Personally if everyone just took modest preparation as we have I would worry less about panic
Jeff,
You certainly will find no arguments from me on that. I'm preparing like everyone else. However, I have no plans on accumulating 3 months of food and water and having to stash it somewhere.
We have a month's worth of food, will have a week's worth of water, possessing the means to filter as much as ourselves, and whichever neighbors, require,..etc, etc. etc... Basically the same things we'd like to have on hand in the event of a natural emergency.
Anymore than that in an urban environment is hard to justify. If things are that bad, we'll pack up and move back out west and hang out with my parents until things restabilize.
And I don't think anyone is saying that the gov't shouldn't warn, but since they themselves don't seem to have a good handle on what will occur, what exactly should they say in such a warning??
Can they truly say anything without causing the kind of panic stricken reaction like we see evidenced by people like Ken, who seems to have altered his life in a drastic manner to accomodate his fears of Y2K??
And if they do say something, the Ken's of the world will still say they are lying and not telling us the "real" truth, but only telling us what is already obvious to one and all.
But if they say nothing, the Ken's of the world then claim its a conspiracy of silence and a prelude to martial law.
Jeff, I have conversations with a variety of people who are either in a position to know, or are actually involved in national/international policy making on Y2K (not necessarily the bigwigs, but the worker bee staff members) We hash out a lot of these argument and scenarios on a personal level trying to figure out what the best policy should be.
They don't really know what is going to happen... honest. But damned if they're not going to have a contingency plan in place to deal with the most extreme scenario imaginable, including all-out cyber or biological/chemical attack against the US during what may be a period of confusion or chaos.
And the bottom line to everyone of these game-playing sessions rests on the reactions of everyday people and whether or not they choose to panic and create a breakdown of social order using Y2K as a convenient excuse.
Policy makers aren't worried about potential computer failures. Computer problems can be fixed or re-routed, given enough time and effort. No, they are worried more about people's reactions to those computer failures, no matter what form they actually take (or don't take).
Computers won't ever cause the collapse of civilization. Only people can create such chaos and irrational pathos. There is the potential out there to create economic chaos EVEN IF Y2K proves to be a non-event. I'll be damned if I do or say anything that fosters such a panic, and you can believe that policymakers feel the same way.
And one logical reason that I believe Y2K in the USA will be less than the physical catastrophe that chicken-littles like Ken believe it will be. It's too obvious. It's foreknown and being taken into account with regard to business and operational business planning. And most "experts" can attest that its the unknown problems that worry them far more than the ones they already know about.
What I constantly worry about are the far worse events that can befall our society, such as a concerted biological or chemical attack against some strategic portion of the US, or a cyber-attack against our financial systems or strategic infrastructure.
The ones that come without warning or defy effective counter-measures except retaliation in kind.
That should worry everyone, and provide more than enough reason to store food. I'm not Mormon, but I grew up in a Mormon community and I can tell you that, for them, Y2K is just another reason that they ALREADY have stores laid in to feed their people.
And it ain't such a bad concept when you think about it. |
