Responses to Y2K might be broken down into "the 4 Bs"
(below) or into psychological stages.
For an idea of how life will be affected by the choices we make
now, see Ready for Chaos or
Community? by Sharif Abdullah. Three very plausible scanarios
of what could transpire on Jan. 1, 2000. The third is very inspiring.
a) The Year 2000 Problem? What's that?
b) Y2K is not a problem for us. Just carry on.
c) Rest assured that we'll fix our Y2K problems in plenty of time.*
d) There may be some problems here and there, but we'll get back
on track fast enough.
e) I can't think about it. I've got other things I need to attend
to.
a) There will be significant problems, bankruptcies, unemployment....
b) Things will be pretty bad, but if we work together, we should
make it ok.
c) Call out the lawyers!
d) Throw out whoever's responsible for this mess!
e) If you are strong and the smart, you, too, can gain from the
Y2K failures of others.
f) I'll move out to my country house until things settle down.
a) If we don't gear up, use triage and prepare contingency
plans,
things are going to really come apart.
b) This is going to be horrible! What will happen to me?!
c) I'm moving to the woods with my canned goods and guns.
d) We can't fix Y2K. Society is going to collapse!
e) [someone -- the military? the Mafia?] is preparing to stamp
out chaos.
a) Whatever we're doing now to change the world, Y2K offers us
opportunities to make more rapid progress.
b) Things falling apart will wipe out old ways of thinking and
doing, leaving
room for people to try new and better approaches, individually
and collectively.
c) We can use the prospect of things falling apart to
change our consciousness
and our culture -- whether or not things actually fall
apart.
d) If we allow our breakthrough perspective to inform whatever
we do with Y2K,
we'll end up further along towards the world we want. For example,
if we
gear up, use triage and prepare contingency plans as a community,
we can be
closer to the world we want right now!
These diverse responses mix and match in various ways, and there
are tons of nuances and probably better and other categories of
responses, but at least this gives a sense of the spectrum of
responses. There are ample websites and publications dealing with
B1 - B3. This site is concerned with B4 Breakthrough (with some
attention on B2b and B3a).
If you have friends or associates in B1 who you would like to
move into the next levels, you might try showing them Is
this Y2K problem for real?. If they (or you) believe a technical
fix will be found, check out The Dream
of a Technical Fix for Y2K.
When confronted by this problem, most people go through a sequence of responses in an effort to come to grips with an overwhelming threat riddled with uncertainties. While more can be done to map and understand these, a good start has been made by Scott Olmstead.