To answer a question put forth separately:

People have discussed for several months the "what if" scenarios, and have found the extreme ends relatively easy to define: TEOTWAWKI and 0. So user asked what's a 5? What's the middle of the scale (from 0-10, what's the middle?).

A lot of people responded, (being the outgoing types we are) and after much dialog, a semilogrithimc scale (like a reichter scale for earthquakes) was found to be most useful: this is the "Diane Scale" informally honoring a participant from CA who seemingly specializes in instigating discussion, commotion, and comment.

[Like the "Jo Anne effect" things seem to be easiest discussed when labelled clearly.]

The scale relates the personal, financial or social impact of various Y2K level scenarios = but allows a user to separate the effects of time, distance from the event, and the severity of the event from the people being analyzed.

This was R.D. Herring's original concept from the "What's a 5?" thread, listing effects from TNT explosions.

Richter TNT for Seismic Example Magnitude Energy Yield (approximate)

-1.5 6 ounces Breaking a rock on a lab table

1.0 30 pounds Large Blast at a Construction Site

1.5 320 pounds 2.0 1 ton Large Quarry or Mine Blast

2.5 4.6 tons

3.0 29 tons

3.5 73 tons

4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear Weapon

4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado (total energy)

5.0 32,000 tons

5.5 80,000 tons Little Skull Mtn., NV Quake, 1992

6.0 1 million tons Double Spring Flat, NV Quake, 1994

6.5 5 million tons Northridge, CA Quake, 1994

7.0 32 million tons Hyogo-Ken Nanbu, Japan Quake, 1995; Largest Thermonuclear Weapon

7.5 160 million tons Landers, CA Quake, 1992

8.0 1 billion tons San Francisco, CA Quake, 1906

8.5 5 billion tons Anchorage, AK Quake, 1964

9.0 32 billion tons Chilean Quake, 1960

10.0 1 trillion tons (San-Andreas type fault circling Earth)

12.0 160 trillion tons (Fault Earth in half through center, OR Earth's daily receipt of solar energy)

So Buddy Y. improved it:

From Buddy Y., the original is also in "What's a 5?"

"Not too refined, and open to suggestions, but I'll take a stab at it."

0 = no effect

1 = annoying glitches like the date is wrong on your grocery receipt

2 = financial glitches like incorrect billing, maybe the traffic signals only work on one setting

3 = shipping and transportion delays, small business failures

4 = localized brown-outs and intermittent power problems, telephones work but lines are often busy

5 = localized blackouts and phones out, more business failures and larger companies

6 = widespread blackouts 1-3 days, some civil unrest, emergency response delays, shortages

7 = blackouts more than 3 days, civil unrest, martial law in some cities

8 = extended blackouts, fires, major shortages of fuel, food

9 = blackouts + other infrastructure breakdowns + civil unrest can't be controlled

10 = Mad Max scenario

The essential thing to remember in applying the Diane Scale to the Y2K troubles is locality, degree of impact, and resiliance of the affected parties. What is a 6 or 7 in downtown Detroit (great personal impact on a grandmother in an upstairs apartment - no food, no water, no sewage, potential riots or uncontrolled fires below in the streets), is a 3 (or less) in rural WI, and has no __personal__ impact (perhaps great theorectical, moral or philosophical concern, but no immediate impact) on someone in Indiana or KY.

But that person's neighbor may work in an auto parts plant or steel firm, and so a Detroit fire and subsequent martial law puts that neighbor out of work = the neighbor's Diane scale impact is a personal 7.

Another neighbor in that block in KY may have a grandmother in downtown Atlanta, and so the riots have immediate and grave impact on their family concerns - even though there is no financial impact.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 01, 1998

Answers

Forgot a term: a log scale is one where each number is ten times greater then the previous.

Thinking about the above, maybe a separate listing is needed for the Paper Triangle (personal and local job stability, regional finance and stability, and national/global financial stability), the Iron Triangle (power, piping (water, sewage, natural gas) and transporation (planes, trains, trucks, and automobiles), and the Copper Triangle (communication (satellites, radio, TV, telephone, switchgear, long distance networks), command (the programs themselves), and control (sensors and embedded chips.)

