As I see it, North has a good understanding of the scope of the problem and the potential for disaster. But when it comes to the remediation process, he appears unsatisfied with the 'convergence of silence' DeJager bemoans. So he makes a series of blatently false assumptions. I think he does this because he has a strong agenda, and honesty is not part of it.

1) He insists that 'assessment' is 1% of the total project. He gets this number from a 'California White Paper' he seems to think Moses brought down from the mountain. In fact, different organizations have defined assessment so differently as to make the term meaningless. Depending on how someone chooses to define it, it can encompass anywhere from 0% to 80% of the job.

2) He assumes that no organization starts remediation until assessment is complete. This is the case absolutely nowhere. Reasonable organizations (which is most of them) realize that their efforts are best directed at what's important; their critical systems are pretty well through final testing before the trivial stuff is even examined. There are organizations which have thoroughly time-machine tested all of their critical systems, and North claims they are less than 1% finished because some programs nobody ever runs haven't been assessed yet.

3) He assumes that organizations began their task at their current level of effort and will continue at that level until (of course) they fail outright. This is also nowhere true. I find it hard to believe that North can see no difference between one part-time guy 'looking into' the problem with no budget, and a hundred fulltime people working on nothing else with millions of dollars behind their effort. A better question is how much progress has been made since someone committed to do it, rather than how much was made between some arbitrary start date chosen by the PR department, and the time real work was started. Progress on major programming jobs always follows an S-curve, never a straight line.

4) He assumes that any organization that fails to complete the entire job in time will cease to exist. The real issue is, how many organizations will come close enough to completion so that full-buckwheat damage control efforts after critical trigger dates will be sufficient to maintain that organization at some useful level of effectiveness. There is no room in North's world for the walking wounded -- you're either 100% healthy or you're dead.

5) He states (falsely) that nobody is ready today, and then assumes that since nobody has announced full compliance (and never will without their lawyer's permission), nobody will ever be ready. North chooses never to draw the very real distinction between being complete and being ready, and he insists that everyone follow his schedule rather than their own.

I agree that every organization of any size will fall short in the time remaining. But how short, and it what ways, and what can they do about problems that arise? Will it be possible to recover from serious widespread problems in 6 months to a year of hard work, or is Infomagic correct that it will take generations? The answer lies in the real state of remediation at the time the bugs bite, and nobody has this information. Nobody. North's effort to generate the bleakest possible answers using false assumptions may be prudently conservative, but it isn't the truth.

Having said all that, I must admit I'm not much more optimistic than North. We simply rely much too heavily on the correct operation of computerized *everything* to deal with breakdowns on the scale I expect to happen. I too am victim of the silence, and have no feel for the extent to which remediation might be helpful.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 04, 1998

Answers

Flint,

This is an excellent criticism of North's approach. Informed, clearly-stated, reasonable. You haven't exactly set my mind at ease, but you have stated your differences with North without resorting to attacks on his religion, or his ancestry, or the cut of his beard - and in the current environment, that's commendable.

Given that you're right, and we don't know if this collosal, globe-spanning foul-up will be mitigated enough to avert total collapse, the question is, where lies the burden of proof? No one is saying "y2k is a bump in the road" anymore. Too many trillions have been allocated for that to fly. There's a terribly serious problem. If it's not fixed, we could suffer and die a variety of ugly, preventable deaths. Or wish we had. And there is not silence, but lies and silence. Given that, do I scratch my head and reserve judgement until the fateful hour? Or do I take responsibility for myself and prepare for the worst?

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), November 04, 1998.

For once I am in agreement with E. (second time in a week I believe...scary) At this point it is irresponsible to be making atleast some preperations.

As for Flint, he has articulated my thoughts better than I ever could have. Those are the exact same problems I have North (I could care less about anyones religion, as long as they leave me alone I tend to leave them alone). Kudos to you both.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), November 04, 1998.

Now, THIS is the kind of responsible commentary that we need a lot more of. Way to go, Flint! If people would spend 10% of the time they spend personally attacking the messengers instead raising these kinds of questions about what they say, everyone would benefit!!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), November 04, 1998.

The post from Flint has five good points on the bias of the North commentary.

One must distinguish between the message, the messenger, and the messenger's commentary which reflects his opinion and beliefs regarding 1. the course of technology and its effect on the economy, and 2. the behavioral response to these changes.

There is no need to attack the messenger, since we have free speech and are responsible for where we point the internet browser window. Everyone has bias and anyone can holler as loud as they want on the internet in the form of a website, just no email spam please. North is playing the role of the epitome of the extremist position, mixing equal parts messianic complex, paul revere rider, freedom watchdog, patriotic rebel, Christian champion, and libertarian liberator. There is no warrant to place limits on other's opinions. It's okay to use card-stacking (selection bias), exaggeration, and fear manipulation, these are all standard tools of the media sources, along with many other devices people use whether they realize it or not. Recognize it, acknowledge it, and get over it. There is no ethical basis for preventing someone to go around and collect up links to the more extreme and alarmist media clips and posting them in one place. Naove and uncritical masses adopt beliefs built up with faulty and incomplete information on both sides of the fence, the Pollyanna side and the Chicken Little side. Concern about possible negative feedback- reinforcement effects of extremist viewpoints is an interesting side discussion, and a critical response is always appropriate, but after a point, bandwidth is better spent in presenting an alternate view.

