- Feb 22, 2017
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I was reading an article looking back at the Y2K bug. Some people today will say it was just one more panic that did not pan out. That it was all over blown.
But the fact of the matter is that it was a real problem that was discovered in 1993. Once it was found people took it seriously in the US alone we spent 100 billion dollars fixing it. I have seen estimates of over 2 billion man hours used to correct the problem.
The result of it being taken seriously is that when 2000 hit, there were no issues thanks to the work done for 7 years.
Then I wondered if something similar was found today, what would be the outcome.
Would we agree to spend the time and money to fix it, or would it become yet one more political tool and one side would be for fixing it so the other side would have to be against doing so. Would we spend our time fixing it or would we spend our time calling each other names and blaming the problem on the other side?
I am not confident we would be able to do what we did between 93 and 2000.
But the fact of the matter is that it was a real problem that was discovered in 1993. Once it was found people took it seriously in the US alone we spent 100 billion dollars fixing it. I have seen estimates of over 2 billion man hours used to correct the problem.
The result of it being taken seriously is that when 2000 hit, there were no issues thanks to the work done for 7 years.
Then I wondered if something similar was found today, what would be the outcome.
Would we agree to spend the time and money to fix it, or would it become yet one more political tool and one side would be for fixing it so the other side would have to be against doing so. Would we spend our time fixing it or would we spend our time calling each other names and blaming the problem on the other side?
I am not confident we would be able to do what we did between 93 and 2000.