To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (655 ) 1/2/2000 7:33:00 PM From: Cheeky Kid Respond to
zdnet.com >>On the other hand, some of the doom-and-gloomers have made piles of money offering the public scads of poorly researched books about the end of the world as we know it. Some consultants with shady backgrounds have extracted massive amounts of money from clients. Survival supply shills have relieved themselves of the millions of surplus dried meals left over from the Cold War. Some folks have done all the above, writing books full of unfounded assertions, charging money for consulting services, and selling survival supplies on the side. >>But, recognizing that much needed to be done, we should not include the doomers in our congratulations. These people, who have exploited fear to push the most anti-social and back-handed economic agendas, did not do anyone any favors. For every family that will have to forego other expenses because they spent far too much on Y2K supplies after reading the irresponsible rants of the doomers, these profiteers should receive a smart blow to the cheek. Or, perhaps we should just turn our other cheek and record the identities of these people so that they will never be trusted enough to get away with this kind of abuse, again. In any case, if, on Monday morning, a doomer claims to have saved the world by raising his voice to warn people that the end of the world was nigh, give him a smack for me.<< >> I think that some consultants billed far too much, and there was certainly no lack of opportunistic publishing. However, there was a very real problem and many consultants and conference producers were serving a valuable and important role. All in all, my experience tells me that there was no more exploitation of Y2K than usual among technology consultants. Of course, there is a lot of exploitation of fears of obsolescence all the time.
