[109277] in Cypherpunks
March 15 column - Y2K book
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Tue Mar 16 09:33:46 1999
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 08:31:17 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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Resent-Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 16:59:05 -0700
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 15:59:58 -0800 (PST)
To: vinsends@ezlink.com
From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz)
Subject: March 15 column - Y2K book
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FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED MARCH 15, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Finally, a useful book on Y2K
In attempting to project the likely impact of the nation's computer
chips shifting over (or failing to oblige) to the year "00" in slightly
less than 300 days, caution must be taken not to get caught up in
millennial prophesy.
Our Christian brethren of the more fundamentalist stripe have long been
decrying an urban American culture which they view as damnably decadent. It
didn't take much to get them prophesying that widespread financial
upheavals and resultant urban rioting will quickly sweep away a corrupt
urban culture which celebrates abortion, pornography, sodomy, and close
dancing on the sabbath. But yea, the righteous shall feast on MREs, and
suffer no want.
Without commenting on their underlying complaints -- we have indeed
allowed many a wolf among the flock of our liberties, though I somehow
doubt a fundamentalist theocracy would be much of an improvement -- this
stuff verges on wishful thinking. The chances that our children will greet
New Year's of the year 2020 wandering the land in goatskins, living the
life of Neolithic hunter-gatherers (but keeping the sabbath holy), does not
place very high on the list of outcomes worth planning for. No economy as
robust as ours is likely to succumb in a single day, or a single year.
That said, though, it strikes me equally foolish to assume "There won't
be any Y2K problem." Any store which opened for business in the past few
years and saw its fancy new electronic cash register system freeze up upon
being presented with the first bank or credit card with an expiration date
"00" or "01" has already experienced the "Y2K crisis." The question isn't
"whether," but "how bad."
Will the power grid go down? That means the gas pumps, as well as the
ATMs. How long can municipal water and sewer departments work on back-up
generators? What if the trains hauling vegetables and coal for the power
plants get held up at switches that no longer work? How squirrelly will
Russian missile commanders get when their screens go blank, and they can no
longer tell whether they're under a pre-emptive attack?
At least three major Hollywood movies on these themes are due this year.
The biggest problem may well turn out to be one of public perception. If
everyone thinks we're going to run out of toilet paper, and we all race
down to Smith's or Stop & Shop to stock up on toilet paper -- the stores
run out of toilet paper. At which point, what? Blustering politicians
demanding new laws to punish "the dastardly hoarding of personal hygiene
products"?
Yeah, that'll work.
Up till now, there hasn't been a single good book I could recommend which
deals with the whole range of steps families may want to take to prepare
themselves for any of the many emergencies we're likely to face in the next
20 years, as Americans confront the old Chinese curse that we should "live
in interesting times." (You think the stock market will go up forever, that
we've grown "too smart" to ever again suffer depression, famine,
pestilence, and the National Recovery Administration? In that case, can I
sell you an extra ticket on the "unsinkable" Titanic?)
The book in question is a 300-page trade paperback called "Boston on
Surviving Y2K, And Other Lovely Disasters," by the pseudonymous Boston T.
Party, and published by Javelin Press, P.O. Box 31-F, Ignacio, Colo.
81137-0031.
The twin problems with this book are that the author tends to assume
you're already in a rural location where you can dig a well and raise
rabbits for food, and that the sky is pretty much the limit on what you can
afford to spend as you prepare to survive without central-grid power,
installing diesel generators, storage batteries, and the like.
However, that said, no one need do everything the author suggests, of
course. And no more thorough and well-thought-out little book has recently
appeared, surveying options and presenting some first-hand expertise on
the selection of weapons for self-defense, food and water storage methods,
home health care, power generation, tools, survival clothing, and even why
you (start ital)shouldn't(end ital) pay a premium to stock up on "collector
grade" gold and silver coins.
A highly recommended read.
The author is quirky about payment, demanding either greenback dollars or
payee-blank money orders at $22 a copy, plus $3 shipping. But fortunately,
Mr. T. Party's Y2K tome is also now available from a couple of mail-order
houses that will accept more standard methods of payment (like checks.)
Paladin Press (P.O. Box 1307, Boulder, CO 80306) lists the book at $22,
billing it as "the mother of all Y2K books." Add $5 for post office
shipping; $7 for UPS, which is faster. (And call 1-800-392-2400 for a copy
of their catalog, while you're at it.)
The Cheaper Than Dirt! catalog (2520 NE Loop 820, Fort Worth, TX
76106-1809) also lists the book, at $21.97, plus $7.97 shipping & handling.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6
UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box
4422, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127. The 500-page trade paperback may also be
ordered via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at
1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.
***
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
Hay, 1872
The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases
to discriminate between good and evil. He becomes a slave in body and
soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt
against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943
* * *
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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'
