As others have stated, the lack of visible effect is not the same thing as there never having been a land mine in the first place.
I can tell you anecdotally that on 12/31/2000 I was hanging with some friends. At 12PM UTC we turned on the footage from London. At first it appeared to be a fiery hellscape armageddon. while it turned out to just be fireworks with a wierd camera angle, there was a moment where we were concerned something was actually happening. Most of us in the room were technologists, and while we figured it'd all be no big deal, we weren't *sure* and it very much alarmed us to see it on the screen.
While there was a lot of FUD in the media, there were also a lot of scenarios that were actually possible but were averted due to a LOT of work and attention ahead of time. It should be looked at, IMO, as a success of communication, warnings, and a lot of effort that nothing of major significance happened.
"Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts"
"We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo"
"Despite six IPCC reports, 28 COP meetings, hundreds of other reports, and tens of thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only very minor headway on climate change"
"projections paint a bleak picture of the future, with many scientists envisioning widespread famines, conflicts, mass migration, and increasing extreme weather that will surpass anything witnessed thus far, posing catastrophic consequences for both humanity and the biosphere"
I don't mean to lessen the impact of that statement. I think climate change is a serious problem. But also most of the geologic time that genus Homo has existed, Earth has been in an ice age. Much of which we'd consider a "snowball Earth". The last warm interglacial period, the Eemian, was 120,000 years ago.
> At the Great Midnight at the century's end, signifying culture will flip over into a number-based counterculture, retroprocessing the last 100 years. Whether global disaster ensues or not, Y2K is a singularity for cybernetic culture. It's time to get Y2K positive.
Don't mistake a defused bomb for a dud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox
Thanks! I think about this concept a lot, and now I know there's a name for it. "Preparedness paradox". I'll have to remember that.
And to your point, Y2K is right there on the wiki page for it.
I remember the reality of all the work needed to avoid issues.
As others have stated, the lack of visible effect is not the same thing as there never having been a land mine in the first place.
I can tell you anecdotally that on 12/31/2000 I was hanging with some friends. At 12PM UTC we turned on the footage from London. At first it appeared to be a fiery hellscape armageddon. while it turned out to just be fireworks with a wierd camera angle, there was a moment where we were concerned something was actually happening. Most of us in the room were technologists, and while we figured it'd all be no big deal, we weren't *sure* and it very much alarmed us to see it on the screen.
While there was a lot of FUD in the media, there were also a lot of scenarios that were actually possible but were averted due to a LOT of work and attention ahead of time. It should be looked at, IMO, as a success of communication, warnings, and a lot of effort that nothing of major significance happened.
Yes, Y2K is a success story, similar to the alert and response related to ozone layer and CFCs.
Dissimilar to the global climate catastrophe, unfortunately.
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The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/74/12/812/780859...
"Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts"
"We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo"
"Despite six IPCC reports, 28 COP meetings, hundreds of other reports, and tens of thousands of scientific papers, the world has made only very minor headway on climate change"
"projections paint a bleak picture of the future, with many scientists envisioning widespread famines, conflicts, mass migration, and increasing extreme weather that will surpass anything witnessed thus far, posing catastrophic consequences for both humanity and the biosphere"
I don't mean to lessen the impact of that statement. I think climate change is a serious problem. But also most of the geologic time that genus Homo has existed, Earth has been in an ice age. Much of which we'd consider a "snowball Earth". The last warm interglacial period, the Eemian, was 120,000 years ago.
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Made me think of Mark Fisher's Y2K Positive text:
> At the Great Midnight at the century's end, signifying culture will flip over into a number-based counterculture, retroprocessing the last 100 years. Whether global disaster ensues or not, Y2K is a singularity for cybernetic culture. It's time to get Y2K positive.
Mark Fisher (2004). Y2K Positive in Mute.
Tell us you weren't involved in Y2K iwithout telling us you weren't involved in Y2K.
Exciting times with an anticlimactic end; I was in middle school, relishing the chaos of the adult world.
Another victim of the preparedness paradox.