Significant Y2K Quotes
Important Note: The Y2K scene is constantly changing. I have
chosen to focus on finding and creating materials to help people use Y2K
for personal and social transformation. I have found that trying to keep
general Y2K pages like this one updated takes a tremendous amount of time.
Since there are dozens of sites that do that job better than I ever could,
I've decided to refer you to them and to spend my time on what I do best
-- collecting materials on transformation. Good sites to keep up with current
genral Y2K information include: Wild2K,
Douglass Carmichael's site
(see especially his archived weekly newsletter), the Napa
Valley, CA community group's site, Alan
Lewis' Y2K Pages: Y2-KO or Y2-OK?, Larry Sanger's Daily
links to and intelligent summaries of 6-10 top news stories about
Y2K, Westergaard, Peter
de Jager's year2000.com/ site and the comprehensive news source
Y2Ktoday. I wish you good
luck in your explorations. -- Tom Atlee
"I came here today because I wanted to stress the urgency of the challenge
to people who are not in this room.... Clearly, we must set forth what the
government is doing, what business is doing, but
also what all of us have yet to do to meet this challenge together. And
there is still a pressing need for action.... In the business sector just
as in the government sector, there are still gaping holes. Far too many
businesses, especially small- and medium-sized firms, will not be ready
unless they begin to act. A recent Walls Fargo bank survey shows that of
the small businesses that even know about the problem, roughly half intend
to do nothing about it. Now, this is not one of the summer movies where
you can close your eyes during the scary parts." -- President Bill
Clinton, in a speech about Y2K at the National Academy of Sciences,
July 15,1998
"When Chairman Horn and I began investigating this problem at the beginning
of last year, our focus was to ensure timely and effective action by our
Nation to meet the tremendous challenge of solving the Year 2000 problem,
both in the public and the private sectors. Now it appears as if we must
recategorize our thinking, embrace the risks of failure and discuss its
consequences." -- Rep. Constance Morella, House of
Representatives, March 20, 1997
"I am very, very concerned that even as government and business leaders
are finally acknowledging the seriousness of this problem, they are not
thinking about the contingency plans that need to be put into place to minimize
the harm from widespread failures.... I think we're no longer at the point
of asking whether or not there will be any power disruptions, but we are
now forced to ask how severe the disruptions are going to be.... If the
critical industries and government agencies don't start to pick up the pace
of dealing with this problem right now, Congress and the Clinton Administration
are going to have to...deal with a true national emergency." -- Senator
Christopher J. Dodd, (D-CT), at the first hearings of the Senate
Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, June 12, 1998
"When people say to me, 'Is the world going to come to an end?' I say,
'I don't know.' I don't know whether this will be a bump in the road --
that's the most optimistic assessment of what we've got, a fairly serious
bump in the road -- or whether this will, in fact, trigger a major worldwide
recession with absolutely devastating economic consequences in some parts
of the world... We must coldly, calculatingly divide up the next 18 months
to determine what we can do, what we can't do, do what we can, and then
provide for contingency plans for that which we cannot." -- Senator
Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), chair of the Senate Special Committee
on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, in a speech June 2, 1998, to The Center
for Strategic and International Studies.
"I have no proof that the sun is about to rise on the apocalyptic millennium
of which chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation speaks. Yet, it is becoming
apparent to all of us that a once seemingly innocuous computer glitch relating
to how computers recognize dates could wreak worldwide havoc." -- Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, in "Bennett to lead 'millennium
bug' battle: But it may be to late to keep computers sane." Desert
News p; "Web Extra" by Washington Correspondent, Lee
Davidson, 4/29/98. http://www.desnews.com/cgi-bin/libstory_reg?dn98&9804290251
"The nation's utilities told a Senate panel today [June 12] that they
were working to solve expected computer problems when 1999 ends but that
they could not guarantee that the lights would not go out on Jan. 1, 2000."
