We’re also closing in on a potential second plague here with bird flu since it’s now jumped to cats and the current regime is refusing to act on it.
Hey, at least you didn’t get drafted for Vietnam
Give it time, I’m sure we’ll have Vietnam 2 before long.
gets drafted for the resource wars one year away from being too old to draft
Add a housing crisis, the construction of a corporate surveillance state, a fascist takeover and the impending employment apocalypse of AI implementation.
Aint it great!
as a gen Z I still don’t get why Y2K was such a big deal
It’s less about the y2k bug itself and more about the cultural phenomenon. It was everywhere, and it was huge, and then absolutely nothing happened. It was the best possible outcome AND the funniest possible outcome.
With stuff like that, it hits different when you live through it and it’s part of popular culture for years. It leaves grooves in the ole neurons.
In contrast I could think about how terrifying the Cuban missile crisis must have been. The fiery end of the world could happen at any moment and everybody knows it. And we even find out afterward that the world was basically saved by one Soviet service member. I can empathize with living through that, but since it happened long before I was born, I don’t have the vivid memories of the actual emotions invading my normal day to day.
Computers were not designed to roll over the year. This would have caused the dates to roll back to 1900 or some day in the past, breaking any logic doing math on dates.
The programming community made huge efforts to fix this problem, and they did across many sectors.
The fact that people don’t understand how big of a deal this was is due to the efforts of those that did and were able to correct it.
The media talking about power outages and nukes launching due to Y2K was standard news hype/fear mongering during a crisis with rather boring (to the layman) causes and fixes.
the people problem of any crisis.
If you did nothing, and it becomes a big problem, everyone riots over why you did nothing about it.
If you raised awareness, busted ass, and prevented the issue from happening… then everyone riots over how much of a “waste” it all was since nothing happened.
Don’t worry. The one happening in 2038 should be worse.
It honestly wasn’t. Like yes, it was a real problem, there was a lot of bad, often legacy, code that had to be reviewed and maybe patched. Industrial control code tends to be notoriously bad, and so you never know if this traffic light or that power station is going to glitch out until you dive in
But even as a kid who just knew how to take things apart, I knew it was a nothing burger. Real work went into it, but the fact people in the industry were taking it seriously means there was little actual danger
What year comes after “99”? People would way “00” meaning 2000 but a computer might say “00” meaning 1900 potentially breaking a lot of data systems/bases
Because all software at that point was unable to handle the new date format. Imagine if today, all computer systems had widespread issues at the same time, on the same day. The only reason nothing happened is because people did their jobs.
Hope this helps.
There was A LOT of doom predictions… from airplanes dropping out of the sky to power being shut off, to possible missile launches… it was a good time to be a shit talker in those days. Businesses made a butt ton of money selling snake oil “Y2K” checkers for your computer… crazy time
Do people not remember that they didn’t have cars until like 1920? Do people not understand that most roads weren’t paved until like the 50s? It’s foolish to think we’re the only generation living through lifetime events. Motherfuckers they were people that went through World War I and World War II. They were veterans of World War 1 that enlisted in World War II. There are people born in the fifties that lived through the computer Revolution. Do people not understand that the internet is only 30 years old?
I know he is a fictional character but Colonel Potter in Mash served in ww1, ww2 and Korea… There are real people that had that experience.
Yes. They do understand. Its just that These events get closer to each other more and more.
Pretty sure we are in a “unofficial world war 3” considering how there’s like 6 countries at war
Russia vs Ukraine
Israel vs Palestine
India vs Pakistan
Americans vs America.
Didn’t you hear? God emperor Trump made that whole silly India/Pakistan thing go away /s
An Indian Pakistan conflict would kill lots of people and create millions of refugees. (And that’s ignoring the nuclear risk)
If the US can stabilize the situation let them
US can’t stabilize itself. And we all know how “good” US is at resolving conflicts.
Trump is more like to stir up trouble on the thought he could come in and annex the land after everyones dead/weakened.
Does US vs the world in economic war count?
That too economic warfare.
And a turd king
And climate change
You’re forgetting hole in the ozone
It is almost completely gone
The hole in the ozone layer is recovering due to the bans on CFCs in the 90s. Climate change deniers deny this and insist that it is something that would have happened anyway…
See, ever now a than, thangs is cold. And thangs is hot.
It’s in yer bi-buhl buddy. Reed it.
:p
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Ya gawt ta reed yer bi-bull!
It tha werd uh tha lorduh!
3 or more possible WW3’s
It is not unfair to clock the first bit. But you can’t count hypothetical WW3s. That’s like Boomers saying they lived through Hypothetical Nuclear Winter.
Also, if we’re counting recessions as millennials, you can’t neglect the '87 crash and the '01 dot-com bubble. If we’re counting plagues, you can’t leave out AIDS.
Don’t forget the savings and loans crisis in the early 90s.
2008 housing crash…
Not hypothetical as much as possible, near misses
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Up to end of Soviet Union '91
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US-North Korea-China
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NATO-Ukraine-Russia
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US-China-Taiwan (upcoming)
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US-Israel-Iran (upcoming)
Not hypothetical as much as very real possibilities
Definitely can’t leave out AIDS or drug epidemics, mass shootings, living under threat of terrorism
Not hypothetical
possibilities
?
