent, these actions prevented any Y2K failures. That was a good result of the warnings.
The problem is, there were other more mercenary forces at work. What happened is that a gullible media and a few writer hucksters ignited a public panic by exaggerating the issue at hand. The writer hucksters did it to sell their twaddle. They had no care or regard for any ill effects their dishonest might have caused. The media, as always, was simply taken in. What we had was a very real possible problem which was hyped way beyond reason. Then public hysteria took over. This kind of thing has happened before.
It seems that every few years we must have an outbreak of public hysteria. The one which I remember best is the bomb shelter binge. Some of my readers may be old enough to remember that. It occurred at the peak of the United States, Soviet Union saber rattling contest. At that time, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust seemed very real. What that produced in the public was a condition of pure madness.
I almost wish I had saved some of the newspaper and magazine stuff which was written then. By comparison the recent Y2K hype was relatively mild. At that time, we actually had people investing fortunes in underground bomb shelters. Many of these took the form of concrete and steel underground homes. They were stocked accordingly. The worst case scenario had people living in these hidey-holes for years after the disaster.
People got quite bizarre. Some of the statements people made revealed a kind of mad savagery. Bomb shelter owners spoke of the possibility of having to defend their shelters. Some of them actually put in stores of weapons and ammunition. They spoke openly about the possible murder of their unprepared neighbors in self defense. Many people were involved in this madness.
Before the A-bomb stuff, there was another one called the yellow peril. I made note of that in another essay. In the yellow peril scenario, the oriental population would expand and overwhelm the Caucasian world. Us honkeys would be relegated to a servant class. Of course, It never happened and was eventually forgotten.
Eventually each of these waves of madness and hysteria must give way. Like any other plague, the infection plays itself out. Not to worry. There is always another one to afflict us. The one I see on the horizon now will be what I will call the Monster Machine Threat. In this one, computers and nano technology will produce sentient machines. These monster machines will then displace the human population. They will be aided by micro virus machines which will infect humans and wreak havoc.
If you want to read up on this, you can start with the September 4, 2001 issue of PC Magazine. There is some pretty interesting and also a bit of hysterical stuff in that issue. When I look at it, I get that these writers and pundits don't really have a clue. Unfortunately, they do have pens and forums. Get ready to panic!
One interesting thing I discovered in that issue came from
a compilation by Nancy Sirapyan. She lists what she calls seminal
events from the early days of computing. If you take her seriously,
you must conclude that Alan Turing made no contribution at all.
At least he was not important enough to mention. On the other
hand, Dick Tracy was mentioned three times for his contributions.
Sure!
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