Y2K and 9-11. (The Right Perspective).(Brief Article)

Though it now seems little more than a trivial event from the distant past, only a few short years have gone by since the U.S. and the world shuddered in collective dread of the so-called Millennium Bug.

Back then, in the years leading up to the end of the millennium, many computer professionals believed that computer systems programmed to recognize dates by only the last two digits of the year would treat 2000 as if it were 1900, thereby causing permanent worldwide data loss or corruption.

Many authorities, and a number of charlatans, caused Americans to fear the worst. The world's advanced computerized society would be incapacitated overnight, they said. The more hysterical among them fretted that the Millennium Bug would erase as much as 500 years of material progress. It didn't happen. When clocks across the globe struck midnight on January 1, 2000, screens still flickered, transistors still hummed, e-mail was sent and received, web pages were downloaded and uploaded, and, in general, life went on as before.

So what happened? Why didn't the computer disaster that nearly everyone predicted come to pass? A look at corporate Securities Exchange Commission filings from the era provides a clue. Those filings show that American corporations spent vast quantities of money on Y2K repairs, fixing their computers to ensure their continued operation well beyond the year 2000. After all, if Y2K had crashed corporate computer systems, billions of dollars could have been lost and the very existence of business ventures called into question.

The impulse for self-preservation held true for all levels of business, and even for government, though to a lesser degree. Each individual business owner, each corporation, and even each govern mental agency and bureaucrat sought only self-preservation and perpetuation, but the collective effort helped ensure that society would not be harmed.

With the 9-11 attacks, America faces a more immediate, more frightening, and far more deadly threat than Y2K. Interestingly enough, though, the Y2K lesson can be fruitfully applied to the current situation.

Like Y2K, the terrorist-security crisis threatens the existence and profitability of business as well as the continuity of constitutional government and society in general. And as with Y2K, most commentators in business, the media, and politics insist that solving the problem requires a more pervasive and powerful federal government.