I thought I’d contribute the following to this discussion. It is my review of The Millenium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos, by Michael Hyatt (the cover claims it was a New York Times bestseller). This review appeared in the December 6, 1998, State Journal-Register and is copyright 1998. It is reprinted here by the author.
Cheap Scare Tactics Undercut ‘Millenium Bug’ Warning
by David Bloomberg
It’s one minute after midnight on January 1, 2000. In the middle of your big party, the power goes out—everywhere. You light candles and wait for it to come back in a few minutes. It doesn’t. Your friends go home to take care of their kids. Everybody waits.
Two weeks later, there is still no power. There is also no running water. The stores are all closed. Chaos is everywhere. You and your neighbors set up armed patrols to keep away looters. Society is collapsing.
All this occurs because some computer programmers a few decades ago decided to save memory space, which was then very precious, by using the last two digits of each year instead of all four. Thus, when the year 2000 rolls around, a number of computers and the equipment they run will think it is the year 1900, causing them to malfunction or crash completely.
Will this really happen? It is one of the possible scenarios given by Michael Hyatt in his new book, “The Millenium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos” (Regnery Publishing, $24.95).
Wyatt’s book contains a great deal of scary information, with numerous footnotes that make it look rather impressive. The question, however, is not one of how many footnotes he has accumulated, but how much a person really needs to panic based on that information. From the title alone, the reader can surmise that Hyatt believes a fair amount of panic is warranted, and indeed this is carried through in the text.
In the introduction, Wyatt says he is “convinced that the Y2K [Year 2000] problem presents us with, potentially, the most significant, extensive, and disruptive crisis we have ever faced.” The rest of the book has the same tone. It is clear that Wyatt believes people are not taking this problem seriously. The reader may get the feeling that he believes the sky is falling, but nobody is paying any attention.
Wyatt does make some good points. Yes, there will be problems. Some systems will not have been properly upgraded; these may fail. It’s not just our home computers we have to worry about, or even the mainframes running many business operations.
Many types of equipment contain embedded computer chips that keep track of the date for various reasons. While it won’t bother people terribly if their answering machine provides the wrong date, it could be troublesome if nuclear power plants have parts that fail to operate in a timely manner.
But will those power plants fail? We obviously cannot know for sure until 2000, but Wyatt seems to assume a large number of these chips will fail, along with the power grid, banking system, etc. He relates a number of horror stories, but is speculating based on assumptions, which in some cases may already be out of date due to the time lag between writing this book and publishing it.
Later, Wyatt makes a curious statement as he begins his third section, on preparing for life after 2000. He claims, “Up until this point, I have presented to you the facts about the Year 2000 problem. I have documented my sources and presented what I have found in a manner that is as objective as I know how to make it.”
But the reader may be forgiven for questioning him. Throughout the first two parts of the book, Wyatt uses highly-charged language, emotional images, and a fair amount of speculation.
For example, in discussing the situation with local police, he says, “It’s one thing if our military is not able to protect our allies and keep the peace in faraway foreign countries. It is quite another thing if our local police are not able to guarantee our personal safety and well-being at home.”
This is not an objective, documented statement. It is a blatant attempt to scare the reader. Other what-ifs include newborns with brain damage due to malfunctioning hospital equipment and patients dying on the operating table due to unreliable biomedical equipment.
One can almost hear Chicken Little yelling, “The sky is falling!” Yet Wyatt claims this was the objective part of the book.
Once he does go into the part he admits is speculation, it doesn’t get much better. He immediately discards the notion that the Year 2000 problem will be a “nonevent” and gives three possible scenarios: brownout, blackout, and meltdown. The scenario that began this review is closest to his blackout example.
Wyatt believes we will find ourselves somewhere between the brownout and blackout scenarios, depending on how well the banks and power grid do. The final chapter deals with Wyatt’s advice on preparing for that possibility. Some of these suggestions make sense if you think the power will fail and each person will be on his own for a while. Stockpiling food is a good idea, for example, and if the blackout never comes, then nothing is lost since you will still need to eat. But other suggestions involve massive life changes.
Wyatt advises the reader to move from the city to avoid possible looters. He recommends buying silver and gold coins because they have “intrinsic” value and will become the “preferred method of purchasing goods.”
These suggestions go a bit over the top. If one really does believe the Y2K problem will cause the collapse of society, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to invest in pieces of metal that, contrary to his claim, have no “intrinsic” value to somebody who is starving and cold.
This book ends as it began, by trying to scare the reader. If you choose to ignore his warnings, “you may end up a victim.” Indeed, there is no way to know until that fateful day arrives. But it is possible to inform people objectively of the potential problems without trying to scare them using emotional language and speculation. Wyatt would have better served readers by putting more of his effort into facts and reasonable solutions instead of playing the part of Chicken Little.