-- New York Times, June 13,
1998
Y2K is "a crisis without precedent in human history." -- Edmund
X. DeJesus, "Year 2000 Survival Guide," BYTE
(July 1998), pgs. 52-62
"I would like to tell you that...the efforts of hundreds of Y2K-focused
consulting firms around the world has pretty much worked, and that long
before we hit the Y2K wall less than two years from now, the problems will
be pretty much solved. I would like to tell you that-- but it would be a
lie.... Many, many firms, including some surprisingly large ones, have continued
to drag their feet...and now won't possibly be ready to avoid disastrous
problems come that cold January morning. For one thing, virtually everyone
competent in the Y2K analysis-and-fixes business is already fully booked
through January 1, 2000 and beyond. Companies with Y2K problems often cannot
find people to work on those problems. Not just enough people, but any people....
The Y2K business ... is full of misinformation, hype, fear mongering and
exaggeration. Certainly some of that is crass, self-promoting hype by such
entities as consulting and programming shops, which stand to benefit from
spreading fear about Y2K meltdowns. But a tragic if understandable backlash
has begun against Y2K warnings that is ultimately even more destructive:
the claim that Y2K is a myth, a nonissue that will go away if the loudmouths
will just shut up. It will not. It is real. I believe Y2K will be the single
biggest business crisis many of us will face in our lifetimes.... I've avoided
writing a Y2K Fears column until now because I find it unseemly to be associated
with the sky-is-falling types. I've been confident that American business,
indeed global business, would address this problem early, aggressively,
effectively. I was wrong. They didn't. We didn't." -- Jim Seymour
of PC Magazine (quoted in an email 3/16)
Y2K is "the biggest screwup of the computer age" and it may cost
$1 trillion to fix. [For comparison, the Vietnam War cost half that much,
$500 billion.] -- Gene Bylinsky, "Industry Wakes Up to the Year 2000
Menace," Fortune, April 27, 1998, pgs.
163-180. Available on the web:
<http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1998/980427/imt.html.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) -- a trade
association for electric utility companies -- says the Y2K problem will
begin to disrupt businesses, including electric utilities, a year before
the new century begins: "Major disruptions in technical and business
operations could begin as early as January 1, 1999. Nearly every industry
will be affected." [http://year2000.epriweb.com/year2000/
challenge.html]
Y2K is a "very, very serious problem.... There's no point in sugarcoating
the problem... If we don't fix the century-date problem, we will have a
situation scarier than the average disaster movie you might see on a Sunday
night. Twenty-one months from now, there could be 90 million taxpayers who
won't get their refunds, and 95% of the revenue stream of the United States
could be jeopardized." -- Charles Rossetti, commissioner of
the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), cited by Tom Herman in
"A Special Summary and Forecast of Federal and State Tax Developments,"
Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1998, pg. A1.
"Serious vulnerabilities remain in addressing the federal government's
Year 2000 readiness, and ... much more action is needed to ensure that federal
agencies satisfactorily mitigate Year 2000 risks to avoid debilitating consequences.
... As a result of federal agencies' slow progress, the public faces the
risk that critical services could be severely disrupted by the Year 2000
computing crisis." "Unless progress improves dramatically, a substantial
number of mission-critical systems will not be year-2000 compliant in time."
Joel C. Willemssen in the Government Accounting Office report
"Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Actions Must be Taken Now to Address the
Slow Pace of Federal Progress" [GAO/T-AIMD-98-205] (Washington, D.C.:
General Accounting Office, June 10, 1998). [http://www.gao.gov/y2kr.htm]
"The focus of conversation among those best versed in this issue is
about how we are going to clean up after what appears now to be an inevitable
train wreck. As a society, we are on the point of conceding failure. Those
unwilling or unable to move off the track are numerous. Federal agencies.
