The growing split in the Y2K debate

Robert Theobald

You are welcome to use this piece in any useful way by forwarding or printing it. (It is useful for me to be informed if you do so.) If you receive this as a forwarded message, and want to stay in touch with my further writing please let me know. I am a Spokane-based speaker and writer. My latest book is Reworking Success. For more information on this pattern of thinking go to www.resilientcommunities.org and check out our planned videoconversations - the next is on April 8.)

Many conventional discussions of Y2K suggest that the extreme positions around the millennium bug are to see it as a bump in the road or the end of the world as we know it. It is now clear that the failure to deal with the issue internationally guarantees that problems will be significant. But more critically, some people now welcome the prospect that we shall see the end of the world as we know it rather than fearing this result.

Great gulfs are opening up within the debate over Y2K. For most people, the challenge is still to make sure that the bug, caused by listing dates with two figures rather than four, does not disrupt the smooth functioning of economies and societies. The ideal result for this group is that January 1, 2000 comes and goes without disruption and is a non-event.

The number of informed people who believe that this can happen is now very small. It is now clear that there will be disruptions. The only question is the scale. A growing amount of effort is therefore going toward, contingency planning to make sure that approaches have been developed to deal with the dangers that can emerge. The ideal is that there should be as little disruption of the normal course of life as possible. There is much controversy over what is required to achieve this result most efficiently but for most of those working in this direction the goal is completely clear.

The consensus about the return to past models is challenged by those who are aware that the human race can only thrive if its dominant ways of thinking and acting are profoundly different in the twenty-first century than those in the twentieth. There are a very large number of people who share this view although they are divided into a number of movements: peace, environmental, common ground, right livelihood and many other issues.

A lot of people in these groups are still ignoring the Y2K issues. Those who are not are taking two profoundly different stances. One argues that the critical need is to mobilize as much activity as possible around Y2K so as to minimize suffering and breakdowns. They then argue that raising broad issues of fundamental change is likely to get in the way of the necessary mobilization and downplay their longer-run concerns.

The other group, to which I belong, argues that Y2K must be used as an early warning of profound dangers ahead. It is like the canary in the mine which used to warn of deadly gasses before they could be perceived by miners. Y2K should serve as a wake-up call so that we become aware of the fragility of the technological systems we have created in the second half of the twentieth century, their unsustainability and their lack of resilience.

This group also argues that the dilemmas of Y2K cannot be dealt with using current patterns of organization and consciousness. We quote Einstein who argued that problems could not be solved with the consciousness which created them. Y2K calls out for cooperation across boundaries a recognition that we need to hang together for otherwise we shall hang separately.

In addition, this group argues that development of creative energy is far more likely using a broad canvas than with a narrow emphasis on the Y2K issue. It believes that people are already suffering from Y2K fatigue and that only a broader vision can provide the scope for the large-scale shifts which must take place in the near future to avoid major breakdowns around the world.

Y2K is not an isolated phenomenon. It is part of a mindset which sets human beings against each other and against nature. It is a symptom of a world which emphasizes economics over society and the environment. It is part of the short-run thinking of the industrial world.

I have been intensively involved in the Y2K issue for a year. I have realized in the last few weeks that it is too narrow a container for the work we have to do. It is no more than a warning sign showing the major changes in thinking that are required as we learn to live in a world where we must cooperate if we are to survive. We must also stop organizing to achieve a machine-like socioeconomic system and learn to operate together as fallible human beings.

To do this, we must realize that our real needs are spiritual rather than materialistic. The most wonderful surprise is how many people share this understanding. They may express it in different ways: from a religious perspective or a desire to revive traditional values or from the vantage point of an ever-growing number of spiritual traditions. But the recognition is there. It is our challenge to give people an opportunity to express it.

If we succeed we shall look back at the end of the twentieth century as the end of the world as we knew it and rejoice.

Blessings and Peace, Robert East 202 Rockwood Blvd, #1, Spokane, Wa 99202, USA 509-835-3569 e-mail:theobald@iea.com http://www.transform.org/transform/tlc/rtpage.html

1999 will be a tumultuous year. How do we cooperate to create strange attractors which change dynamics in positive directions? For our process answer see www.resilientcommunities.org

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Halim Dunsky Executive Editor, Y2K Community Project

Building Communities for Y2K and a Sustainable Future

-- Jean Wasp (jean@sonic.net), March 29, 1999