Word: y2k
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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WORLD'S WACKIEST Y2K GLITCHES! Fears of global computer meltdown proved unfounded, but that didn't stop the media's relentless quest for millennium-bug stories. Our pick of last week's reports...
...still "[do] just fine," precisely because the U.S. spent so much. As with all developments in technology, those who copy benefit more than those who create. The United States and a handful of other countries absorbed all of the costs of identifying and testing problems before Italy even considered Y2K. Countries like Italy were able to get a free ride by using the knowledge we had already spent so much to acquire. In the words of a White House Y2K official with whom I spoke, they did exactly what Lee "criticizes the United States for doing. They waited...
...alarmist as the right-wing black helicopter crowd's, They doubtlessly agree that the government spent "money just to make sure its very own weaponry wouldn't accidentally launch." There was never any concern among those knowledgible that our missiles, nuclear or otherwise, would launch because of Y2K. A missile requires manual, human action in order to be launched...
...incorrectly assumes that there was a broad consensus among educated people 20 years ago that Y2K would be a problem. If that were the case, why would multi-billion dollar corporations as diverse as software companies, financial services and oil giants--all of which are generally pretty good at looking after their own interests--have continued to invest in technology that was plagued, in Lee's words, by "programming ineptitude?" "For those of use who like to keep count" writes Lee, "that's $600 billion" spent on Y2K. I do like to keep count. And so does the U.S. government...
...seems that Lee has a Y2K bug of his own: gullibility to ultra right-wing propaganda...