As a socialogist by training and inclination I find the current response to the Y2K issue both predictable and alarming. A few (by percentage) intelligent individuals have, singly/collectively, prepared for any disruption to their normal (preY2K) lives. However, because the vast majority of people have really never faced personal violence in their routine lives, they truly have no comprehension on just how ugly the coming times could get. Most are not psychologically prepared for the possible necessity of having to fight for their lives. We, as a country, are not mentally prepared for doing without the conveniences, the disposables, the luxuries. I know that the population of working poor and destitute have increased over the past decade, but by and large few are accustomed to doing without instant communication, electical appliances, fast food, grocery stores gasoline, air conditioning, and most importantly, good old-fashioned tap water. If such occurrences come to pass, will the ensuing chaos reduce the US populace to a state of MAD MAX AT THUNDERDOME? Will our penchant for sensationalism and individuality preclude decency? Personally, I don't see much hope for keeping the fatality numbers down should there be just three major cities in the country reduced to major barbarism.

-- Claudette Young (laclaud@cybertrails.com), August 27, 1999

Answers

Interesting thought, Claudette. Prior to the up and coming event, those of us who have, for what ever reason, been made prevey to Y2K, relax somewhat for what we believe is adequate preperation. However we carry the additional burden of that knowlege and are still not quite sure if any level of preperation will be adequate. So we suffer now, as well as maybe then. On the other hand the fellow who has not a clue of Y2K, suffers not now, and will be caught then in the same mania that we will all be in. If things fail as bad as the doomers predict,even those folks who have made plans to move to the hills will be caught up in the same mania. The IT professional will tell you that our computers are interconnected in ways that we cant begin to understand. I submitt that our humanity is connected in ways that we can understand, so that no matter how bad the code is, we as a human-race will always seem to find away to acclimate to a given situation. I personally have come to a place in my on mind/world were I will want to record all events in this living history, and somwhat feel honnered to be at this place and time. There maybe some Mad Max, but not everywhere, and whos to say next year that old principle of one day at a time isnt what we need for a while...---...

-- Les (yoyo@tolate.com), August 27, 1999.

Claudette

Quite simply, Americans in major cities and their surronding suburbs are decadent for the most part. And quite a few in the country could qualify as well. This is made possible by the success of our economic model. (Didn't I just type this in another thread? Oh well.) We are not ready for hard times. We have a rather large "Entitlement Culture", who feel they life owes them a decent living. They have forgotten what it takes to provide even that "good old fashioned" tap water. (BTW, there's nothing old fashioned about reliable tap water. That's fairly new, you young thing, you!)

Some time last year, I watched a program on the fire on the U.S.S Forrstal, an aircraft carrier stationed then off the coast of Vietnam. On the deck of the ship, a missle was launched from an aircraft accidently. The missle hit another fully loaded aircraft, which exploded and started a large fire. Since an aircraft carrier is nothing if not a boatload of bombs and fuel, the ship was soon in jeapardy. The aft end of the vessel was ablaze, sailors were cut off from parts of the ship, a real nightmare. The producers interviewed the Captain of the Forrestal who related a story of three seamen who were in aft steerage (steering?). They were needed at their post to preform some funtion necessary to the salvation of the ship. The captain described how they stayed at their post, carring out thier orders without complaint, until the fire cut off escape and killed them. It was just one act of heroism amoungst many that day, the only difference being that they were in the unkind position of being able to see what was coming. The thought struck me at the time, "That wouldn't happen today. We no longer turn out those kind of people." Time will tell.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 27, 1999.

"response both predictable and alarming..."

Essentially, it boils down to the fact that a lot of people are simply clueless about such realities as contingency planning. Those who have lived through a couple of disasters, who have engaged in high risk activities (where their preparations could have meant the difference between life and death), or who have spent most of a lifetime doing software maintenace (!), may simply have a realistic level of paranoia.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 27, 1999.

Claudette, I'd like to suggest a book.

Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption...human nature and the reconstitution of social order.

A book only a sociologist could love. Full of studies and commentary from numerous sources. Of course he's not talking about the Great Disruption to come but rather the one that occured as our society moved from industrial revolution to information revolution. Still this could be useful to this forum about reconstruction as we move from information based back to industrial based (I sure hope we're not moving back to agricultural based!)

-- LM (latemarch@usa.net), August 28, 1999.

I hope we are moving "forward" to a re-think on Newt Gingrich's greatly touted service economy furthered by NAFTA and GATT. Didn't the history of England already demonstrate that colonialism cannot be sustained?

Major vulnerabilities exposed by y2k would seem to be in the alarming trend toward exportation of our capacity to produce manufactured and agricultural goods. We have become a country of NIMBYs. We no longer have to deal with some of the hard issues and costs of an aging infrastructure, pollution, menial jobs and limited natural resources when we shift to an "offshore" colonial system. Factories relocated in Third World countries can exploit their domestic resources and operate in a relaxed regulatory environment with a cheap labor force. In the meanwhile, US consumers can consume and generate waste without immediately being confronted with the financial and environmental costs.