State governments. Local and municipal governments. School districts. Private
sector industries. Small and mid-sized companies. Critical infrastructure
players. And most foreign nations. It's crazy. It's frustrating. It cannot
be happening. But it is. Now the "smart" questions have shifted
to concentrate on contingency planning, crisis management, and liability.
Lawyers are circling, and that is not a good sign. Failure is not part of
the American fiber. Yet after this transition to the new century, society
may have to admit that here was a situation it saw coming. Everyone understood
its hard deadline. Everyone appreciated its worldwide scope. Everyone realized
its massive potential to cause harm. And everyone let it happen. Given where
the federal government stands today, I feel very confident in predicting
that some mission critical government systems will fail -- perhaps as early
as January 1, 1999. A recent ITAA survey showed that 44% of organizations
have already experienced a Y2K failure." -- Harris N. Miller, President
of Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a trade
association representing 11,000 information technology companies, testifying
to the House Subcommittee on Oversight, Ways and Means Committee, May 7,
1998.
"What is really important is that we have to think of what to do if
we lose power or water or cars don't work. We need back-up generators, contingency
plans and creativity in our communities. We must tell people what they can
and should do to meet this crisis, because there is no silver bullet that
will solve it all in time." -- John Peterson, a former member
of the National Security Council who now works as a consultant
in Virginia, in The Sacramento Bee)
"I plead guilty to journalistic incompetence for ignoring what may
be one of the decade's big stories: the Year 2000 problem.... The House
subcommittee on government management, information and technology, chaired
by Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.), estimates that the federal government has
almost 8,000 'mission critical' computer systems and that only 35 percent
are now prepared for the year 2000. At the present rate, the committee projects
that only 63 percent will make it. Most disturbing is the estimate that
only about a quarter of the Defense Department's 2,900 systems are now ready.
Among private companies, readiness also seems spotty. The head of General
Motors' information systems recently told Fortune magazine that
the company is working feverishly to rectify 'catastrophic problems' at
its plants.... The FAA reports that its radar has a date mechanism to regulate
a critical coolant. If the software isn't fixed, 'the cooling system will
not turn on at the correct time ... and the [radar] could overheat and shut
down.' Potential glitches like this abound. No one knows how many there
are. Millions of lines of software have to be scanned and, if wrong, rewritten,
computers must then be tested.... Little testing has been done. It's complex
and time-consuming. Often, systems can only be tested on weekends when not
in use. For the press, I grasp the difficulties of covering this story.
It's mostly hypothetical....[so] anyone writing about it now is shoved uneasily
toward one of two polar positions: reassuring complacency (fixes will be
made); or hysterical alarmism (the world will collapse).... I lean towards
alarmism simply because all the specialists I contacted last week -- people
actually involved with fixing the computers -- are alarmed. On the record,
they say the problem is serious and the hour is late. Their cheeriest view
is that 'no one knows' what will happen. Off the record, they incline toward
Doomsday.... We can deny the possibilities and pray they don't materialize.
Or we can pay attention and hope to minimize them. Either way, the year
2000 won't wait." -- Columnist Robert J. Samuelson,
"Computer Doomsday?" Washington Post, May 6, 1998
"If we could turn back the clock, I'd like to go back to 1970 when
Cobol guru/grandfather Bob Bemer had gathered together 86 professional organization
p; including the AMA -- and submitted a proposal to President Nixon
asking him to declare a National Year of the Computer. 1970 or 71 would
have been a year during which all computer users p; nation wide (and
by default, world-wide) -- would concentrate on upgrading their date fields
from 2 to 4 digits. President Nixon refused to sign the proposal and it
fell by the wayside." Rev.
Dacia Reid, citing an unpublished paper, "Y2K for Scoffers"
by Kal Gronvall of Investments Rarities, Incorporated, in Minneapolis, MN
(cf. endnote #1).
"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked
up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond
human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism
to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought
about." Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's prophecy (Complete
Works, 1922 I, p. 158-9) [cited by David Tresemer, Ph.D. <asc@dimensional.com>]