[107173] in Cypherpunks
FC: How Y2K doomsayers got it wrong
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Mon Jan 4 22:28:05 1999
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 21:55:49 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 20:06:56 -0500
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: How Y2K doomsayers got it wrong
Sender: owner-politech@vorlon.mit.edu
Reply-To: declan@well.com
I remember how early this year many Y2Kers were gleefully predicting
widespread panic by early 1999, combined with a nose-diving Dow Jones
industrial average and (get this) plummeting home values as the masses fled
cities.
Well, it didn't happen.
Asking for prognostications and replaying them is a good way to evaluate
the predictive abilities of doomsayers.
-Declan
*********
Subject: Winner of the Y2k-1 DJIA prediction contest
Author: Bradley K. Sherman
Email: bks@netcom.com
Date: 1998/12/30
On 8 September 1998 I stopped taking entries in
a DJIA prediction contest with the Dow Jones
Industrial Average standing at 7872.74.
The DJIA now stands at 9274.64.
The stated ending point of the contest was
12:01 PM UTC, 31 Dec 1998. There is another
1/2 day of trading tomorrow but that will begin
after 12:01 PM UTC.
Therefore the winner of the contest and the
grand prize of $5 is carey.fisher--AT--gecm.com
who predicted the *highest* DJIA, 9250 and still
was short of the actual mark.
These were the predictions:
0 dbinder--AT--sympatico.ca
934.50 gears--AT--idir.net
3000.50 charlie--AT--cryptek.com
3200 jrbaker--AT--ipa.net
3645 hkaul--AT--lava.net
4675 build--AT--alaska.net
4800 croaker--AT--access.digex.net
5199.99 fieberg--AT--xpoint.at
5245 smoser--AT--hsonline.net
5280 roger--AT--natron.demon.co.uk
5950 brooksbane--AT--msn.com
5975 m.purves--AT--jach.hawaii.edu
6150 brian--AT--user1.teleport.com
6200 egan263--AT--ix.netcom.com
6640 phil--AT--clark.net
6913 jwilliams-ceo--AT--bigfoot.com
6942.8 slaven--AT--rogerswave.ca
7100 email--AT--is.private
7500 james--AT--mail.state.mo.us
8001.50 bks--AT--netcom.com
8400 mikemye--AT--bellsouth.net
9250 carey.fisher--AT--gecm.com
If Carey.Fisher will contact me at bks@netcom.com
I will mail out the winnning check. Congratulations!
I'm sure the group would be interested in your Y2k
prognositcations as well.
--bks
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
