Why Tu Que?

[athelind]

The local radio station just did a phone quiz about "frauds and hoaxes", and after questions about Milli Vanilli and the balloon-law-chair kid, the grand finale was a question about the Y2K Bug.

So here's the take-home lesson: if you identify something that might be a problem well in advance, and spend huge amounts of money and effort trying to fix it before it becomes a problem, then, when it doesn't become a problem, it's obvious to everyone that it never was a problem!

Does anyone else have a problem with that?

You didn't succeed, code monkeys of the world: you defrauded everyone. Thanks for all your hard work!

This is a radio station in Silicon Valley, mind. I guess the classic rock isn't aimed at the code monkey demographic.

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Parallels between this and the effectiveness of environmental regulations are left as an exercise for the class.

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Comments

[drleo.livejournal.com]

Yet at the same time, our not having had any more attacks on American soil seems to prove whatever it is they're doing (since they won't tell us) is successfully defending the country, and we should continue to pour oceans full of money into it. I guess we should have had one major Y2K screwup, then!

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

A real problem is the best foundation for frauds and hoaxes concerning the consequences and how to avoid them.

I was not worried about things going to hell when vital systems suddenly went casters upward, because vital systems are *always* going casters upward and people generally have work-arounds in place, however crude and unwieldy.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Logic seems to be actively treated with disdain by many in the press and broadcast industries, especially in the US. Mind, I suppose that does make it simpler to peddle newspapers with themes of what vegetable or food supplement cures cancer this week.

Political debates can be a motherlode of such nonsense, needless to say. Thinking of the "Obamacare" tussling, one audience was being told how this overarching governmental takeover (*cough*) would leave the insurance companies utterly unable to compete, whilst another line at the very same time would have people believe it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare that could never get anything done.

At no time did anyone seem to cast an eye anywhere else in the world, other than perhaps a squint in Canada's direction, let alone notice that every other industrialised nation in the world has universal health coverage, usually with public and private systems running in parallel.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Kind of like my job in environmental protection, where the very best thing I can hope to accomplish is that nothing happens.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Sounds about right, really.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

This "Y2K Hoax" thing really bugs me. You never hear anyone saying "We engineered this bridge to not fall down, and it didn't fall down! HOAX!"