If there were a fourth "triangle" (faith & morals, freedom and responsibilities, justice?) I guess you could visualize all of the sticks together in a tetrahedron: every stick in every triangle relies on the others, woven together in a nest of interdependencies, every one of which is required for civilization to stay stable.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 01, 1998.

My prediction is for 7.5 on the "Diane Scale".

>7 = blackouts more than 3 days, civil unrest, martial law in some cities

>8 = extended blackouts, fires, major shortages of fuel, food

And a major depression to follow.

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, Utah USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), November 01, 1998.

>If there were a fourth "triangle" (faith & morals, freedom and >responsibilities, justice?) I guess you could visualize all of the >sticks together in a tetrahedron: every stick in every triangle >relies on the others, woven together in a nest of interdependencies, >every one of which is required for civilization to stay stable.

Make the fourth triangle 'silver' (gold has too much of an association with money). If you carry the analogy of sticks being held together, how would you quantify that which holds? What is that tie that binds?

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), November 01, 1998.

Im honored Robert.

Do you actually mean that people live simultaneous realities, each with different experiences, depending upon where they are? Even so, were all connected? Some sort of Y2K sacred geometry? Kinda borderline metaphysical, of you Robert, huh?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 01, 1998.

According to some of the latest post-quantum theories, we do indeed inhabit multiple realities. Don't forget-the future hasn't happened yet; its waiting on our inputs as individuals (some will prepare, others will not). Arthur Eddington said it this way: "Not once in the distant past, but continuously, by conscious mind, is the miracle of creation wrought"

Put me down for a 7.5.

-- a (a@a.a), November 01, 1998.

I love the way this thread is heading...We make reality (as Lily Tomlin says, "a collective hunch") in the ocean of all time every moment in what we call our present. So says this nut case, my family's official "keeper of non-linear time".

Keep a-floating in the ocean, dear hearts!

Donna to C4...come in C4! (see thread on Synchronicity for definition of C4, Cosmic Coincidence Control Center)

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 01, 1998.

robert, you ask good questions. however, considering that you're looking for a scale which measures damage, not force, maybe the Mercalli earthquake scale would be a better analogy than the Richter? i haven't decided on a number yet. as you say, it will vary by location. i feel ok about my location, my parents also, but not my daughter's, as she lives much too close to chicago for my taste.

-- Jocelyne Slough (jonslough@tln.net), November 02, 1998.

I think you guys are right that the scale needs more depth to it. Since Y2K problems are likely to occur over time with a peak at 1/1/00 it needs a time dimension to it. The key for me though is the power systems. If the lights are on then any other problems will be easier to deal with. So, power needs to be figured as a big factor among the forces affecting the outcome.

-- Buddy Y. (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 02, 1998.

The catastrophe scale can go from 0 to 10 with a log curve, where 10 is no one here gets out alive (excepting the people in the caves under Mt. Weather and elsewhere), meaning a loss of life of 6B. If the log scale is base 2, then 5 would be the square root of that or about 77,500 casualties. This is more than the Viet Nam war, but that was spread out over several years, so the scale needs to assume a time interval, let's say 1 year. Then the catastrophe index would be a moving sum expressed as an exponential factor.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 04, 1998.

