Can y2k be "good" if it's "bad"?

I think yes; if it's not too bad.

I think this over-spending, fat, smug society needs a wake-up call.

We have a negative savings rate in the U.S. We think the stock market has no risk, and makes a fine piggy bank. We drive macho gas-guzzling behemoths to the grocery store. We assume the future will be as rosy as today, so we never prepare for any unpleasant deviation - so matter how small - from this lovely, constant economy.

I heard a funny line on the radio. A caller said: "I hope y2k is so bad that I don't have to go to work...but not so bad that the liquor store closes!"

Funny. Sad.

The stock market needs "tough love" every so often to "squeeze out the excess" - and we sure have excesses now!

But the stock markets are only a reflection of other excesses in this society. A wake-up call wouldn't be a bad thing.

In my perfect scenario I'd like to see y2k usher in an era of greater self-sufficiency, less greed, more community spirit, and make us more "thankful for what we have" rather than more running up the credit cards to mindlessly consume things of little real worth.

What's the line in Excalibur? "It's a dream I have..."

-- joe (joe@adeveloper.net), December 06, 1999

Answers

Well said! Thanks a lot!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 06, 1999.

you're not listening, they Never listen.


-- Merlin (good@flick.com), December 06, 1999.

Don't say bad, say ungood...(orwell 1984). I don't want anyone to be hurt but I would not mind a non-violent happening that would take the smug and self assured looks off the faces of some of my polly friends and relatives. I probably can't have it both ways. I am a semi-doomer, and I want less than a BITR, but I will not suffer fools who make me out to be the fool.

-- tc (trashcan-man@webtv.net), December 06, 1999.

Worst case senario:

Bad enough to crumple the stock market and the economy costing lots of innocent people their jobs and lifes savings and many lives,

BUT not bad enough to get the government regulators, IRS, TPTB off our backs.

Senario: Big Power Plant back east.

EPA Bureaucrat, "You've got to shut down, all your computeized smog abatement gear isn't working properly. Look at that smoke."

Plant Manager, "We are keeping millions of people from freezing to death in the dark"

EPA Bureaucrat, "I'll have FEMA arrest you, you are in violation of EPA Regs 12-3, 12-8 and 9/6 part A and D.

THUD??? Sound of large wrench striking soft head.

Plant Manager to Plant Foreman, both looking at EPA bureaucrat laying dead on floor, "What do you think happened?"

Plant Foreman, "I think he was inspecting the coal dust suppression sytem on the conveyor carrying coal to #3 boiler and fell onto it."

Plant Manager, "Sounds good to me. Call a couple of custodians. That's the 4th one this month. They sure are accident prone."

-- I Hope (bad@good.org), December 06, 1999.

Can stupid be smart?

Can Get It be Don't Get It?

Can you be a complete idiot? Yes! You win the booby prize you damn flake!

Oh man, I hope millions of people die next month, that'll show em' I'M SMART I AM.

Sonny boy, if I had you out in the oil fields, and you made a remark like that, I'd slap you upside the head with a damn big spanner.

-- Lurker (anon@anon.com), December 06, 1999.

If the power and TV stay on, Y2K will be a media non-event. Nothing will change. It's a nice thought though.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.