Going to the messenger's opinion, there is the opinion of the technical problem and the opinion of the people problem. The messenger's commentary (and sometimes the message itself, the linked opinion-editorial articles elsewhere on the web selected in support of the bias) is premised on forecasted human behavior, which is in turn premised on forecasted technology change. Extrapolating from the forecasted anarchy, advice is given as instructions on how to respond to the perceived threat. This advice is based on fear of failure, and concern about the advice as inflammatory is based on fear of secondary effects. Fears are the fires of motivation, but they can be a positive thing to effect personal change and evolvement.

The highly polarized opinion stems from the overly simplified 'all-or- nothing' dualistic viewpoint, the imaginative non-inferential jump from a situation of technical difficulties leading to the destruction and elimination of technology of the modern world, including electricity, phones, water, gas, and banking. The oversimplification is in thinking that a partial failure brings a complete failure, and that failure of technology leads to failure of civilization. (Side note: not *everything* is computerized.) The parallels with Rome are brought up, examples of social cataclysm from history are given with the idea that history will repeat itself, and the orthodox interpretation of the Biblical end-of-world revelation is echoed to stir up 2000 year-old fears of Armageddon and self-destruction.

Going to the object of the messenger's opinion, we are back to the message, but we can realize that the message is only part of the story, the part selected from the neighborhood of the messenger's position. The message is "total and permanent infrastructure failure and economic collapse", the opinion is "anarchy ahead", and the directive is "prepare for the worst". The messenger is in the worst- case scenario camp which is just one neck of the woods. When you look at someone's personal theories and speculation, you set aside requirements of journalistic ethics. If someone says "the sun is going to disappear forever tomorrow and this is the universal truth" you don't need to become upset with the statements, just adjust your expectations on the reliability of the source. If you don't like it you need to go back to your camp.

If the North position is to be debated, focus should be on 1. the extent of infrastructure failure and economic collapse, and 2. the likely response to the technical difficulties.

The reality that I see is we are more conscious and communicative then ever before in recorded history, that we do not have to repeat ancient lessons, and we can have a beneficial influence on the future course of events via awareness increase. Those who are asleep and hypnotized by media programming need the radical exaggerated hollering and rhetoric to wake up and see what's going on for themselves.

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

Well said, both Flint and Jon.

I would like to point out though that plenty of people have been attacked for criticizing the message without attacking the messenger.

As Jon points out here, "The message is "total and permanent infrastructure failure and economic collapse", the opinion is "anarchy ahead", and the directive is "prepare for the worst"." If the messenger does not have enough expertise to judge the message, then his opinion and directive are irrelevant. In this case the messenger does not have that expertise and is now choosing to disregard those who do have the capability to judge the premise upon which his opinion and directive are based.

-- Buddy Y. (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 05, 1998.

Jon,

Thanks once again for turning on some more light.

The exceedingly few things in your post that I disagree with are not fatal to your conclusions and assertions. After reading your piece, I find my own thinking clarified overall and corrected in places.

I look forward to more of your postings.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), November 05, 1998.

Flint,

As your post went to North specifically, and Jon's went to analysis and modes of thought, I've kept my replies separate.

I find your conclusions and analysis dead on the money. We seem (at least to me) to share a nearly identical view of North specifically and of Y2K generally.

I appreciate your post and look forward to more from you as well.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), November 05, 1998.

Flint, I agree with your criticisms of Gary's commentary as well as with your overall conclusion that the outlook is not very optimistic at this time (in spite of the valid faults you've pointed out in North's personal stance).

Gary North has always maintained "It will happen."

I continue to maintain "If more is not done, it is very likely to happen. So let's do more."

I think therein lies the key difference between North and many of the folks here who believe we can still push this thing back down the Richter scale a bit (how far back down is open to debate).

I have concluded that it is not sufficient to sit back and simply let the technical and managerial work continue and hope that 'they' will fix it, but that by both personal and community preparation we can add a 'layer of insulation' which will allow us to collectively take a few hard bumps without the need to panic or suffer needlessly. This just may give key individuals and organizations the time they need to address critical failures when they do occur.

My personal preparations are well under way. My community is an entirely different story however. Until something happens which terribly inconveniences them, few are likely to take it seriously enough to even listen, let alone make preparations. A 3-day ATM outage might do the trick. still, I continue to speak with people on a 1-on-1 basis and let them know that I believe preparation is important. Not many, but a few, have listened.

-Arnie

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), November 05, 1998.