Millenium Fever -- is there a cure?

<sigh> Cecil, Cecil, Cecil...
I finally received my copy of "Triumph of the Straight Dope" and was quite thrilled... until I read the Preface. How can it be? How can the bastion of truth and goodness that is the Straight Dope be responsible for perpetuating one of the most pervasive and inane fallacies of our time? I refer of course, to the notion that they have published this book just in time for the new millenium, referring to it as being mere months away. Granted, "months" is a vague term and 20-or-so months does fit the bill, but this is not the inference one gets from the passage.
This is worse than the "Good Times" virus -- can it be stopped in time? Can we prevent millions of people from making fools of themselves by ringing in the new millenium (and the new century, for that matter) a year too soon?! Help me out, people! How can we get the world to wake up and understand that the new milleniums and centuries begin with "01", not "00"?
I realize that either way it's people getting excited about numbers which is just silly (like making a fuss about your odometer rolling over), but it's depressing to see so many people being so wrong and so oblivious about it.

It's really no use, Gawain. People are basically stupid and take what's fed to them. The only even remotely plausible means to correct this huge error would be to write the major media and get them to understand and spread the word. Actually most of them understand, but they're making too much money off if it too. This way they can make the money twice for the same thing.

Gawain, Jeff, and all you other "purists"-the calendar has been adjusted several times in the last couple of centuries. I could easily make the claim that the millenium was up back in 1996. The point is, Cecil realizes when the party is gonna start, and he doesn't plan on staying home that night "just to prove a point". Just think of it as a glitch in the system, along with leap year and daylight savings time, go with the flow, and grab a glass of champaigne when it's passed your way.

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter Thompson

Slythe, I agree with the essence of your statement that it really doesn't matter when the celebration is, and that the calendar is a fluid thing at best. And celebrating the change from 19xx to 20xx makes as much sense as celebrating the Millenium (i.e. next to none), but my point is that the actual "Millenium" -- as defined by our current calendar -- simply does not start until 2001. It's the misuse of the term that bothers me.
(You know, this started as a response to Cecil's preface, but has turned into a rant and I apologize.)
Anyways, I don't expect Cecil or anybody else to stay at home Dec. 31, but it did distress me greatly to see TSD contributing to the spread of this piece of misinformation. I thought that this is exactly the sort of thing that they're in business to stamp out. It's sort of like seeing Richard Simmons and Susan Powter doing a commercial for Hostess Ding-Dongs -- only slightly less likely to make you wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

I'll take the "purist" label as a compliment, whether or not it was meant that way. I just don't believe in celebrating nothing. It's kinda like all the Christian holidays which were lifted from other religions, they mean nothing in the Christian context, but people celebrate them anyway as if they did.

I, for one, WILL be staying home on Dec 31...

Jeff

I'll take the "purist" label as a compliment, whether or not it was meant that way. I just don't believe in celebrating nothing. It's kinda like all the Christian holidays which were lifted from other religions, they mean nothing in the Christian context, but people celebrate them anyway as if they did.

I, for one, WILL be staying home on Dec 31...

Jeff

Sorry for the double post, folks. the System is acting a little funky (or maybe it's just me)

Hey guys, I really respect your opinions, but I think this millenium thing is sooooooooo irrelevant!
There's an article published on "Skeptical Inquirer", explaining my point more eloquently that I can (I just can't find it).
The thing is that, whether we like it or not, it's going to be mayhem this next Dec 31. I'm staying home!

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Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities.
-Voltaire

It's amazing the excuses people come up with for being boring.

It's amazing the excuses people come up with to get drunk. Boring is a relative term. You may think reading a book is boring, I think going to wrestling match is boring. Who's right? Neither. The FACT is however, that the next millenium according to our calendar will not begin until Jan 1, 2001. Any other interpretation is simply wrong.

Oh hell, I'm actually looking forward to the mayhem in a perverse sort of way. I realized a long time ago that the real horror stories aren't going to come from malfunctioning computers, but from the people. Sit back and enjoy the show, folks, this one is going to be good.