Models for gauging catastrophic population change
c=catastrophe index, scale of 0 to 10
p=population, moving average across 12 months (annual)
d=change in population (delta p), implicit annual moving average
e=exponent in model
Exponential scale model					Linear scale model
	p=p0-p^(c/10)					p=p0*(10-c)/10
	6,000,000,000		c/10			6,000,000,000
c	p	d	e		c	p	d
0	6,000,000,000		0.0		0	6,000,000,000
1	5,999,999,990	10	0.1		1	5,400,000,000	600,000,000
2	5,999,999,910	90	0.2		2	4,800,000,000	1,200,000,000
3	5,999,999,142	858	0.3		3	4,200,000,000	1,800,000,000
4	5,999,991,848	8,152	0.4		4	3,600,000,000	2,400,000,000
5	5,999,922,540	77,460	0.5		5	3,000,000,000	3,000,000,000
6	5,999,263,978	736,022	0.6		6	2,400,000,000	3,600,000,000
7	5,993,006,318	6,993,682	0.7		7	1,800,000,000	4,200,000,000
8	5,933,546,019	66,453,981	0.8		8	1,200,000,000	4,800,000,000
9	5,368,554,133	631,445,867	0.9		9	600,000,000	5,400,000,000
10	-	6,000,000,000	1.0		10	-	6,000,000,000

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 04, 1998.

Index scales to use in describing severity of the y2k effect

The exponential scale described above increases too slowly, and the linear scale increases too fast, so here are two nonlinear scales that are in between. The base 2 scale is slower to increase, and the 2^nd order scale is more useful for really drastic changes.

The base 2 exponential model is an index scale that ranges from 0 (0.1% population reduction) to 10 (100% population reduction), with each increase of 1.0 in the index point represent a doubling of the loss. It is a relatively conservative scale, with 5.0 representing a 3% reduction, and 8.0 as a 25% reduction for example. This scale seems to be most appropriate for discussing y2k-related population changes. It can be applied for any time interval and any subpopulation. This one gets my vote!

Base 2 Exponential scale model
c=catastrophe index, scale of 0 to 10
p=population after catastrophe
d=change in population (delta p), implicit annual
	p=p0-d	d=p0/(2^(10-c))
p0=	6,000,000,000
c	p	d	dd	d/p0
0	6,000,000,000	5,859,375	1024	0.1%
1	5,988,281,250	11,718,750	512	0.2%
2	5,976,562,500	23,437,500	256	0.4%
3	5,953,125,000	46,875,000	128	1%
4	5,906,250,000	93,750,000	64	2%
5	5,812,500,000	187,500,000	32	3%
6	5,625,000,000	375,000,000	16	6%
7	5,250,000,000	750,000,000	8	13%
8	4,500,000,000	1,500,000,000	4	25%
9	3,000,000,000	3,000,000,000	2	50%
10	-	6,000,000,000	1	100%

 

The next scale gives more headroom for drastic population changes, with 5.0 corresponding to a 25% loss, 6.0 is 36%, 7.0 is 49%, etc.

Second-Order scale model
c=catastrophe index, scale of 0 to 10
p=population after catastrophe
d=change in population (delta p), implicit annual
	p=p0-d	d=p0*(c^2)/100
p0=	6,000,000,000
c	p	d	d/p0
0	6,000,000,000	-	0%
1	5,940,000,000	60,000,000	1%
2	5,760,000,000	240,000,000	4%
3	5,460,000,000	540,000,000	9%
4	5,040,000,000	960,000,000	16%
5	4,500,000,000	1,500,000,000	25%
6	3,840,000,000	2,160,000,000	36%
7	3,060,000,000	2,940,000,000	49%
8	2,160,000,000	3,840,000,000	64%
9	1,140,000,000	4,860,000,000	81%
10	-	6,000,000,000	100%

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 05, 1998.

robert, i have an idea for you. why not submit your diane scale to the folks at http://www.russkelly.com/experts.html. they have a scale from 1-10 where y2k experts place themselves. the problem is they really have NO scale, so optimists and pessimists alike are clustering around 7. that number is absolutely meaningless so far. help them out, won't you?

-- Jocelyne Slough (jonslough@tln.net), November 06, 1998.

The diane scale does not have enough gradation between the 9th and 10th level. 10.0 needs to be an upper limit for this impact. As mentioned in other topics, lifespan is finite, or by the Doors 'The future is uncertain and the end is always near.' 10.0 should be defined as the absolute worst case scenario. The world government people in the high-tech caves (a kind of Noah's Ark) will survive in any case. They have doubtless been aware of this for a long time.

