Ed,

I am of the opinion that Y2K could serve as the catalyst for a counter technology social movement. I see a widening gap between the IT literate and those who struggle to cope with IT advances / intrusions into everyday life. I can envision a movement back to more simplistic (rural based) lifestyles with less reliance on technology. There is much speculation about the economic impact of Y2K, is anyone addressing possible longer-term societal impacts beyond dealing with the immediate problem of work and shelter?

Derek

-- Derek Scoble (derek@scoble.com), February 08, 1998

Answers

There tends to be a lot of discussion about possible societal impacts of Y2K at the Y2K computer conferences -- but the discussion involves computer geeks whose expertise in the field probably consists of "Sociology 101" in college 10 years ago. I have some opinions on the issue, but I would much rather hear an informed, expert opinion on the matter from professionals in the field.

I am a big fan of "The Fourth Turning" (see www.fourthturning.com for a discussion of the book and its related ideas), which has given me some interesting ideas about the manner in which different generations are likely to respond to a "crisis" such as Y2K or the 1929 stock-market crash or the outbreak of WWII. But having praised the book in public, I've received a few extremely critical email messages from people who presumably know more than I do about the subject, in which they indicated that the authors of the "Fourth Turning" book have no idea what they're talking about. Whether or not they do, the interesting thing is that even though they predict that we're near the end of an 80-year cycle that begins with a "crisis," the authors seem to be completely unaware of, and uninterested in, the possibility that Y2K may be the very crisis they write about.

If anyone else knows of some knowledgeable experts in the field of sociology, political history, politics, etc, who have written about Y2K, I'd appreciate it if you could share the information with us.

Ed

P.S. As I'm sure everyone on this forum knows, Gary North has a Ph.D. in history and Ed Yardeni has a Ph.D. in economics from Yale. This isn't intended as an endorsement per se, but these two are among the very few with academic credentials in a non-technical/computer field who have written extensively about Y2K.

-- Ed Yourdon (yourdon@worldnet.att.net), April 12, 1998.