The FACT is however, that the next millenium according to our calendar will not begin until Jan 1, 2001. Any other interpretation is simply wrong.

Yeah, but how meaningful is that? What you're basically saying here is that this fairly arbitrary point in the earth's rotation has occurred a number of times which comes out with lots of zeroes in base ten since a time intended to roughly coincide with the birth of a religious leader in whom neither i nor most of the rest of the world have any personal faith. Don't you think it's a bit late to bring accuracy into it? Me, i'm gonna party.


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Phantomwise

...never seen by waking eyes...

The issue isn't how meaningful it is that the calendar's odometer is rolling over, or how long ago somebody's illegitimate offspring was born, or whether it's a valid excuse to go out and get stupid drunk. The issue is that if you are calling the upcoming new year the beginning of the new millenium, then you are using a different calendar than the rest of us (yes, I realize that's ethnocentric and I apologize to the Jewish and Chinese and other year-differing cultures -- I'm just trying to make a point here).
So party your head off if you want to -- although if that's all you're after, why not just say "Happy Friday, let's get blitzed" and beat the rush. Just don't be saying "Happy New Millenium" when the clock strikes twelve at the end of this year, that's all I'm saying.

Gawain and Jeff, I must say that I agree with you - there are more of us than you think who know when the millenium will start... however, I was wondering if you heard the very latest in the ongoing sillyness - the Clintons are having a Millenium bash on the Mall in DC. IT is to be a MOB FEST. Wait until this one really grabs the media. I for one will stay home.

You guys crack me up...We all know the next Millenium starts Jan. 01 2001 that just means two straight years of parties. If you are intent on staying home on Dec. 31 1999 good for you and I hope you have a smashing time but don't get all guffed with 90% of the rest of the populous who are going to be out celebrating watching the "odometer roll over" so to speak. Hell I had a great time when my car odometer rolled over 100,000 and then later on 200,000 ( and subequently 250,000 before it went to the big scrap heap in the sky) but you know what 'they' say simple things amuse don't you?

So party your head off if you want to -- although if that's all you're after, why not just say "Happy Friday, let's get blitzed" and beat the rush.

Because no one else celebrates Friday, which would make me an alcoholic rather than a healthy social person.

Just don't be saying "Happy New Millenium" when the clock strikes twelve at the end of this year, that's all I'm saying.

Whyever not? There's a new millenium every moment, and this is the one all the fun people will be going to.

Really, i think the public had been more or less alerted to this tragedy of errors back in 1998, and anyone still blathering at this point is probably either terribly dull or pretentious, though of course i don't know most of the personally and so couldn't say for sure.


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Phantomwise

...never seen by waking eyes...

I agree there is a new Millenium every day. Why is it that we are confining ourselves to measurements from year 1 to 1001 and from 1001 to 2001? Why not from year 5 to 1005 and so on. Doesn't Millenium just designate 1000 years not a SPECIFIC 1000 years?

Gawain and Jeff? Have either of you read Stephen J. Gould's take on this? He has taken up this subject in at least three of his most recent books and has approached it from several perspectives. One perspective is that since the first year ended at the end of year 1 (rather than turning 1 year at the end of the non-existent year 0), the whole thing is silly to begin with. The answer he presented that I most enjoyed was supplied by a child he knew: the first century only had 99 years.

(BTW, [i]I[/] would never resort to calling such fine scholars "purists"; I prefer to use the cognomen "A.R.")

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Tom~

Stephen J. Gould, in his book _Questioning the Millennium_ (note the two "n"s in "millennium"), has a big ol' honkin' essay about this very subject.

His basic premise is that the 1999-2000 crossover marks the new millennium in popular culture, while the 2000-2001 crossover marks the new millennium in "learned" culture. Yes, technically, the first year was Year 1, so the 3rd Millennium shouldn't start until 2001 if you follow cold, official, scholarly logic. But 1-Jan-2000 in a heck of a lot more obvious as a transitional date, and it just plain looks neater.

