On This Day Pre-Y2K
Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!
March 4, 1999 Permalink
Every little bit of preparation will help. If the worst happens the collective is best off -- there is the least chance of civil unrest -- if people do not all run out of supplies at once. The longer the “have somethings, even a bit” outnumber the “have nothings”, the better off we will collectively be.
There is no longer enough time for everyone to prepare stringently. The word “stockpiling induced shortages” appeared in both medicine and food contexts this week. If the herd decides this is a problem requiring more than a few days preparation, it begins.
Either Joe Public stays asleep almost to rollover or he wakes up and starts preparing. Either way there is a finite level of collective preparation. Everybody could be prepared for three days, no sweat or damage. Maybe 75% of the population could ramp up to three weeks preparation. Perhaps 30% at three months or... These are wild guesses, of course. Fill in your own numbers. The point is that the amount of supplies that can be produced and distributed between now and 2000/01/01 is limited. There is not enough time for everyone to get to some meaningful level of preparation, but the more slowly the ramp up the better.
Senator Bennett said “The probability of an accidental launch of a nuclear weapon is low.” As far as I am aware no one asked the obvious follow up question: “What exactly do you mean by low?” Also, there was no reporter waving his hand and saying “Well, excuuuuuse me, but this is the good news in the Senate report? Y2k *probably* won’t set off any nukes by accident? Nukes going off? Helloooo! Anybody home? This report says we are toast!”
That did not happen. Instead we heard “Good news. We are probably not burnt toast!” The two to three day hurricane forecast has been turned by several news reports to good news “A bump in the road in the US, and disruptions won’t last more than 72 hours”. Every news report involves talking head(s) with goofy grin(s) pasted across face(s).
I heard a Y2k ad today for a payroll outsourcing company, but I haven’t heard one Y2k followup story on TV. What we should be getting is in depth follow up stories on each and every section of the report. The evidence is there. Report it, I say. “Shhh! You’ll cause a panic.”
Tim May is right when he describes Y2K as a Darwinian filter. People who are not prepared to think very hard for themselves about this issue are in big trouble. What almost everybody did on hearing the reported stories was shrug, “Three days? I can pick that up any time.”
But some percentage of people followed the advice and decided to beat the rush. They went out and got the three day supply at Costco yesterday. Through the mesh of Darwin’s filter, they will be at three months in no time.
—Tom Benjamin, comp.software.year-2000, 03/04/99
Gang,
This is a difficult post for me to write, but I know many of you are supportive when confronted with a situation like this.
My husband is either a DWGI or DGI. I suspect the former. Eternal optimist, a “things won’t get that bad,” type of thinker when it comes to Y2K. I used to show him articles. I don’t bother anymore. He knows, however, that I WILL follow the Red Cross recommendations, come heck or high water.
I think I need to do more than that--particularly after speaking with a state senator’s office (who listed “you may choose to buy a generator,” among the offices’ recommendations for preparing for Y2K), my Congresswoman’s office, my local Red Cross, my local water utility, etc.,--- but this will NOT happen until some type of light-bulb goes off in his head. He just doesn’t believe it will be that bad. “Even if it’s bad,” he says, “What are we going to lose but creature comforts? Heck, I can just go p--- in the woods behind our house!” (I should mention he grew up in a country without many creature comforts.) Our small daughter, however, is quite used to them.
He’s read the local newspapers, which are downplaying the potential impact. He’s not concerned. So here I am: I can’t prepare further without financial assistance from him, and I really don’t know how to convince him otherwise. He believes what he reads in the paper.
After reading Vic’s observations in the “Media Manipulation” thread,
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000Z9C
and
Deborah’s poignant response to it, along with Spidey’s clip from today’s Worldnetdaily,
More on plans for martial law http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000ZF8
I am more depressed than ever. If I showed my husband all of the articles from WorldnetDaily --he would probably dismiss the information as coming from the “lunatic fringe.”
I truly feel caught between a rock and a hard spot.
Anyone have any ideas how to move a big rock?
Thanks in advance.
—FM, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 03/04/99
