Will the cops be there? "Many police officers...say they will not."

Check out COPS R US http://www.copsrus.com/2000.c.html go to Y2K three part series.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), January 11, 1999

Answers

well lets see...CIA is scared, foreign leaders are scared, programmers are scared, experts are scared...and now the police are scared. Everybody's scared but the pollyannas. Now I'm REALLY scared.

-- a (a@a.a), January 11, 1999.

I lived in San Francisco from 1968-1971, at the height of the Viet Nam war, and the anti-war protests. I worked on the 5th floor of an office building on Market Street and witnessed the protest marches. It was only 2 or 3 people that started the riot, and the police didn't help matters any. Once the bashing of heads started with the billie clubs all hell broke loose. But this isn't the scenario we are talking about, we are talking about people being pissed because they no longer have the basic needs to survive. The police won't be anywhere around, it will be out of their hands.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 11, 1999.

Is this a credible site? Read their legislation. Police News Network looks like it originates in this site, not an actual news mag for police as it appears. What is this organization.

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), January 11, 1999.

Just takes one person to start a riot. I did so unwittingly:

" We moved into a brand new dormitory, XXX Hall, which was located on the major loop road around campus. .. One day when new snow covered the ground, I returned from the dining hall to the dorm. An idea flashed.

" What if I roll a big snowball and place it on the sidewalk. Will other students make more of them? Would they build something? I rolled one as large as I could next to the curb and went to my room to watch. Within minutes a group came and made it bigger. They rolled new ones and pushed them onto the street. Ever more students joined the party and a festive mood spread over the crowd. They broke off traffic signs and buried them in their snow wall. A police cruiser arrived and was unable to push through the wall to clear a path through it.

" My roommate, Don, dropped a big snowball from an overpass onto the hood of a police car while yelling, Cops hurt. The police officer became enraged and drove away while the students kept enlarging their blockade. When it was finished they crowned it with a porta-potty stolen from a construction site. The police returned with a pickup loaded with snow for extra weight and attempted to push through again. It became embedded instead. The festive mob cheered, jeered and booed. Several more officers arrived and dispersed the revelers, chasing them into dormitories and into hiding.

" Had I sponsored a TV crew, I could have spread this riot to the rival campus in XXX and beyond. I'd be interviewed on television, become famous and could wear a button: As Seen On TV.

" But I worried about undermining the authority of the police because every act of insolence leads to further such acts. And if unpunished, leads to popular criminality. This worsens until people wonder, what happened to us? We're racing toward anarchy. We have no more freedom. We can't talk about it. Everybody hates everybody. We might get sued.

" XXXs Avalanche Axiom. Over the years, I thought repeatedly about this truism. It offered a simple, yet perfect lesson in mass manipulation. I could relate it to many situations that I had learned about. I had started a riot and only I knew who, why and how it began. Yet my small effort had great consequences. My little snowball grew into an avalanche. I gave no orders, informed no one, but achieved far-reaching results without any further efforts on my part. I did not take any credit, nor blame, for the campus blockade.

" What could be achieved if one deliberately planned for mass manipulation? Wasn't this so in politics and advertising? People could be swayed to follow fads initiated by only a few individuals. They could be enticed to fork over their earnings to unknown entities and even enjoy doing it. A whole society could be brainwashed and exploited that way. "

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), January 12, 1999.

"A whole society could be brainwashed and exploited that way."

Don't worry. It's already happened.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 12, 1999.

What is your point TTF in regard to Y2k?

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), January 12, 1999.

uh..Linda, it's obvious no? If ONE man can start such a commotion with a snowball...what will 100 cold hungry men do? 270 million?

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 12, 1999.

"Don't worry. It's already happened."

Tom,

Truer words were rarely spoken. Our whole society is geared to manipulation and exploitation. I can sit here all day and type examples; but many washees would not understand. I would get hammered by ignorance.

-- TTF (seenit@ww2.com), January 12, 1999.

