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The end of the world is coming! Science fiction
warned of alien invasions. The media talked of nuclear holocausts.
The church preached of Christ's second coming. But now, it appears
they were all wrong.
As you all should be aware by now, the end
of the world will not come by God's hand but by the click of
a mouse. That's right, the omnipotent Y2K bug will be the end
of civilization as we know it.
It looks as if even the church is worried
now about the coming Y2K (perhaps they're afraid the pledges
will be lost on the church computer), at least mine is. Recently
in the bulletin, they handed out a Y2K survival guide from the
American Red Cross.
As a Wildman, there's nothing wrong with being
prepared. But this whole thing seems a little on the shady side.
The Red Cross is warning that garage doors might not open, microwaves
may not cook, smoke detectors might not sound. My questions is,
how could the Y2K bug affect my garage door opener? Doesn't make
a lot of sense.
The computer companies have admitted to knowing
about the problem for years now, but they did nothing to fix
it until recently. So another question comes to mind, how can
companies like Microsoft that are on the cutting edge of innovation
get caught with their pants down like this? Answer: They wanted
to.
These problems should have been solved in
the regular upgrades computers receive periodically. However,
the way the computer industry sees it, why fix a problem for
free when you can start a panic and get paid for the service?
These Y2K fix-it companies have turned into
multi-million dollar companies over night as a result of the
current panic. Computer manufactures knew that this would happen
too-in fact, they were banking on it. The best way to keep people
buying your product is to convince them that they can't live
without it. And it appears for the first time ever in advertising
history that might just be the case.
Most people are accepting the computer industry's
shortsightedness at face value. Instead of just accepting this,
small businesses on up to the federal government should be busy
filing a class-action lawsuit.
The computer industry has been joined by the
retail sector in confronting the Y2K bug. Mail-order catalogs
have entire sections devoted to being Y2K prepared. Those supplies
include generators, canned goods, bottled water, candles, batteries,
extra cash, guns, etc In fact, buying a generator is nearly impossible
now. They're on back order all the way into the fall.
But if you think it's bad now, just wait until
this Christmas when people turn into total maniacs buying whatever
they can to be ready for when the world shuts-down at midnight
on December 31, 1999. Perhaps there will be some problems with
the computers, but I doubt it will be any worse that the usually
technology difficulties that we are all used to here on campus.
The problems won't be from the Y2K bug, they'll
be from the panic it causes. People only need the smallest excuse
to riot-a bad court verdict or team wins the Superbowl. That's
exactly what will happen if people don't calm down. If not and
your ATM card doesn't work on January 1, 2000, you'll probably
drive your car through the bank's front doors to try and get
your money.
People need to realize that life will go on
with or without computers. Perhaps that's the hidden message
in the Y2K bug, life doesn't really require a computer. Yes,
it's frustrating when your email or ATM card doesn't work, but
it's not the end of the world.
The thing is life will go on. Grain grew for
thousands of years without computers. Great and powerful nations
were built without computers. People can definitely go on without
computers. And with any luck, the problem will really be fixed
by New Year's; however, if it isn't, they'll get it fixed soon
after. So if my garage door doesn't work New Year's Day, that's
okay because it still has a manual release.
Then again perhaps the hidden message is there
wouldn't be a problem if everyone used an Apple computer. They're
good up to the year 20,000 A.D.
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