Eccentric Flower:199809/lapse of millennial confidence

noon eight twenty-two september ninety

lapse of millennial confidence

The web ring may be a tad mixed-up for a day or two. If you want to visit those sites you can always get a list - the list command should work ok from anywhere. My fault. After taking great pains to make sure there wouldn't be a "lapse in service," I scuttled my own boat by sending everyone bad replacement HTML.

I suddenly am feeling a lapse of confidence that this nation will weather the year 2000 problem. Remember, even if all the computers are working, there's the danger that we will all panic and act weirdly - something humans have a history of doing.

Does that make sense? Let me try again. I've been assured that my bank has everything under control, that there won't be a problem. I'm not sure how much I believe them, but even if they do have their computers working, if a huge number of people get nervous and withdraw their money in the last week of 1999, there'll be a panic - and the result will be just as bad as if the bank's computers failed: The bank will surely be trashed and some people will lose their money.

Even aware people who are thinking ahead can abet the problem. Suppose I'm worried that some systems will fail, and I think I'd maybe better withdraw a small stash of cash in December '99, just in case I need it ... this, by the by, is actual advice that many of the Y2K sites will give you. Very good forethought, advance preparation, yada yada. Except that if even twenty percent of us all withdraw that cushion money in December it'll still be a bank run.

Of course if I don't withdraw the money, I may be up a tree in January '00. You can't win.

There are actually two issues here: One is the computer failures. The other is that many of the vital systems in this country are spread thinly, designed on the principle that everyone isn't going to turn on their A/C or withdraw their money or flush their toilets at the same time.

None of this is why my confidence is failing today, however.

I subscribed, until about half an hour ago, to a mailing list from a guy named Ed Yardeni. Dr. Ed is a bright guy - a very prominent economist and Person Who Knows His Stuff. He puts out regular bulletins on Y2K and its effect on the economy. This mailing list is supposed to be one-way - but Dr. Ed's an economist, not a server admin, and he made a common mistake - he didn't block list recipients from being able to post to the broadcast address. What that means is that anyone could write back a casual comment to that address - and it would go out to the list's subscribers, like it or not. Thousands of them.

So a couple of people inadvertently sent their discussion of Dr. Ed's latest comments to the whole list. Only two or three messages, but the sudden receipt of someone else's idle conversation caused a lot of subscribers to panic - What is all this stuff I'm getting? I can't handle traffic like this! I must unsubscribe, quickly!

Of course, they then each sent a message saying "Unsubscribe me now!" To the broadcast address. Which not only doesn't unsubscribe you (the address to do administrative things is always a separate address from the broadcast address), but also spams the list. I received over 200 messages this morning before I finally gave up on waiting for the confusion to die down and unsubscribed. The proper way.

Oh, yes, but being a person with insider knowledge, I had an unfair advantage, right? I knew the magic voodoo incantation for unsubscribing, that no human could be expected to know.

Wrong. I went to the web site and read the information on "How To Unsubscribe."

What worries me is that these are not the clueless masses. These people are financiers and doctors and lawyers and engineers and defense contractors. These are the trained professionals, in highly skilled professions, many at the top of their field. And they can't avoid panicking over a stupid mailing list long enough to Read The Directions.

I'll be hiding under my bed at the end of 1999, if anyone is looking for me.

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