Scared yet?

[davywavy]

Back in 1999, I'd just started a new job and it was a good one. Not only was I getting paid twice what I'd got in my old job, but for the first time in my career I had an internet linked comuter on my desk and my own office with a door that shut. Needless to say, I used this combination to spend hours every day looking at picture of ladies in their underwear work hard to increase shareholder value*.
A few weeks into the job we had a computer consultant come in to prepare us for the Y2K bug. I don't know if many people even remember Y2K these days, but it was quite a big deal at the time. Basically, as I recall it was alleged that as computers couldn't count beyond 1999, as the year 2000 ticked over on their internal clocks a giant space insect would knock the earth out of orbit and into the sun. Needless to say this worried a lot of people and huge, huge sums of money were spent combatting it. As an example, so desperate were companies for decent IT staff to cover their backs that in 1999, the UK edition of Computing magazine was taking over £500,000 in recruitment advertising revenue every week, and that was just a drop in the ocean. Globally, hundreds of millions - billions - were spent.
Anyway, the computer consultant spent a few days in our office generally acting like a plumber dealing with people who don't know how their boiler works. He drank lots of cups of tea, made that whistling noise between his teeth to show there's a real problem, and charged by the hour. I got chatting to him once and asked him how much he was getting paid, and he refused to tell me but he did say that it was only a four-figure sum as he knew the MD. "I'm doing this work for him cheap", he said. "He's a mate".

At the end of all this, the Y2K bug was a damp squib. Global computing didn't seize up and the earth didn't topple out of orbit. All that happened was the IT Consulting industry enjoyed an absolute bonanza.

I was thinking the other day about how these crises appear, get vast sums spent on them, and then just seem to fizzle out. After Y2K there was SARS, which the World Health Organisation predicted would kill a hundred and fifty million people. What actually happened was that it killed 779 people and Flu vaccine manufacturers made out like bandits. After Sars we had Swine Flu, which the WHO said would kill a hundred and fifty million people (there's that number again) unless we gave GlaxoSmithKline a huge pile of gold. Fortunately GSK got their huge pile of gold and disaster was averted.
Remember Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis? Back in the 1980's anyone who'd ever eaten beef was going to be dead by now with our brains all mushy. As it turned out Twitter turned our brains to mush but we're still alive. Salmonella in eggs? Nobody died, there was never any actual evidence presented that eggs contained Salmonella, but 5 million chickens in the UK were killed in a windfall for the chicken-killing industry. Foot and Mouth? A minor outbreak became a scare, hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy animals were killed and burned, and abbatoir owners all bought rather nice new cars.

The cynic in me might go so far as to suggest that scares are a great way of stimulating economic activity and getting money moving around. The War on Terror, for example, which largely comprised of us Westerners killing many thousands and completing the military subjugation of two nations in a little under a fortnight and the Terrorists response, which was to effectively make Londoners late for work one morning and then make a Glaswegian cross enough to get stuck into man who was on fire. But by crikey, fear doesn't half sell, doesn't it? Remember Anthrax through the post? Websites selling anthrax masks and testing kits sprang up within minutes and fast bucks were made.

But let us leave such cynicism aside for a moment. You see, I'm not sure if you've heard but the icecaps are melting and our civilisation is going to collapse and we're all going to drown. Fortunately I've got some lifeboats for sale!

I'll do them for you cheap. You're a mate.

^{*Actually, my abiding memory of working in the year 2000 is spending for too much time nattering to godzuki and kikayume over email.}

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about risks, though. They're risks: they may or may not happen. After-the-fact knowledge that they didn't happen doesn't make during-the-fact preventative measures a bad decision.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. Shall I put you down for two boats? I take paypal.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Of course I'm absolutely right, but why should I want the boats?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You'll need them to save your family from drowning! It's for The Children ^tm who are Our Future^tm, which surely justifies any expenditure?

10% off to you.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I've looked at carbon trading but the margins don't seem worth it at the moment. For some reason it doesn't seem to be taking off, possibly because the Chinese and Indians don't give two beans about it.

[danfossydan.livejournal.com]

Its because direct taxation of Carbon is going to be more effective. It cuts out the middle man, and makes Carbon Credits equivelent to money. Which is what any other system of carbon trading boils down into, but rather than the state getting rich the middlemen do.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd observe that countries with low income taxes and high consumption taxes also seem to perform better economically than those with higher income taxes.

