Apocalypse Then - Remembering the Y2K Hysteria

Pyromaniacs ^ | 1/7/09 | Phil Johnson

[XR7]

xactly ten years ago this week I preached in our church's morning service...It being the first Sunday of 1999, I decided to preach an appropriately forward-looking message on Matthew 6:34 and its context: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."

In those days, the evangelical world was at the peak of the Y2K insanity, so I made reference to that issue in my message. At the time, Gary North was operating a heavily-trafficked website that included this:

We've got a problem. It may be the biggest problem that the modern world has ever faced. I think it is. At 12 midnight on January 1, 2000 (a Saturday morning), most of the world's mainframe computers will either shut down or begin spewing out bad data. Most of the world's desktop computers will also start spewing out bad data. Tens of millions—possibly hundreds of millions—of pre-programmed computer chips will begin to shut down the systems they automatically control. This will create a nightmare for every area of life, in every region of the industrialized world.

North's Web site had links to more than 3,000 places where you could read similar doom-and-gloom predictions about the Y2K crisis. He grimly told visitors to his Web site that they had better heed these doomsday warnings, or they would certainly regret it.

Today, he admits, "I did not understand the Y2K thing in any sort of detail. I took someone elses [sic] word for it. . . ."

At the time, he was saying:

It took me from early 1992 until late 1996 to come to grips emotionally with the Year 2000 Problem. You had better be a lot faster on the uptake than I was. We're running out of time.

I don't mean that society is running out of time to fix this problem. Society has already run out of time for that. There are not enough programmers to fix it. The technical problems cannot be fixed on a system-wide basis. The Millennium Bug will hit in 2000, no matter what those in authority decide to do now. As a system, the world economy is now beyond the point of no return. So, when I say "we," I mean you and I as individuals. We are running out of time as individuals to evade the falling dominoes . . .. We are facing a breakdown of civilization if the power grid goes down.

(It frankly amused me that a postmillennialist like North, who had frequently derided premillennialists by referring to them as "pessimillennialists" would himself make a career of fear-mongering. But that is just what he has done. So much for the vaunted "optimism" of theonomic postmillennialism.)

In my message that morning a decade ago, I pointed out that the spirit of that kind of panic-mongering was 180 degrees at odds with a whole string of Jesus' commands in Matthew 6:25-33. I mostly just explained the biblical text.

I admit I wasn't prepared for the reaction I got that morning. There was a smallish group of people in the church who were fully into the Y2K hysteria, and they approached me in a phalanx as soon as the service was over. The guy who would have been their spokesman (if his wife hadn't kept interrupting him) was so angry he was red in the face and spitting when he talked. He said he was going to meet with the elders and demand equal time to tell the people of Grace Church they needed to start stockpiling food and preparing for the looming crisis. He likened me to me a holocaust denier.

I stood there and listened to them for ten minutes or so until they began to calm down a bit. I let them talk and did not interrupt, except to ask how they thought Matthew 6:25-34 applied to our society in 1999.

As the spokesdude began to lose some of his steam, he said, "Look: all I know is that if you're wrong, you are guilty of placing the people of our church in mortal jeopardy by not encouraging them to stockpile food and prepare Y2K bunkers. But if I'm wrong, the worst that will happen is that I will have to come back and apologize to you for losing my temper."

"Will you do that?" I asked.

"Of course I would—if it turns out I am wrong," he avowed. "But I am not wrong."

"I will look for you on the first Sunday of the year 2000," I promised.

He moved to a remote part of Idaho that fall because he wanted to be as far as possible from any urban area when all the computers started spewing bad data. One of the hard-core Y2K aficionados in the group actually left his wife when it came to light that she did not share his fear of the coming apocalypse. He likewise moved out of state.

Ten years after the fact, not one of that group of Y2K cadets has ever come back and formally acknowledged that they were wrong, much less apologized for the scene they made that morning.

Gary North is now selling doomsday advice for a monthly fee—"approximately the cost of one movie ticket, a large box of popcorn, and a large soft drink per month."

My advice: the popcorn is much healthier for you.

Even if you load it with butter.

Seriously.

[XR7]

Remember?

[CommieCutter]

Up next: 2012.

[mnehring]

Well, if I where to mirror other doom and gloom predictions that didn't come true.. Y2K just didn't happen yet..

:->

[JRandomFreeper]

Dude... I'm surviving on food that I put away for Y2K. Food stores for the wrong reason are still a good thing.

/johnny

[Tijeras_Slim]

I have 2 pouches of freeze dried chili left, thanks for the meal idea!

[ZX12R]

Up next: 2012.

Indeed. And before that it was the Harmonic Covergence, and before that it was the next ice age, and before that it was the Jupiter Effect, and before that...

[Lexinom]

Younger programmers today, and those yet to be born, will have another Y2K-like opportunity in another 30 years or so.

[Izzy Dunne]

I haven’t heard anybody talk about the Y10K problem.

[Moose4]

Hey, Y2K computer systems remediation gave me a good job for a couple of years. And in fairness, there *was* a problem—although not to the apocalyptic extent North and his ilk predicted. Systems that had to do arithmetic or sorting on dates where the years were stored as two digits might’ve been glitchy and had some weird results, and there would have been inconvenience, but I seriously doubt a doomsday scenario was ever even close to possible.

As it was, most companies I knew about already had their Y2K situations handled well in advance. One large financial company I contracted with was done by the beginning of 1998; the company I worked for when 2000 rolled around was taken care of by the end of first quarter 1999.

}:-)4

[anniegetyourgun]

Ya - why doesn’t everyone realize that all things are the same as always...each day follows the next....sunrise/sunset....nothing has changed in this country....no worries?

[faloi]

Food stores for yourself for the wrong reason are good. Whipping people into a hysteria primarily fueled by the people who have the most to gain from the hysteria (global warming anyone?) because you happen to have bought into it is not a good thing.

[faloi]

Some younger programmers are still trying to figure out leap years, apparently.

[SFR]

I recall that it was around noon and they had first reports from Australia, the announcer said “we now go direct to Sydney, Christie on your cell phone, how does it look, - Christie - everything looks fine, no problems so far -————
and her phone went dead.

[mountainlion]

Up next: 2012.

I vote for 2010.

[Lexinom]

Zune.

[G.Mason]

Thanks for reminding those with selective memories.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

That’s funny. A guy I knew moved out to the Iowa countryside, convinced he could live off deer, pheasants and nuts and berries after Y2K. No one told him a gun and hunting license was required to take critters...

[Sig Sauer P220]

I have a greater fear of BHO on 01/20/09, than I had of Y2K.

[expat_panama]

Y2K just didn't happen yet..

--and this proves how very farsighted the Y2K'ers are.

[JRandomFreeper]

1231357314 works for me.

/johnny