Interestingly, he goes on to claim that, at the beginning of the 20th century, the scholars "won" the tug-of-war and most newspapers reported the new century beginning on 1-Jan-1901. ... But most likely, pop culture will win the tug-of-war THIS time around, and newspapers will report the 21st century as beginning on 1-Jan-2000. So, in a way, the 20th century will contain only 99 years!

Well, that's fine then. I respect your respective rights to insist on being wrong if you so choose. I'll stick to cold, official, scholarly facts -- the Straight Dope, if you will. I'd also like to point out that I never said I was staying home that night. I am just making the point that I will no more call year 2000 the new millennium than I will call tomorrow Friday -- one day is just like the other, but the calendar we live by dictates a right and a wrong answer. Why specifically the years 1-1000, 1001-2000, etc.? Because that, presumably, is what people mean when they talk about the Millennium: a period of 1000 years passing since the beginning of the current calendar. Otherwise, yes, it is coming up on 10:51 a.m. so Happy Millennium!
I do regret previously misspelling millennium, and thank you for the correction.

Of course, it must be mentioned that:

1. the B.C./A.D. system (which established the Year 1 A.D. as being in the Roman year 750 A.U.C.) wasn't invented until the 6th century;

2. this B.C./A.D. calendar didn't even start to catch on until the 9th or 10th century; and

3. even then, the B.C./A.D. calendar that caught on was the Julian Calendar, not the modern Gregorian Calendard (which wasn't invented until 1539).


So if you really wanted to use the same calendar that was actually in use in the West 2000 years ago, today's date (14-Jun-1999 by the Gregorian calendar) would be some time in May of the year 2749 A.U.C.. Not even close to a millennium boundary.

Well no, actually I want to use the calendar that we are currently using; not the Gregorian, or the Mayan, or the Egyptian.
It boggles my mind. You can tell people "You know, the 20th Century actually started in 1901" and they'll say "Really, wow, that's interesting." But for some reason when it comes to the 3rd Millennium everybody starts going goofy over semantics, and suddenly it's "well, technically a new millennium starts every 1/100th of a second, so shut up you dull pretentious idiot" (I paraphrase here).
Weird. Anyways, to reiterate: the 21st Century AND the 3rd Millenium, as measured by our current calendar (calendrical?) system, do not begin until January 1st, 2001. This is not an opinion, this is not a perception, this is a solid mathematical fact.
(And I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondle!

And in the above message, I think I meant "not the Julian" instead of "not the Gregorian". Don't you hate it when your sarcasm gets undermined by stupidity?

Oh, one more thing.

"The Millennium" most commonly referred to the Bibilical period of 1,000 years during which Satan would be imprisoned (Revelation 20:2-7). This 1000-year period was not supposed to begin in any particular year; it was merely supposed to begin after other events leading up to it had occurred.

Medieval biblical scholars sometimes took the verse "For one day with the Lord is like a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8) literally, and figured that, since Genesis said the world was created in "six days", the timespan from the creation of the world to its eventual destruction in Revelation should be precisely 6000 years. Using this "logic", they figured that every thousand-year boundary must be marked by some major event; therefore Jesus must have been born exactly 4000 years since the creation of the world; therefore the Second Coming must happen exactly 2000 years after the birth of Christ. Thence, the term "millennium" became associated with a calendrical period of 1000 years.

Then again, these guys also assumed that Jesus was born in 4 B.C. (since that was the year Herod the Great died, and he had to have been alive for the "Slaughter of the Innocents" described in Matthew to have occurred). So, by their reckoning, the Second Coming (and the ensuing Biblical Millennium) should have started in 1997.

Oh, one more thing.

"The Millennium" most commonly referred to the Bibilical period of 1,000 years during which Satan would be imprisoned (Revelation 20:2-7). This 1000-year period was not supposed to begin in any particular year; it was merely supposed to begin after other events leading up to it had occurred.