Not that this message appears to have filtered through to the treasury any time in the last twenty years, but here's hoping.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

In fact, there is little point in purchasing one of your boats, as after the ice-caps melt, the most pressing danger will be from water-borne infections. I suggest that you invest in a 3year supply of my 'Ill-be-gone' water treatment kits, without which you will be left paralysed and vomiting up your own spine. By now, or prepare to die in unspeakable agony!!!

By 3 years supply and get the 4th year free!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a bargain. Ship me two! Fast!

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Of course! As a valued customer we are also offering you our Bad Science!(tm) approved 21st century amorphous polymer preservation skins. Each Preservation skin can be sealed hermetically sealed by simple application of finger pressure to ensure your Ill-be-gone treatement kit does not become contaminated by the toxins present in the polar ice caps.

Because of your customer loyalty you can recieve a 10% discount on the usual price of £20 for 10! Preservation skins can also be used to hold your child's precious belongings, preventing the growth of the flesh-eating bacteria that military scientists say will be released by Atlantian Terrorists seeking to reclaim the world.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Not sure serious comment is appropriate, but FWIW, I know how much code I fixed - not just checked, but fixed - that would have gone wrong due to the Y2K bug had we not done the work. It wasn't huge, but it would have mattered.
Of course, the number of hours I worked at triple time over that weekend was rather nice, too. Testing, to be sure we'd caught everything, and fixing the few bits we hadn't (one bit of intranet would have fallen over in Netscape).

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Like you say - it wasn't huge.
My point really is that potential disasters consistently get blown out of all proportion - by the press looking to trump their competition, mainly - and a lot of money is made by people capitalising on that. The process isn't helped by politicians under pressure from the media to look like they're doing something, even when not all that much really needs to be done.

[applez.livejournal.com]

Of course you assume all corrective and preventative action had nothing to do with diminishing the feared outcome that provoked the change to begin with.

As for BSE - we won't know vCJD infection outcomes from the 1990s for another decade. Still, as with salmonella eggs, I figure the majority of the risk* is eliminated with good cooking. A subtle shift of cuisine fashion can make all the difference (e.g. "well done" vs. "tartare").

*Leaving dramatic outliers, which is arguably where the majority of new problems lie so long as old hygiene standards are still being done correctly. Mind you, I disagree completely with France's efforts to destroy Normandy's rawmilk cheese industry.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not at all; I'm assuming that the degree of panic was wildly disproportionate to the threat and there's good money to be made from playing on people's fears.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Dragon Repellant, 100% effective.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

At the end of all this, the Y2K bug was a damp squib. Global computing didn't seize up and the earth didn't topple out of orbit. All that happened was the IT Consulting industry enjoyed an absolute bonanza.

Oddly enough, there *is* actually cause and effect in thousands of IT workers working really hard to make Y2K not be a problem, and Y2K not being a problem. I find it strange how few people seem to grasp the fact that this could possibly be the case.

It's like being sceptical that immunisations work, because you got immunised against diptheria alongside everyone else, and then nobody you know even got diptheria and all that happened was vaccine manufacturers got richer...

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

This may be a bit of an odd observation to make, but we have five mutual LJ friends, all of whom I consider to be unrelated, and none of whom are LJ friends with each other.

That's a bit weird, isn't it?

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I had a look and you're right. Davywavy is the only one I *only* know through their Livejournal posts though. Two are RL friends and two via communities - although one is also a friend-of-a-rl-friend. I suppose it's basically the result of small world syndrome.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Ahem

http://www.cityliquidators.com/zodiac.php

I know where to get my rafts.

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

Depressingly, I could see where that post was going. Stop being predictable Dave!

Though I do like the idea that "We spent loads of money to prevent these disasters and then nothing happened!" Isn't that kind of the point..?

Don't get me wrong, I do beleive that these things are generally blown out of all proportion and used to manipulate the general public, just thought I'd rais ethe point. If I could be bothered reading all of those 38 other posts I'm sure that someone else has raised it before, but meh, I'm nto original.

Stop being predictable Dave!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Do you have any idea how much effort goes into generating new content every day? Hmn? Do you?

And it's all for free. Free! You people. Fah! Bloody internet generation.

Re: Stop being predictable Dave!

[sherbetsaucers.livejournal.com]

No I don't, and having read your LJ for a while now, clearly neither do you.

(Oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So if the icecaps melt I'm less likely to drown if I'm in a swimming pool?

I'll get one, then. best put a decent heating system in too. I'm thinking coal-fired.