Re; "Bump-in-the-roaders"
Thanks for your response, Ben.
But perhaps I should have specified that, as far as I am concerned, good humor must be good-humored. I do recognize, however, that other people's idea of a big ha-ha is to poke fun at all those other idiots out there. The site you sent me to displayed precisely that kind of condescending, snotty attitude, which is what I was complaining about in the first place. Now, here is another anti-doomsayer site that goes so far in that direction, that is so abusive and so over-the-top, that it can actually be funny, in a weird sort of way:
members.aol.com
Next point. You seem to be dividing all humanity into the sheep & the goats, that is, into "bump-in-the-roaders", on the one hand, and "doomsayers", on the other. Yardeni, incidentally, distinguishes between "alarmists"(among whom he includes himself) and "doomsayers", and surely there are a lot of other gradations in between the two extremes. (And let's not forget the "anti-hysteria hysterics", a felicitous term coined by a contributor to another Y2K thread.)
Here is an article that makes good sense to me. Your reaction?
Y2K & The Power of Positive Pigeonholing
By Victor Porlier
December 9, 1998
People do not simply form impressions, they get anchored in
them. Journalists are just as susceptible to this as the rest of us.
In recent weeks, I have had a number of contacts with the press.
Most of them have been technologically illiterate. Instead of doing
serious research and reflection on Y2K and its array of possible
implications, there is often a core motive to discount and deride
the whole idea.
To this end, such journalists, including pundits in the financial
media, engage in the classic methods of ridding themselves of an
issue:
Denial
It just can't be that serious. Computers "go down" all the time and are back
up in hours. They didn't think we could cap the Kuwait oil field fires, but we
did. Bill Gates wouldn't let this happen to the computer industry and his
company. The government won't let it happen.
Search for Disconfirmation
My bank, utility, broker, corporation, etc. says that their systems are already
fixed or will be soon. My son is majoring in computer science and his
professors say it's just hype. Embedded chips are no big deal, hardly any of
them calculate dates.
Discredit the Messenger
Instead of dealing with the assumptions, facts, or logic of a person's position
on an issue, you can sidestep such an analysis and simply attack the person
- their motives, character, mental state, or similarity to other discredited
persons and beliefs. This substitute for honest debate is so old that the
Romans included it in their lists of logical fallacies and duplicitous debating
techniques. They called it the "ad hominem fallacy."
Instead of dealing with the nature of Dr. Edward Yardeni's analysis of y2k and its
potential dangers, one otherwise learned and often insightful pundit just says that
Yardeni "has gone overboard and is bonkers." No analysis, just dismissal.
Another journalist says that persons expressing Y2K concerns are "a gaggle of
alarmists." Now, if there is a perceived danger- say serious smoke in a building -
sounding an alarm is what should be done, even if it develops that it was only paper
in a trash can. An "alarmist" however is something a bit different, namely, "a person
given to spreading needless alarm." In a recent interview with a member of the
financial press, I had to struggle to make the distinction clear. He was intensely
motivated to label me an "alarmist" so that my message needn't be analyzed.
He also tried ever so hard to get me to agree that I was a "survivalist." I said I wasn't
planning to build a bunker near Boise, but that I did want to survive and felt that a
low-density community would be preferable to one of high density on January 1,
2000. I asked him if he thought that persons living in zones of repeated hurricanes,
tornadoes, ice storms, floods, earthquakes who took precautionary measures such
as having alternatives for heat, light, water, and food were "survivalists." He said,
"that's different." "Why?" I asked. "Because," he answered.
Another journalist asked me if those raising Y2K concerns weren't caught up in
Millennium Fever. I said that if computers had been developed in the 1850s with the
two-digit year format, we would have called it the Century Bug as we approached
1900. The facts about the global pervasiveness of automation, the immovable
deadline, the late start by so many enterprises --public and private -- are verifiable
facts. They were not derived from some New Age channeling or some contorted
exposition of any of the world's Divine Writs.
Another correspondent said that Y2K concerns were an "hysterical response to a
non-issue." Now, it is hard for me to think of Senators Bennett and Moynihan,
Congressman Horn, and others who have conducted months of hearings on Y2K and
slap the label hysteria on their concerns. What they and others are saying is not
what the dictionary defines as "wild uncontrollable emotion or excitement."
This sort of journalistic behavior is so common that my skin has thickened, but you
can't help but feel pity for such behavior. Maybe they can't help it. Maybe it's their
editors saying something like, "Talk to some of these Y2Kers and find me some
over-the-edge, truly bonkers, militia-type survivalists who are leaving high rise
apartments for small towns. And find out if they own a gun." I call this the power of
positive pigeonholing - the journalistic substitute for truth seeking and the answer to
tight deadlines and editor's pre-conceptions.
Public debates should be about competing viewpoints of current situations, but
instead they have more to do with discrediting the messenger of the opposing view,
not the substance of the view itself.
Thoughtful forecasters, such as Bruce Webster, co-chair of the Washington, D.C.
Year 2000 Group, present a spectrum of possibilities. He categorizes possible Y2K
impacts by levels - starting at Level One and progressing to Level Ten.
Level One is a "Bump In the Road" with such features as: local impact on some
organizations, some small to medium businesses have Y2K problems, some
infrastructure failures, but all caught and handled quickly, and no impact on society.
Level Four is "It's The Economy Stupid" with such features as: economic slowdown
of one percent over three months, unemployment rises at least two percent,
bankruptcy of at least one Fortune100 company, serious problems with suppliers
and litigants, transient 3 to 7 day utility interruptions, isolated social incidents,
including domestic terrorism, and at least one major government agency reverting to
Y2K contingency plans.
Level Seven is "Things Get Worse" where we would see such features as: The US
barely escapes a depression, unemployment up to 15 percent, widespread layoffs
and cutbacks, one of the Big 3 auto makers collapses, regional infrastructure and
supply problems for 1 to 2 months, at least one environmental crisis, significant
problems in government delivery of social services, both parties blamed.
Level Ten is "It Can't Happen Here" which features: the end of the world as we know
it, collapse of economic systems, including currency, banking system, financial
markets, collapse of most mid- to large-sized businesses, a shut down of over a year
of infrastructure and supply chains, social and global chaos, and radical downsizing,
splintering, or collapse of the US government.
I think it is interesting that the majority of information technology officials working on
Y2K remediation in government or business are currently projecting something
between Levels Four and Seven. Most of the financial press and many economists
are projecting Levels One to Three. Some economists are even suggesting that
expenditures on Y2K will boost the economy by a small amount. Depending on the
survey, 10 to 15 percent of those technologists, economists, and other serious
analysts surveyed foresee a Level Eight to Ten impact.
I tried to share Webster's scenarios with another reporter, but it was clear he didn't
want nuance, he wanted it black and white, one way or the other.
Instead of black and white thinking, ad hominem attacks, superficial searches for
discomfirmation, and hyping the current economic boom, wouldn't we all benefit from
a serious and substantive public debate and search for the relevant facts?
Or will too many reporters and pundits be encouraged to trivialize and sensationalize
the matter, thereby slowing progress on the problem and preparation for whatever
may come?
y2ktimebomb.com
The author's discussion of "levels" 1-10 is based on a survey of Washington's Year 2000 group (membership is composed of people working on Y2K problems in government and business in the area). If I recall correctly, you can find detailed survey results on the web page of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which was involved in conducting the survey, and whose members include such wild-eyed milleniallists as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
One other point that really bothers me: the assumption that someone's position on Y2K is entirely dependent on whether he expects to "get something" out of it. That tired old "cui bono?" approach reeks of crude Marxism.
jbe
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