Using these same theory, could this not apply to the Y2k event? One man getting it started and it snowballs?

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), January 12, 1999.

This perspective is hard-hitting and deserves full play of discussion here. In case the URL dissolves, here is Part 2:

Y2K PART 2: A Y2K Headache, Or Fatal Heart Attack?

Regardless of what you have previously heard about the dangers of Y2K, you need to spend 3 minutes reading this.
....
... The major problem, though, is that it is very expensive to change the 100 plus billions of problem code lines and 25 to 40 billion chips (of which many have unknown locations or are embedded and inaccessible)and business and government just ignored the problem until it may now be too late. The codes are no longer used nor taught and programmers are scarce for the conversion task and, as said before, many chips cannot be identified or are not accessible (on the ocean floor, inside pipes, cement casing, etc.). Many government and private sector people who have Y2K responsibility believe it is now too late.

So What Is The Big Deal?
A question is often made on behalf of the premise that it won't be a complete computer breakdown failure since some computers will still operate. That more accurately refers to the headache or the fatal heart attack question. This is easiest to understand when considering sector health and addressed as follows.

Of great concern to the U.S. Government GAO (General Acounting Office) is the poor record of government agencies reported only to be somewhere about 60 percent compliant and probably not able to finish the race; although a June 1999 deadline has been set by government and agencies and will be a potentially important date to be discussed later. And many other sectors of American society are almost as ill-prepared. Experts give a level of preparedness equal to American preparedness to Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.

All others are much more poorly prepared. No one can be sure of compliancy, however, because it is generally accepted that there is considerable dishonsty in reporting compliancy because of economic and legal concerns; and that is among those who will even commit one way or the other.

What Then Can Happen?
Let's look at some consequences. The United States is dependent on fuel imports for power generation and transport. Tanker owners reportedly plan to park their tankers in the oceans for a couple of months prior to January 1, 2000 to avoid any threat to the vessels.

This can seriously impact on power generation and transport capabilities; thats even if transport and power grid computers don't crash. All of this combines with the problem that if a portion of the power grids are out, a greater portion are not operable. Of course if power fails to a significant degree then power dependent systems fail to a significant degree.

Banks, traffic signals, market and home freezers and refrigeration, hospitals, water pumping systems, sewage pumping, public safety services (unless they have independent generators, which most don't, and fuel for the generators, which most won't), schools, places where people work, electric dependent transport, will all stop operation. You can probably add many others; even those chip operated appliances in your home.

When you consider transport, a failure of power or computers impacts the transfer of fuel (pumping, etc. at refineries and delivery stations to consumers) if fuel is available, and if there is a tanker shipment shortage the problem is the same; transport (train and trucking) reduces significantly or totally. That means those people living in situations where they do not produce their own food and water are in serious circumstances; most fall into this category.

We have really talked about lack of fuel impacting our way of life.
But the same situation, and more serious by compounding, exists if Y2K is even partially a reality. All of the above occurs with computer, even partial, meltdown because not only do all the previous shown problems occur but other problems unique to computers occur if power and transport exist. Major companies such as an auto maker, have many sub-contractors, who are vital to the final product. If a computer failure shuts down an automobile computer chip production that a vehicle needs to be driven and sold, then that entire production and all those dependent on it for their employment are out of work. This can impact an entire country's work force if it impacts every industry. Simply, there is little warehousing anymore (now that manufacturing is on a "just in time" inventory mode) and only two and three day supplies of materials are usually available for manufacturing.

Railroads in the United States no longer have the ability to do manual switching. With fuel, they will be shut down if their computers are incapable of performing their switching functions. If the computers operate the switches, the trains still can't operate without fuel. How do you think telephone systems, banking systems, water systems, food transfer systems, government service delivery systems, health systems and virtually every other system dependent on computers (and what isn't) will operate? They won't! Discuss this a while and you'll amaze your self with the magnitude of the problem. It is a vicious circle when computers depend on power and power depends on computers; power depends on transport and transport depends on power; computers depend on transport and transport depends on computers.

