Waiting for the Millennium

Waiting for the millennium is getting more difficult. It is getting harder to deny the anxiety and excitement building with each tick of the clock. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, reported to the Senate Banking Committee that "There's almost no conceivable way that computers will break down and records of people's savings accounts will disappear." "Almost" does not reflect certainty. What is clear is that there is little certainty about what might happen when the Western secular millennium begins on January 1, 2000. Expectations range from hope to fear, God on earth to right-wing heaven, nil to apocalyptic. The influence of outside actors, such as crashing computers and the Antichrist, is unpredictable. The only thing over which we have control is our own behavior.

Douglas Adams of Apple, Inc. said "We may not have got everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." Macintosh computers will not crash as a result of a date change, but millions of others will. Many computers -- unless their code is corrected -- will not recognize 2000 as a legitimate year; causing operating systems to not process dates beyond 1999, hard drives to seize, and software applications to go haywire. The imminent malfunction of computers worldwide is referred to as the Y2K problem or simply Y2K. The Defense Department is assuring us that no missiles will be launched as a result of computer glitches, though the CIA says that they expect alarms from early warning systems and "local problems" at missile sites in less prepared countries. Survivalist gurus like as Gary North and Ed Yourdon are predicting utter chaos. Already, gun sales are good and a decent generator is hard to find.

Religious and social culture merge with the 20th century's reverence for and dependence on corporate-controlled technology. The computer has become its icon. Its self-destruction reason for secular fervor. When all hell breaks loose, the argument goes, you had better be able to take care of you and yours. "Our seed potato orders are stronger than they've been in five, six, seven years," says Danny Linnebur, owner of Valley Feed & Seed of Wichita, Kansas. People are stocking up and with good reason. A Senate panel said that "Y2K disruptions are inevitable." Your power company may be compliant, but the computer that tells your oil company to deliver your oil may not work. Chase Manhattan Bank is spending over $250 million to fix 200 million lines of code, but your local bank's vault might not click open when the bank manager types in the password. When I asked a group of friends in Mexico what they thought about Y2K, they waved their hands dismissively and said "its a digital problem." That it is, but one in which the anxiety of the apocalyptic unknown drives us to danger and opportunity.

The banality of everyday life is getting a jolt from the calendar change. Your choices about how to respond to the apocalyptic rhetoric are legion. The UTNE Reader has published a hopeful "Y2K Citizen's Action Guide." In it, they say "something surprising and quite wonderful is going to happen...Y2K offers us a tremendous opportunity to rekindle genuine community." A Papal decree has offered Catholics a ticket to Heaven with no stops in purgatory if they do a good deed between Christmas Day 1999 and the end on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2001. Pay attention. Time flies. Embracing one's neighbors or buying an AR-15 assault rifle to defend oneself from them are the kinds of decisions you'll have to make.

Expect the cadence of concern and confusion to build to a crescendo over the coming months. Those singing loudest in the choir will suffer "post-Y2K Syndrome," a combination of disappointment and readjustment that will last for a long while after January 1. Those who don't sing at all will suffer too, losing out on their opportunity to participate in the radical transformation in the world. The future is here. Get your New Millennium resolutions lined-up. Its about what you do today that makes tomorrow's predictions come true.

Laura Orlando

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