A technology scholar explains why this is ironic and sad, and a new Y2K book from O'Reilly and Associates offers some of the clearest and most useful info yet on what this Millenial bug might really do. It says volumes about our times that when most Americans talk about the year 2000 they think not of the many symbolic or mystic implications of the Millenium, but of the mundane but potentially significant programming glitch that threatens many computer systems. It's typical of the mass media's narrow-minded approach to technology to focus so obsessively on the worst possible consequences of Y2K computer problems that some people are planning to stockpile food, water and cash in case our collective lights go out. And it's typical of cyber-gurus geeks, programmers and Web developers to forget that there are political, social and cultural issues surrounding the approaching Millenium that go far beyond technics. Winner, a political scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and one of the country's most thoughtful technology scholars, argues that the approach of the new century offers an occasion to ponder the condition of humanity and the planet that sustains us.
Nobody knows, and nobody's even talking about it much.
The media's technology coverage has increasingly focused on Internet stock prices, Silicon Valley businesses, the gee-whiz computer gadgets of tomorrow, and the handful of panicked people digging bunkers in preparation for the supposed havoc to be wrought by the Y2K bug. Small wonder some people are scared out of their wits. Few people outside the computer industry know how seriously to take the Y2K bug. Journalists don't seem to have a clue. While every Internet stock blip is covered like the outbreak of World War III, Stories on Y2K range from the hysterical to the ignorant.