My friends and relatives span the education/intelligence/experience/age/status spectrum.

Now that I've given up trying to convince any of the DGI's, I'm amazed to realize that the very one's I EXPECTED would GI after just a short note or talk from me, are the one's who DGI!

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it! A dear, dear friend..... an uneducated (7th grade), untravelled, lower-income man..... who I would trust my wealth, children and life with.... GI'd immediately.

Another great friend.... an educated, travelled (airline captain), upper-income man.....won't GI, and in fact, gets a good deal of fun out of teasing me about "it".

Many in the 25 - 35 yr age range think I'm NUTS, but a few GI after a while. Level of education doesn't seem to be the dividing factor... it's just an individual thing from what I can figure out.

Most in the 60+ range don't want to listen, but will concede that it's probably smart to prepare. However, most haven't. Level of vulnerability doesn't appear to affect the decision, again...it's just individual.

I've concluded that it must just God's Will......some are given the understanding and some are not. From those of us who were given much, much will be expected...I hope we will have the charity and mercy to share with others who didn't prepare.

-- Sheila (sross@bconnex.net), October 01, 1999

Answers

I have 200lbs of dog food for my dogs, but I am saving one bag for the DGI's that continue to have a good laugh on my y2k concerns. I bought them a bag of Safeway brand "gravy train". They come looking for a hot meal, I'll pour some hot water on top, give them a plastic spoon and watch them dig in.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Yes, it is God's will. That is the only explanation. There can be no other. Fate determines via predetermined Fate. Two family members of mine are technical wizards, can fix anything from microwaves to swiss watches. Guess what? They think I'm nuts. But a cashier at the local vegetarian restaurant asked me yesterday if I would hold onto a GIC until Jan. Told her to cash it now. So go figure?

Owl

-- owl (b@a.com), October 01, 1999.

I think it has to do with imagination, which is unrelated either to intelligence or education. You either can imagine things, or you can't.

I know people who never budge from their desks during a fire alarm. Me, I'm halfway out the door in the first 3 seconds. I can imagine burning or choking to death; perhaps those who stay, cannot. Perhaps they simply lack that particular mental facility. Who knows.

I suspect that drivers who tail-gate are unable to imagine what would happen if the driver in front of them suddenly hit the brake. They're not really stupid people; they simply lack imagination.

Then there's the whole business of "saving face." Some folks would rather risk a horrible death than risk looking like fools in front of their friends.

But yes... It is a puzzle-ment!

-- but (really@who.knows), October 01, 1999.

Bill wrote:

"I bought them [DGIs] a bag of Safeway brand "gravy train". They come looking for a hot meal, I'll pour some hot water on top, give them a plastic spoon and watch them dig in."

ROFL

-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), October 01, 1999.

but--good post, struck lots of chords. In the Navy such people are called NAFODS ("NAY-fods")--no apparent fear of death. NAFOD is a VERY handy word.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 01, 1999.

I think DGI has lots to do with simple "faith in the system," the belief that things will continue to go along their merry way and that you are generally in control of your own life. These are great attributes at times, because many people respect confidence almost more than quality of work or moral fortitude.

I personally know what it is like to have your life fall apart (temporarily). Also, my mother was stricken with cancer at a very young age, when I was a child. She still lives--thank heavens--but she lives in fear. My father was in 'Nam and, of course, was shot at and with bullets and rockets. You could say that Fear and I have known each other for a long time, and from an early age I knew that all was not well and good with the world. I always knew from the time I could talk that life was not fair and that perfectly good people get stepped on all the time.

My faith in "the System" was never shaken because it was never there to begin with. So the transformation from DGI to GI was rather instant and non-traumatic.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), October 01, 1999.

Bill, that was really funny! Except I think I'll buy Ol' Roy at WalMart and not even waste the precious water on the dog food. If dry food is good enough for my dog, then it's good enough for the DGIs.

I don't know if it's God's will whether someone get's it or not, I don't believe that has anything to do with it. Some people just can't comprehend the enormity of the problem. My husband, the pragmatic one, has decided to stockpile on the side of error. However, when the welfare recipients and retired people ask him if he's preparing for Y2K, he tells them that he is depending on the government to take care of him. And I believe most people believe that the government is in control of things and would not allow anything bad happen to them. I don't believe that it is my moral obligation to take care of anyone who refuses to listen. I have done my part there's nothing more I can do and that's just the way life is.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 01, 1999.

But:

I see it differently: the driver who comes to a complete stop before pulling in to a parking lot and gets rear-ended. Oblivious to the [controlled] chaos on the road around him.