Medieval biblical scholars sometimes took the verse "For one day with the Lord is like a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8) literally, and figured that, since Genesis said the world was created in "six days", the timespan from the creation of the world to its eventual destruction in Revelation should be precisely 6000 years. Using this "logic", they figured that every thousand-year boundary must be marked by some major event; therefore Jesus must have been born exactly 4000 years since the creation of the world; therefore the Second Coming must happen exactly 2000 years after the birth of Christ. Thence, the term "millennium" became associated with a calendrical period of 1000 years.

Then again, these guys also assumed that Jesus was born in 4 B.C. (since that was the year Herod the Great died, and he had to have been alive for the "Slaughter of the Innocents" described in Matthew to have occurred). So, by their reckoning, the Second Coming (and the ensuing Biblical Millennium) should have started in 1997.

D'OH! I see what Jeff Alberts means about the system behaving a little wonky. The first copy of my last post didn't show up at all, so I submitted it a second time -- and, as you can see, there are now 2 copies of it. Bleah.

Glad to see it wasn't just me, Tracer!

Anyway, Phantmwise is really proving my point by pointing out the silliness or celebrating any point in time merely because everyone else is. My only point in this whole thing is how people can be lead like sheep into believing something that is blatantly not true. And to answer a question posited earlier, something to the effect of why do I care if people celebrate the "millennium"? Generally I don't care, but I'm painfully aware of the truly STUPID things people do in the name of celebration, often times going as far as killing other people, and most of the time going as far as destruction of property not their own. The numerous riots that have occurred over the years after basketball championships are perfect exemples. So, to answer the question, I don't care as long as I don't get dragged into it without my consent. If somebody comes to break my wondows, Mr. Ruger will be waiting for them, Natural Selection will occur once again.

Jeff

By the way, Gawain, I thought you were Majikthise

And of course, all of this is aside from my original point. Fine, if people insist on celebrating the new millennium a year early, enjoy yourselves. You're wrong, but enjoy yourselves. MY beef is that THE STRAIGHT DOPE has hopped on the bandwagon (along with the governments and educational institutions, I might add), and contributing to the spread of this misinformation.
I think they ought to be ashamed, and Ed Zotti should personally get on a Concord on New Year's Eve and fly across the time zones apologizing to the crowds.

>>MY beef is that THE STRAIGHT DOPE has
>>hopped on the bandwagon (along with the
>>governments and educational institutions,
>>I might add), and contributing to the
>>spread of this misinformation.

Man, you're right - this is maddening. It's just like that time in the 6th century when they said "it's not the year 750, it's the year 1". That one really chapped my hide. Or that whole Leap Year thing... what the heck were they thinking?

Point is, given the astounding irreverance we have shown towards following the rules of any version of the calendar, why on earth make a stand that this particular rule should be followed to the letter? You readily admit that our calendar system has been changed numerous times, yet you see another change and seek to call us all stupid because we're going with it? Hmmm...

>>No official Time-standard-keeping body has >>stepped forth and said "We're changing the
>>calendar again, everybody! From now on, we
>>are retroactively inserting a Year 0
>>before Year 1 A.D. in our current
>>calendar so that the changing of the
>>centuries and millenniums will coincide
>>with years that end in a bunch of zeroes."

Nope, they sure haven't. Did they do this for all of the other calendar changes?