The TNT scale is unsuitable (although not invalid) because it is not easy to visualize the difference between 0.9 gigaton and 0.8 gigaton of TNT. The Richter scale is better, but the bottom line is still the body count.

So the log 2 scale is a better choice. It's easy to remember: 10.0 is the Noah Ark scenario, 9.0 is 50% loss, 8.0 is 25% loss, 7.0 is 12.5%, 6 is 6%, 5 is 3%, etc.

I'll post a log e scale for comparison. The natural log is common in nature, but y2k is a man-made problem. Computer phenomena is usually better model with the base 2 system.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998.

Jon,

Your scale only addresses population changes. Can you somehow address other outcomes?

-- Buddy Y. (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 06, 1998.

Buddy-- other scales have addressed the issues of blackouts, food shortages, war, etc. This one goes to the bottom line-- life and death.

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, Utah USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), November 06, 1998.

The log 2 scale (aka base 2 scale) can be used as a damage or loss metric, to describe the degree of any sort of misfortune.

It can be used to quantify casualties, illness, utility outage, financial loss, etc. The idea is that if you lose 50% of what you have, that is a very difficult 9.0; a 25% loss is 8.0 etc.

Quantitative analysis techniques for survival and failure processes are well developed, with Error Analysis in physics, Failure Analysis in engineering, and Survival Risk in epidemiology. The beta distribution, which is defined over a finite interval, finds applications in survival models, however the lognormal distribution appears more suitable for the post-y2k dynamic.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998.

Max - that's true; Jon's calibration of the Diane scale addresses effectively the impact expressed in terms of lives nationally or globally.

Buddy, The more general term (the effect(s)) can still be applied locally to any scenario: in DC itself, for example, the effect on water and sewage the first week from Y2K is a 6, but in Alexandria it is a 3. in Tyson's Corner, also a 6 on Sunday (2 Jan), recovering to a 2 by Thursday.

Telecon service isn't city-dependent, but area wide: phone service on Monday - Thursday was an 8 for the area, improving to a 2 on Sat-Sun, and recovering completely (a 0) by Wednesday the next week.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 06, 1998.

Measuring our well-being and how it may decline.

The loss rate variable (d) which represents the amount of setback in any resource p (population, health, monetary, structural, etc.) needs to have a baseline value that is considered 'normal.' There has always been a nonzero incidence of people birthing, dying, getting sick, losing their money, losing property. Whatever is considered 'normal' is the baseline loss rate, d0. This is given for an implicit arbitrary base time interval, dt, such as daily, monthly, annual. The metric can likewise be given in reference for any arbitrary region; e.g. each population area has a baseline daily rate of birth, death, injury, illness, crime, prosperity, etc. which can be expressed as the ratio of the current rate to maximum possible rate. The distribution of loss rate around the different areas of the world can then be modeled over time.

The log 2 scale starts with a baseline failure rate of 0.1% at the zero level and doubles for ten octaves until 100% is reached at 10.0.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 06, 1998.

I didn't realize that the Wash, DC Year 2000 Group had already made up a scale which I think is superior to mine.

Here it is:

Table 1. Levels of impact in the WDCY2K survey

SCALE	IMPACT OF YEAR 2000 PROBLEMS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES
0	No real impact
1	Local impact for some enterprises
2	Significant impact for many enterprises
3	Significant market adjustment (20%+ drop); some bankruptcies
4	Economic slowdown; rise in unemployment; isolated social incidents
5	Mild recession; isolated supply/infrastructure problems; runs on banks
6	Strong recession; local social disruptions; many bankruptcies
7	Political crises; regional supply/infrastructure problems and social disruptions
8	Depression; infrastructure crippled; markets collapse; local martial law
9	Supply/infrastructure collapse; widespread social disruptions and martial law
10	Collapse of U.S. government; possible famine

Source: http://www.wdcy2k.org/survey/

-- Buddy (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 11, 1998.