Waiting tables is helpful in understanding interconnectivity and chain-reactions. I think lots of us here have done it and can draw the correlation.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), October 01, 1999.

I speculated about this in another thread. It seems to me, based on things I've read on this forum, that the two groups who G.I. easily are people that read the bible, or other religious texts that include apocalyptic prophecies, and people who read science fiction. This is based on things people have outright said and on inferences/reading between the lines/etc. The conclusion being that people who have been exposed to apocalyptic scenarios, via reading, can more easily conceive of a world that is radically changed, and people who have not been exposed to such ideas, just can't make the imaginative leap involved in envisioning it.

Please, those who disagree, save the flames. I admit, up front, that I'm putting forth a hypothesis based on the most tenuous of data. However I would be interested in hearing how "on the beam" I am.

Do you see a connection between your regular reading material (or movie watching habits) and how easily you G.I.ed?

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 01, 1999.

I wonder if the DGIS are on Prozac, or dulled down by the fluoride they have been drinking and using in their toothpaste. Maybe both. I was shopping at the Army -Navy Surplus store yesterday and I asked the manager if he was personally prepping for y2k.He laughed at me, and said"Certainly not. This great country with all its technology can fix any problem. However, I sure have had a tremendous business selling these "survivalists" MRES. I love it." I told him that just in case the survivalists are right it would not take too much time and effort to store a little food and water, and to look up mwww.jimlord.to on a friend's computer.He kept on acting like he knew it all, and I finally said,"Mister, you don't know shit!"This is really getting to me. I have never been so rude as I am now.

-- Betty Alice (Barn266@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

It's hard to 'get it' when there is not much 'it' to get yet. At least not for 97 days or so. Once there has been some 'it' everyone wakes up. Hardly anyone prepared for Fran, but before Floyd you couldn't find ice, milk, or batteries.

There has never been a y2k before. I takes an intellectual effort to comprehend why there might be a problem, but the words 'intellectual' and 'comprehend' are not adjectives which describe our media. They can show pictures of raging tornadoes and flooded houses. But what does a y2k 'picture' look like? That is why there has been such a huge dereliction on the part of the media, which is mostly TV. They treat us like children who can barely read, who have to have big colorful pictures in our book. McPictures with Ronald Samdonaldson.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), October 01, 1999.

People do not like feeling out of control. People want to believe in and go along with the status quo. The same warning signs were there for all, yet only a minority of Jews heeded them and left Germany in time before the slaughter began. It's the 'can't happen to me' mentality.

An experiment was done once wherein a group of people were shown two lines, one obviously shorter. All but one had been previously and secretly instructed to vote that the lines were the same length. Result? The lone victim would not raise their hand to the obvious and vote against 'the group'. When one was instructed to vote the truth, the other would then vote what was obvious.

coprolith made a point I agree with. I also said before that I think someone who has taken a gut blow from Life may be more apt to GI quickly. Worked for me.

I wouldn't be as upset if the ones I know who DWGI would at least spend time studying the evidence, rather than just brush it off based on snibbets of government spin, and 'so and so told me he didn't think it would be a problem'. It's the refusal to even look at the evidence and reports available that really frustrate me.

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

Oooops. Hit submit before I was finished.

Actually, the only person who really surprises me, is my mother. She's big on conspiracy theories, hates Clinton, doesn't trust technology, doesn't believe the cold war is really over, thinks the world is going to hell in a hurry and believes we are in our final days. In short, she sounds like a lot, if not most of the G.I.s on this forum. Yet, I've had to drag her kicking iand screaming into even the most minimal preps. She just refuses to acknowledge even a BITR, for next year. She has a few canned goods, and that is all. Nothing in the way of water storage, nothing in the way of alternative heat or light sources. She clucks her tongue and shakes her head, every time she comes over and sees our latest prep purchase and says, "Your just spending too much money, on this. You're going to go broke!". This, despite the fact that we have solid contingency plans for making practical use of almost every prep item we have purchased, in the event that the optimists are right, and nothing has been bought on credit.

Fortunately, she lives close, so we can move her in, easily if the SHTF.

I agree with but. A severe lack of imagination accounts for at least some of it. In my mother's case, though, I think it's the trauma of having been raised in an impoverished situation. She just can't accept going back to a life style of no electricity, no luxuries and having to eat only what you can raise, as she had to in her childhood. Sometimes the trauma of "The Great Depression", works the opposite of what might be expected, for older people. On the other hand, my wife have only our imaginations to go on, and no previous economic trauma, to frighten us into denial.