This may be a prime time for some of the changes needed in manufacturing. After WWII, Japan built its manufacturing infrastructure with all the new technology, while the US has had to contend with the modernization of its aging plants. Oft times, this encouraged the alternative of building new facilities offshore where the labor was cheaper. Perhaps with the ensuing y2k difficulties of national infrastructure break-downs and unreliable transportation, small domestic companies will rise to fill the void.

Do you know that Al Gore told a group of agricultralists that the US did't need agriculture? Did you know that Helen Chenoweth has stated that she was present at a hearing when several of the big international ag companies testified that there would be no domestic US agriculture in 20 years?

I hope y2k is pivotol in a re-examination of these policies and priorities. In California, prime agricultural land is being consumed by urban sprawl. Water resources are being diverted from growing vegetables to filling swimming pools. But the most important resource lost is knowledge base. The average age of a rancher is in his 60s. (Because of physical demands, there are few female ranchers.) Estate taxes and regulations are splitting ranches into smaller and smaller units and because of hard physical work and low finacial returns in a high regulatory environment, the young people aren't returning to the business. In biological terms, ranching is endangered and suffers from a mature even aged class and severe lack of juvenile recruitment. Within a decade, you may see the death of the family operated ranch.

I would hope that lessons of y2k reinforce a need for a shift in policy to stimulate and encourage a new age of decentralized manufacturing and agricultural centers. I believe this will make us more resilient as a people. It will force us to confront priorities and responsibilities realistically and seek real practical and difficult solutions to our problems instead of exporting and deferring them.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), August 28, 1999.

I coined the term Darwin's Doorway early in '98, to give a short metaphor to the complex human reaction to the pre, y2k, and post y2k worlds. Back then, in '98, I still viewed the y2k event as one which would take place over a few months at the very longest. Now, I have a more complex view, a subsidence of the sustaining techno-tit culture lasting perhaps for years, eventually leading to a society which is only possible to guess about from this vantage point. Whereas then Darwin's Doorway was more about physical prep and setting oneself up in a position less likely to be hit by physical violence, now I view the Doorway having an additional psychological component. This would be the individual having the flexibility necessary to adapt socially, psychologically, and physically to interruption of the luxuries, the energy use, the transportation upon demand, interruption of JIT food (high salt, sugar, and fat), to the lack of modern medical care, etc.

Some will be able to throw off the cushy bubble life and begin being personally responsible for their own survival. Some won't. But I see it more likely to play out over a handfull of years for most of us.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), August 28, 1999.

Claduette ... Great post ! Eyes open ... second , third paragraph are RIGHT ON !! Can't remember who wrote about the Forrestal, but on my first ship, USS Kleinsmith, my emergency post was " After steering"; which was in the last compartment of the ship, over the fantail. Your job ; Manually stear the ship, via voice control, from other than the bridge, should that capacity be physically lost to the captain. You were immediately under the main deck above, and had only one other way out; the next compartment " forward" . With a fire on deck, and aft , that would cut off escape "topside" . Escape forward would only exchange an already hot compartment for an oven. Eventually these men were killed by superheated air that seared their lungs. Horrible way to die ! Glad I didn't see that flick . Eagle ( Will have nightmares tonight, as I am slightly closterfobic. )

-- Hal Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), August 28, 1999.

The more that I evaluate the situation, the worse it looks for casualties due to Y2K. Individuals who rely on daily food purchases, government supplied utilities (especially water), and work in a job that relies on just in time manufacturing will not have much slack when it comes to surviving a major disaster. I would like us to make it through the year end with no loss of life. I am less and less convinced that this will be the case.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 30, 1999.

Claudette

I am by training a biochemist, not a socioolgist, so I hope this analogy might still work for you.

I think that there are two possible general reactions to severe situations: Chaos and Cooperation. Those dead sailors were following orders and they were trained for that. Orders or altruism, it was still cooperation. The two are like oil and water. If you shake it up, there is a great mixture but over time the two separate. Pockets of either are possible. There will be cooperation in the midst of chaos and visa versa.

I will agree with all that many Americans are soft and not used to hardship. On the other hand, I think that many of them are decent folks trying to make a decent living.

If times get real hard and things are very scarce, we may take defensive attitudes. But one thing that is probably useful to think of when you meet some wildeyed desperado in a post y2k world is that a few short months ago he was probably a well groomed guy who smelled nice and got up at 5:00 am every weekday to take the train to work. It doesn't mean to throw caution to the wind. It is just a reminder to picture the underlying person.

The Buddah, who was a great prophet with great insight and compassion, taught that there is a divine nature in every person. The life of Jesus is filled with examples of seeing deeper into the person to something inside them which deserved the love of God.

-- Thom Gilligan (thomgill@eznet.net), August 30, 1999.

"Americans learn only from catastrophes and not from experience."

- Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), September 24, 1999.