Can We Protect Our Families From This?
Many so-called experts (including the media and government representatives)are urging people to store food and water as well as warm clothing, candles, battery operated appliances, and so on. That will be OK for the headache Y2K; where there is no threat to the social order. But what happens if no food, water, power, transport, money, jobs or fuel is available for even a few days and not even two weeks, or two months, or longer? If that happens, civilized society will totally breakdown.

If food, water, and fuel does not flow to urban areas, the three day supply will diminish, (very possibly by looting) in less than a day. If the power is gone there will be no money to obtain, and most controls and employment will cease to exist. After a major breakdown of services, such as in earthquakes or other natural disasters, looting and other criminal activity, historically, begins to occur within less than an hour. Experience in riots shows that less than 100 people can start a riot and, when joined in by others for fun or for looting, that riot can be difficult or impossible to control without resources far in excess of those normally available.

If food and water are no longer available and the means to find them, or flee, cease to exist then it will be a survival by strength situation, which is anarchy. It is clear that law enforcement at full strength could not control such a situation. Law enforcement is called the "thin blue line" because it can only police when 99.5 percent of the population supports it. A civilized society needs to be in control to exist. National guards, or even the military, could not regain control. The real tactical problem is that this will not be one small area of Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Detroit, or New York City, but that it will be all of them totally, at the same time, as well as 95 percent of the rest of the United States and the world.

What Will The Police And Military Do?
But thats not the real problem; the real problem is that many police officers, who probably speak for most police officers, say they will not be there to attempt to control the rioting and ravaging taking place. They elect to protect their own families and to remove them to a safe place. The same can be expected from the citizen soldier national guard.

What the military will end up with as available personnel is unknown but even with near to a total complement they will be unable to control the population as it seeks to sustain itself from starvation and protect itself from the lawless; which many, or most, will become. There just are not enough to spread across the country and maintain a force sufficient to control. All of this will be true of other countries.

Can We Take Preventive Action?
Now, these predictions of breakdown are not ours. We pray that somehow the problem is corrected and we can go on with our every day activities. However, there are very serious, experienced, and believable people saying that there is a 50/50 chance of a headache and as high as a 30 to 40 percent, and that percent is increasing, of a heart attack type event. Should you panic? No. Should you begin now making preparations to protect your family? Most assuredly.

If you KNEW there was a 50/50 chance that if you drove a car on a given day you would have a fairly serious accident would you still drive or, instead, maybe take a taxi? What action would you take if there was a 30 to 40 percent chance you would be seriously injured or killed?

We are saying become aware; listen to those who are knowledgable and writing about Y2K. Some disagree that there is any problem at all; mostly politicians or government people (that group is diminishing though). We pray they are right. Don't change your living habits just yet but be alert and willing to make adjustments if needed. Make necessary plans and decisions early and activate them when it appears to be the right time. You'll begin to see the signs soon, if you don't already. There are exactly 403 days from the date of this editorial (November 23, 1998) until Y2K; perhaps 1/2 that time before problems begin.
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Whoa. We too would like to know what this organization is. Very interesting that of the 3 places they recommend going for Y2K info, Ed Yourdon's Page is one. Good taste! is it written by one of us? Ex-cop, etc?

Another thing we noticed was, on Ed's page
http://www.yourdon.com/index.htm
when one clicks "bulletin-board forum," up pops NO-FRAMES New Questions. Thank you for the newbies, Ed!

The 3-part Cops R Us series is stomach-churning reading. We think their expectation for humans-run-amuck is accurate. This has always been our biggest nightmare re Y2K. What do the other policemen think?

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia, who think about all the police, Guard, FEMA, military implications etc. but it's really out o

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 12, 1999.

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Here they are Leska, you left your offerings to cyber-gnomes at the door ;-)

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 12, 1999.