We have also are very independent-minded people who try to avoid pre-conceived notions about life and have never based what we do on what's fashionable or politically correct. "Politically correct" is a term most often used as a slur against left wingers, but I see a politically correct ideology going on in every group. There are things that liberal democrats are supposed to believe, things that conservative republicans are supposed to believe, things that christians are supposed to believe, things that aetheists are supposed to believe, etc, etc. The only group for whom it is politically correct to be Y2K aware, seems to be Libertarians. So if you're not Libertarian, you are swimming against the politically correct tides of your particular group. I think for a lot of people, this constitutes a major hurdle.

It will be interesting to see if any of those people prepared in secret. I sure hope so, but somehow, I doubt it.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 01, 1999.

I think people GI who have experienced how precarious and whimsical things can be. I feel that my upbringing by slightly crazy mother made me hypervigilant...

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

I think "not getting it" when it comes to technology has multiple levels. The primary level, to me, is that technology has spanned generations of people who have not been taught to take care of themselves. They rely on things and institutions to oversee the maintenance portions of their lives. I find more of the over 60 people, who are still active, interested, productive, tend to GI quicker, than the 30-50 range. I also find the 20-30 people GI, and it appears to be because they understand the fallability of technology. The "inbetweeners" tend to have this blind faith and optimism that sometimes borders on the absurd. I'm speaking in broad generalities, and from complete personal experience. Another level is, as has been pointed out, lack of imagination. Not your everyday, creative type of imagination, but the apocolyptic variety. I've found the only thing you can do, after personal preparations, is to present the evidence, give sources where people can investigate for themselves and encourage them to make a choice based on information available. Either they GI or they DGI. At that point, I make decisions about hungry visitors within the parameters of my own conscience. People can eventually be taught to take care of themselves again. Self-reliance is as satisfying as encouraging and fostering technological progress.

-- Casey DeFranco (caseyd@silcom.com), October 01, 1999.

I'm mystified about this issue, like everyone else seems to be. I too am certain it's not a question of "expertise" in related technical areas. I'm a history prof/writer, and have tried to get colleagues to look at North's site and give me feedback. No luck whatsoever. My partner is a software developer and consultant, and he's found the same.

I've wondered if maybe an important GI precondition is suffering. Perhaps you have to have had life experiences that show you first hand that disaster can dump on you suddenly, and when it does there's no one to pull up your boot straps but you. I'd bet that most of the people in this forum have already seen hard times of one kind or another.

In any event, discussion of y2k has been a very valuable litmus test of certain things, like respect. This issue confirmed what I had long feared: that a number of my close friends and all of my birth family have valued me primarily as a handy whipping post. I'm glad I found that out for certain.

Concerning spiritual things, which are of course at the epicenter of all this, what approach are we properly to take? Uncle Gary cautions us that DGIs "will remember", and we'll have to fight them off. He certainly considers himself a religious man. On the other hand, Sheila hopes we'll have sufficient charity and mercy to share. Is there indeed a special dogfood-eating hell reserved for DGI friends/family who were nasty and ridiculed you to your face? I seriously want to tell those folks to go away (and my partner insists we will), but can you do that to parents, even if they've always secretly hated you?

Big rant. Sorry. Will post it anyway, in humble hope of responses. This is an awesome on-line community.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 01, 1999.

It seems to me that people who have little to lose often GI the easiest. Those heavily invested in current middle-class life don't want to see it go away, so they refuse to look at the possibilities. Also, those whose lives are already in good shape (rural folks) GI easier than those who live in cities and would have much more trouble preparing.

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), October 01, 1999.

LOL Forrest...McPictures with Ronald Samdonaldson

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

Whether you get it or not depends totally on your personality. Melancholic and phlegmatic personalities get it right away but cholerics and sanguines refuse to see the light. A persons personality determines their response to danger and adverse circumstances. Most pollys are happy go lucky with not a care in the world. This is typical of a sanguine personality. Melancholics are natural born doomers. Long live melancholy. Sanguines are the folks who told jokes as the Titanic sank. The melancholics were the ones lashing deck chairs together and doing whatever they could to survive. This is all a function of personality.

-- Sigmoid Fraud (doctor@psychoward.org), October 01, 1999.

I have tried to help many GI with sound research and to the point discussions. Some, such as my hairdresser, feel they have Got It but don't take on any research to be sure they are preparing effectively. When I inquired how she was coming along she said "we bought a side-by-side refrigerator that has a filter in it for water" DUH! I did not want to go into detail why this wasn't helpful, she had also bought a generator. So I suggested she have a Y2K practice weekend with no electricity etc., 'what a wonderful idea we will do that this weekend', so my hope is that she will see what works and what doesn't. Sometimes people don't understand what it means to be without the comfort items we are used to and can't get out of the mental box.

