Pages from Everything Must Go on Y2K anxiety, which peaked 25 years ago today - millennial dread wrapped in a coding problem - ThreadSky

dorianlynskey.bsky.social • 59 days ago

Pages from Everything Must Go on Y2K anxiety, which peaked 25 years ago today - millennial dread wrapped in a coding problem

1 / 3

Comments

drjdunnehowrie.bsky.social•59 days ago

Hi @dorianlynskey.bsky.social. Think you'd be interested in my writing partner's book on post-millennial theatre

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/metamodernism-in-contemporary-british-theatre-9781350286436/

dorianlynskey.bsky.social•59 days ago

Thanks, sounds interesting

alansimonwriter.bsky.social•59 days ago

On the flip side, some people thought simple awareness of Y2K equated to already having solved the issues. I signed to do a book with a small publisher on Y2K solutions in early 1995; a new editor took over later that year and canceled the book because “not a problem anymore.”

ze11e05.bsky.social•59 days ago

🎯 nailed it

dorianlynskey.bsky.social•59 days ago

The Y2K problem was a classic case of the prophet’s dilemma: warning about a catastrophe inspires efforts to avert it so people then claim the warnings were overblown all along

alanpharrison.bsky.social•58 days ago

My 12YO begged for a copy of this book when in our local bookshop the other day. Thought it would be over his head but gosh darn if he isn't reading it! 😄

dorianlynskey.bsky.social•58 days ago

That is lovely and gratifying. I hope he enjoys it. I suppose there are zombies and robots along the way - fun for all ages

alanpharrison.bsky.social•58 days ago

I'm finishing your Centrism book, then I'll borrow it from him 👍

ericindevon.bsky.social•59 days ago

I worked for Reuters as a senior programmer during that period before 2000. The company spent a fortune looking for potential problems. We found very little, and certainly nothing serious. But we did all sleep a bit easier on new year's eve!

thejohnmatthews.bsky.social•59 days ago

Millennial superstition plus early stage tech infatuation made it so interesting. It was the perfect scenario for quacks on all sides. It would be interesting to see what it would have been like if it didn’t appeal so much to our pattern seeking biases.

hyrosen.bsky.social•59 days ago

Also, there were credit cards, insurance policies, and bonds with expiration dates and maturities past 1999 well before the turn of the millennium, so Y2K issues there would have been addressed years earlier.

hyrosen.bsky.social•59 days ago

You had the usual suspects who were hoping for a collapse so that they could build their utopia on the ashes. Y2K was a lot of small issues that could be found and fixed in parallel. We were aware of the prophet's dilemma as we were fixing things, but we did our job because that was the job.

clairejones.bsky.social•59 days ago

As one of those who worked very hard to fix a lot of these problems before the end of the century, it’s very depressing even now reading articles giving equivalence to the ‘it was a hoax’ side of the equation. The apocalyptic forecasts peddled by the media at the time really didn’t help.

susannejarratt.bsky.social•59 days ago

Me too!

dorianlynskey.bsky.social•59 days ago

Thank you for your service

susannejarratt.bsky.social•59 days ago

Literally the first time anyone’s said thank you. 😊

clairejones.bsky.social•59 days ago

I’m still waiting for my medal, dammit! 😁

I’ve just finished the Fascism OS book and really enjoyed it, thank you. Just the other two to go now…

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply