Here is the link to the Gold Eagle article by Doug McIntosh:

Life Goes On!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), January 24, 2000

Answers

Doug also said this, in case you want to find out what kind of "expert" you are linking to:

"It is my considered opinion, based on nearly a year of diligent web research, that the three legged stool legs will be sawed in half. In other words we will see ageneralized collapse in all United States governmental functions. I also think we will see serious disruptions in the basic fabric of society, what I call the physics of modern life. Whether you will have water when you turn on the faucet, flush the toilet, electricity when you turn on the heater, a dial tone when you pick up the phone-all the things modern American urban dwellers take for granted. Believe or not as you wish; wrangle over whether Y2K is a bump in the road or Mad Max time if you want. Disruptions and chaos there will be, the only issue is how intense, how long lasting and the most critical: how will people react to them."

This is at the home site of the link above, under "Personal Preparations for Y2K".

Decide for yourself.

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 24, 2000.

Untold eons ago, a small group of Freakes were collectively driven from their homes by evil witch hunters. It seems that these folks were given to unwarranted amounts of cosmic contemplation, and obsessed with a burning desire to avoid the perilous psychodrama plague, which others of their time seemed to accept as a fact of daily life. They took refuge in a complex of caverns located in what is now known as Bavaria. Isolated there, they took bats as their companions, even learning the language of these creatures of the dark. Recently, they have deigned to come out in the open at the Pennsic War. They live deep in the depths of the swamp, in the very bowels of the ShadowRealm. Die Fledermaus camp is the eye in the storm of the swamp, and many come there to escape the occasional recurrences of the psychodrama plague, which the "mice" have learned to keep at bay through the careful implementation of cosmically significant relics, known to the mundane as "toys". Die Fledermaus recently joined the Shadow Alliance, hoping to bring the joy of play to the war-torn reaches of Pennsic City, in which many freakes abound.

-- Die Fledermaus (shadow@alliance.org), January 24, 2000.

You have to wonder what someone like this though would happen after the rollover, when people remembered their postings like this.

Disruptions and chaos there will be, the only issue is how intense, how long lasting and the most critical: how will people react to them." Did they think people would loose their memories, that all of the webpages and hard copies would vanish into thin air out od existance? Did they really believe it would be as bad as they said or did they just think of the momentary advantages it brought them?

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 24, 2000.

If you ask me, Cherri, I think that most people live their entire lives off of the momentary short-term advantages of their actions and reactions.

In other words, I think most people ad-lib their entire adult lives.

Our society moves at such a rapid pace that it is difficult to put a great deal of thought into reaching a decision before a moment has passed. The only exception to this that I can think of are core value/belief systems, which people learn and put into practice so they don't have to think (such as religious or moral beliefs).

For instance, most middle-class citizens will tell you that the best way to make a living would be to get a college degree. True enough, in most cases, but not all. However, if one takes a great deal of time to get to know him/herself before embarking on a permanent career path, he/she may find him/herself woefully behind his/her colleagues.

Sadly, most core belief systems were ridiculed into underground existence by the baby boomer's generation, leaving little certainty in an adult world where most of life is lived off the cuff.

So what is one to do in a world where everything is okay, and there is virtually no accountability, because everyone has forgotten about it five minutes after it happens? Our own president has led the way into mainstreaming situational ethics.

I am one to believe that very little is done in the name of maliciousness (by adults, children are another story), most folks just wander about in an unthinking way, living very much in the moment.

-- Die Fledermaus (shadow@alliance.org), January 24, 2000.