Just astounded at times!

-- Sammie Davis (sammie0nospam@hotmail.com), October 01, 1999.

Consider the fact that for every white person preparing, there are 2 blacks preparing. Those blacks tend to have less access to the internet and the over all education level is likely to be lower.

The reason that stands out here, which comes from the black community is lack of trust in authority types, the government and not being interested in the rhetoric and jawboning coming down from same.

Good on 'em!

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), October 01, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

This is a very interesting thread. Yes, I was a waitress for three summers to put myself through undergrad. This is where you learn, in a very Skinnerian way (tips), that timing is everything. You have to make everything come together just right, using inputs from others that you do not control completely, like the cook and the hostess & the table bussers. If anything gets out of synch, the meal sucks and you don't get paid. I think it also helps that I worked the midnight shift, dealing with the dregs of humanity. These were cigarette-, caffeine- and alcohol-addicted losers whose idea of a good time is monster truck rallies and demolition derbies. They do crawl out at night and it's really amazing how many of them there are.

As far as the "imagination" theory, personally, I have never gone in much for fiction or science fiction. However, a study of history should do the trick, so long as it is not history as presented in school textbooks. Ever since I can remember, I have appreciated the dystopian genre of film.

I also have had some hardship that shook me to the core. When I was ten I had a sister born with Downs Syndrome. I think this was the first time I realized that bad things happen to good people. More recently, developing a physically crippling chronic illness has drastically altered my lifestyle.

I think the main thing, though, that explains whether or not someone can "get it" is whether or not they have had any significant experience in being "different." Human beings are designed to accommodate themselves to the group to fit in. If people are convinced that preparing will make them different, then they will hop on the first possible rationalization to avoid having to do it. One needs to have experienced relying on their own judgment and being rewarded for it.

Changing habits is enormously difficult. If one is used to picking up a KFC on the way home from work, then it takes a huge mental effort to plan ahead for a whole week, let alone for a month or a year. It's not so much that it's rocket science as that the effort of sustained focus is required.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 01, 1999.

I'm not so sure there's a "One Size Fits All" explanation.

Sigmoid Fraud suggested personality types and I do agree to a point. Perhaps I'm a walking contradiction...grin. I have a close friend who constantly expects things to go wrong. Every now and then when she's in a snarly mood she calls me "Polly". I can't explain why I've always prepared for storms on the radar in spite of my otherwise positive outlooks. My 7 yr. old knows something's up when I light the hurricane lamps, fill the tub (water to flush toilet doncha know) and boil water for coffee. My husband is fairly like-minded so this whole y2k thing hasn't been a divisive issue in our marriage.

I think perhaps one of the strongest explanations for the apathy or disbelief is that we've gotten pumped up every July 4th to believe we're the most powerful nation in the world. (I do believe that with all my heart) But, being powerful and indestructible are two different things. The possibility that at some point in time the USA may no longer exist as it does today struck me while watching the History Channel about the Roman Empire. I started to "space"...I do that a lot...and wondered if the Roman citizens ever believed for a minute that things would not always remain the same. (There's the imagination someone mentioned)

There's others, but I'll add one more possibility. Faith in man! I don't trust that man can pull this one off. After all, wasn't the problem created by humans in the first place? I'll place my trust in God thanks.

beej

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), October 01, 1999.

We are "The Chosen Ones"...

-- @ (@@@.@), October 01, 1999.

The Ice storm in 1998 did it for us. We were completly unprepared. Even though we have fairly close neighbors, they were no help because they were struggling with their own problems. We were luckey. We had heat thanks to our Wood Stove. Many others didn't. Our young children wound up with relatives because my Wife & I both work at health related facilities. I don't know how bad Y2K will or won't be but we definately GI. This time & for ever after we will be prepared with food, heat, power & light.

-- simon (simon5@mail.com), October 01, 1999.

We are "The Chosen Ones"... -- @ (@@@.@), October 01, 1999.

Well that put an end to any kind of religious beliefs I might have had.

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.net), October 01, 1999.

The suggestion above that GI'ng might well be inversely linked to prosperity may be a good one. But some of us are relatively comfortable and still preparing. Certainly GI's are usually most often web-linked. I've seen ages from 25-75 who are GIs and preparing.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 01, 1999.