Depends on what you mean by "millenium", don't it?
(a) If you reckon time from the year 1 BC as the start year, then the millenium change happens on 12/31/99 or 31/12/99, as you choose.
(b) There was a year zero, it was just a very short year, from Dec 25, 1 BC (Jesus's birthday, you ignoramus) to Jan 2, 1 AD (Jesus's circumcision date). It was decreed by Herod the Great, actually not until the year 1 AD, since he was confused by the calendar change anyway. If there hadn't been a year zero, imagine how confusing it woulda been to change your calendars from 1 BC to 1 AD overnight! The insertion of the year zero between the two (even if a short year) resolved the problem, and probably led the path to Daylight Savings Time.
(c) Millenium, mishmenium, the thing that I think it neat is that all those checks and application forms and whatnot dated 19__ will be useless as the odometer clicks off some zeroes. Regardless of what you call it, that's worthy of celebration. Hasn't happened for ... um... 99 years. No, no, wait, for 100 years. No, no, wait.
(d) Our counting and calendar system are already screwed up, since the 1900s are the Twentieth Century. I never understood that part. Why weren't the 100s the First Century, woulda saved lots of headaches later? Hey, if we had the 1300s and the 1200s, what did they call the years 1 - 99, anyway? The zero-hundreds? That seems more important that what we'd call the decade from 2000-2009, seems to me, we got a whole century (well, approximately) with no name at all. Friggin' calendrists, have no mathematical flexibility.
Hand me another beer, willya?

Because it is not a change, it is an ERROR! A mistake! A blunder made by people who assume that because a whole bunch of numbers are changing, it must mean something. No official Time-standard-keeping body has stepped forth and said "We're changing the calendar again, everybody! From now on, we are retroactively inserting a Year 0 before Year 1 A.D. in our current calendar so that the changing of the centuries and millenniums will coincide with years that end in a bunch of zeroes."
If somebody does that, I'll shut up about it, but that has not happened; our calendar has not changed, today is not Saturday, this is not the month of February and next year is not "the" millennium no matter how much you want it to be (it may be "A" millennium but if you're going to go by that argument, so is today, and tomorrow, etc.)
You are perfectly free to celebrate anything you want, including a period of time divisible by 1000 since the year 1 B.C. if you so choose. But somebody says "millennium" to me, I'm going to make the natural assumption that they are referring to a period based upon the beginning of the A.D. cycle that we are currently using. Unless you can provide a compelling reason that I should disregard the math and make the completely arbitrary decision that they are referring to some other period of time?
Come on... anybody from the Straight Dope staff out there care to take a stand on this and set us all straight?

>Nope, they sure haven't. Did they do this for all of the other calendar changes?
Well, Greenwich probably wasn't involved at the time but yes, there was generally a major leader, a pope, etc. who made the decree. It wasn't just an unruly mob of people who reckoned the calendar to be a democracy that they could outvote.

>(a) If you reckon time from the year 1 BC as
>the start year, then the millenium change
>happens on 12/31/99 or 31/12/99, as you
>choose.
But why would I decide to reckon time from the year BEFORE the first year of our calendar? Don't seem right to me.

>(b) There was a year zero, it was just a
>very short year, from Dec 25, 1 BC (Jesus's
>birthday, you ignoramus) to Jan 2, 1 AD
>(Jesus's circumcision date)...
I sense some tongue-in-cheek here. I can't go along with the notion that they were standing around in the year 1BC saying "I can't wait until that Jesus bloke is born so we can party in the new calendar" (and hey, just think how big THAT part would be, going from BC to AD and starting to count forwards!) Also, had they even invented the concept of zero then? I know the Romans had a tough time with it, judging by my clocks.

>(c) Millenium, mishmenium,...
Well sure, no argument there. Numbers are changing, knock yourselves out.

>(d) Our counting and calendar system are
>already screwed up, since the 1900s are the
>Twentieth Century... Friggin' calendrists,
>have no mathematical flexibility.
My point exactly. The calendar is just numbers and they don't care about what's convenient or what's "neat". Technically, even your statement about the 1900s is 2% incorrect as 1900 was part of the 19th century and 2000 will still be part of the 20th.

Okay, the soapbox is starting to crack under my weight. I think we've all figured out where we stand. Some of us are dull mathematical purists, some of us are bad at math (and/or spelling), and some of us are just looking for a good time and @*$! off with you and your Year 1/Year 0 crap.

Happy New Year everybody.