The End Of The World

The impending cataclysm is the subject of CoryHamasaki's latest WRP: http://www.sonnet.co.uk/muse/DCW-100.TXT

On the bet:

Yo, RJ, are you in or out?

I would like to propose a large bet with you regarding what will really happen in Y2K. Since our outlooks are so different, perhaps we can afford to make it very large indeed. But I can't think what would be fair on both sides in both events. Any ideas? -- RonJeffries

Well Ron, trouble is, the better my odds, the harder to collect. But I'm game: if < 5 of the largest 100 US cities experience continuous blackouts of > 1 week during y2k, I buy you a dinner in the US restaurant of your choice. Otherwise you buy me enough storable food to feed me for a year. Bet? -- PeterMerel

A year's food vs a day's food? Doesn't seem equitable, somehow. -- rj

I was just thinking that the two things - best restaurant meal in the US, and 1 year's storable food - have about the same value in 1998 dollars. I'm not certain, but strongly suspect, this will be true next year too. So one way to do this would be for you to cover my storable food cost next year (most of it only keeps for a year) and then if I lose, you'd get that expense back plus your dinner in 2001. If that doesn't appeal I'm happy if we take it out in human labor instead - say, the loser writes a >100 line poem in praise of the winner's perspicacity and SavoireFaire?, and displays it prominently on their home page / log-cabin wall for a year. No free verse. -- p

Very interesting wager! The value of Peters potential winnings are increased if he wins as scarcity would then be a factor. Of course, as Peter point out, it might be difficult for Ron to pay up with the anticipated transportation problems.

I suppose the converse problem is just where Ron can find a spot to eat to balance the potential expense. A year's storable food for one runs at about 500 1998 bucks; I'm presuming that this is done with a kit like the $99 one from http://www.glitchproof.com/glitchproof/foodstorage.html rather than one of the pre-packed kits that cost thousands. Still, I'm not certain where we'll find an eaterie that'll let Ron run up a tab like that without bursting. Maybe he can pad it with some vintage wine, if that's his tipple? -- PeterMerel.

Peter missed a wonderful opportunity to test his survival skills this weekend in Hispanola and Florida. I had my wife, my kids and my Dell huddled in the living room in preparation for hurricane Georges. Luckily, we live in Miami and we missed the worst of it. We lived through hurricane Andrew about five years back. Quite an experience. Sure, there was a downside... curfews, looting, no water or electricity for a while, etc. It also brought people closer. I'm pretty much optimistic about people in the face of disaster. But, I'm also realistic. People hang together well as long as there is direction and the threat of eventual accountability. I doubt that Y2K will be that big of a deal. Even if the worst scenarios come about, order would restore rather quickly, but I wouldn't own up to being a programmer right away. :-) -- MichaelFeathers

Survival skills? Me? I don't think so.

My strategy for Y2K is far from "head for the hills". In fact, I expect the hills to be even nastier places than the cities; Hatfields and Mccoys, but with uzis. No, thank you. And you won't find me down the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft wondering what I'll do if I ever need medical attention neither. Though I'll stock up on comestibles, as I expect most people will, I plan to be living in a place where I can rely on the US military to keep order. If I was young and a citizen I'd probably even sign up. Not by reason of guts - my belly is yellow as yolk - but because I think a US military software project will be the very safest place you can manage to be in the year 2000. MREs, medics, emergency power to last years, and thousands of armed and drilled fighting folk between you and the worst case.

There are other nice things about the place I have in mind, but I don't want to give the game away while I'm still a buyer. Suffice it to say it's an urban place, but defensible and with ready access to fresh food and water, and if there's no drastic Y2K scenario, I should be able to continue my usual line of work (yeah, I do something apart from scaremonger for a living) without a drastic disruption. Well, except for shelling out for my dinner with Jeffries. I might lose out a little on the property market, and my investment strategy might not be ideal, but that can be fixed if the lights stay on. Or when the lights come on again ... -- PeterMerel.

Regarding "where Ron can find a spot to eat to balance the potential expense": Unless Ron spends $500 now in anticipation of losing, he would pay considerably more should Peter win. Presuming that he has no use of storable food if he wins, he's unlikely to do that. We can assume that parity will require a very expensive meal. Does the bet allow Ron assistance in consuming his winnings? Should he pick a good brewpub, I would graciously offer assistance. -- KielHodges (tirelessly searching for ways to assist those in need ;-)

Since we have a solution to the inflation problem (see above), we're no longer anticipating an exorbitant increase in costs. Though I should have said there's also a possibility of dramatic deflation - perhaps I ought to have only bought Ron a burger. But if Ron goes for the modified food bet, I can't see any reason why his dinner company shouldn't be up to him. I'll be happy to come along and eat a light salad along with the crow, my hat, and all these words :-) -- PeterMerel

It will be interesting to see if anything happens at the Y2K transition. I'm definitely in the "Ho Hum" camp. We did our Y2K audit and we did have one product that put some asterisks and stuff on the screen during 2000 due to an oversight in the code formating. I personally believe that the very vast majority of Y2K bugs are of that sort of "a bother, but no big deal ...". The people with real problems have had lots of notice to clean them up. But even most of those are transient and not catastrophic in character. My sister is stocking up on food though and calls me a Polly Anna ... as long as another flying saucer doesn't come by to take us to the promised land, I'm OK. -- RaySchneider

So, Ron, did you enjoy the dinner?