Remember the AIDS PSAs we watched as kids?
“Billy has aids. You cannot get AIDS from being in the room with Billy. The only way to get AIDS from Billy is to come into contact with his blood or other bodily fluids. If you see someone bleeding on the playground, don’t approach them. Get a teacher as quickly as possible. Safety equipment like gloves will prevent an HIV infection.”
I’m GenX and I still remember when they called it GRID and the American Government was like “Shrug. It’s just killing the gays. No worries.”
Reagan thought it was a blessing from his god.
I’m behind you there. I’ve never even heard the term “GRID”. I was born in 1985 though.
What a bummer that people can be so ugly. :(
Edit:
Just looked it up. Man. What a way to put stigma on everything all around. Jesus.
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A lot of us are 40+ but I appreciate your meaning.
Looking at the pixels and layers upon layers of compression artifacts in this photo, it wouldn’t surprise me if the original was created at least 5 - 10 years ago, meaning it would have accurately included all millennials at the time it was made.
And gen-x has lived through everything listed and more. Boomers even more. Think gen-x gets to retire? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA good one!
You should talk to those Catholic dudes who have been around since 1840. They have seen some things.
Yeah I was going to say, I’m 41 and while I seem more like gen X since I mainly hang around with them and basically grew up around them, I am sadly gen Y.
On a side note, millennial has such a bad connotation around it I prefer to say gen Y. Most people don’t associate their negative feelings about millennials with the term gen Y and it just makes life easier during the rare occasions that it comes up.
We need to include the Cold War and the nuclear crisis to the list.
Does it really count if they were babies?
I was 1-11 in the 80s. Was super aware of nuclear fallout and the Cold War. But my dad had also been gassed in protests against the Vietnam War and used to joke about running toward the blast of the nuclear war ever happened.
I’m technically the last year of Gen X, but definitely fit more with millennials, and couldn’t drink until the year 2000.
Op also forgot the dot com bubble which burst when I graduated high school.
And you aren’t a millennial.
I’m 1 year older than you and feel the same about fitting with millennials.
The most non millennial thing about me is really important though. I was already in my career when 9/11 happened. Having my foot in that door was huge.
Gen X has entered the chat
Inappropriately as always ;)
Indeed, it’s never about you.
It’s missing working 3 jobs to survive and still being called entitled and lazy
What idiot was calling you entitled and lazy?
Pre-MAGAts
Y2K wasn’t that bad compared to the rest
Y2K wasn’t that bad because a billion engineers saw it coming and prepared accordingly. If everyone hadn’t been freaking out about it for years beforehand things could have gone very differently.
Not really as it would just be another Crowd Strike
In hindsight. There was some degree of hysteria at the time, which prompted ended at the turn of the millenia when planes did not fall out of the sky and computer systems did not all fail in unison.
Y2k was a non event because a lot of time, effort, and money was spent fixing it before the deadline.
The estimated cost of fixing the bug was between 300-850 billion dollars in 2000 - adjusted for inflation that’s about 0.5-1.5 trillion dollars
The estimated worldwide cost of fixing the Y2K bug, according to analysts: Cap Gemini America Inc. — $858 billion; Gartner Group Inc. — $600 billion; International Data Corp. — $300 billion.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/1372100/some-key-facts-and-events-in-y2k-history.html
Nothing personal, I try to correct this view everywhere I see it.
Y2K didn’t happen because a lot of talented engineers worked their asses off to prevent it from happening. It is the bane of IT people everywhere that the working state of the systems they create and maintain is being taken for granted by the public, with barely a thought givem to those who fight bugs, spam, cyber attacks and pure entropy every day. It is in fact a minor miracle of engineering that we’re even having this conversation.
The public should take it for granted, it’s corpo culture that shouldn’t. If IT people had the freedom and option to do the right things early there’s so many situations that would never happen, but oh no profits must increase by 10% yoy or else CEO is replaced.
That’s true, but it is also true that there was a lot of hysteria… A lot of well designed systems were built without the y2k flaw in the first place…
Thank you. I was on the Y2K team.
Thank you for your service. I mean it.
Couldn’t agree more and do not in any way intend to diminish the hard work of those that prevented a widespread systems failure.
God(or whatever metaphysical force you subscribe to) guard the engineers. Of all types.
Reminds me of this funny bit from Louis C.K. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBdwNP7xk_6/ (profanity)
A-men
And A-women too 😁
the Dot Com bubble burst + World Trade Center in 2001 was another animal
There was that one guy who got charged $60k in late fees at blockbuster though.
Comparatively, sure it’s small potatoes.
If anything it was a misdirect.
When the world/news goes crazy, it’s probably not actually that bad. Surprise mothetfucker!
Whenever I hear a new term I have to figure out if it’s really that bad, or just made up nonsense.
Yeah, but I think we’re going to get a participation trophy. I’ve been raised to believe this is the case, but that we should not be proud of it, because we’re actually garbage.
I’m pretty sure there a lot of worse stuff that’s happened in the past 100 years, you just know how that ended.
Not to mention the last 10,000 years
We know, we learned the details about WW2. Our grandparents and great grandparents actually lived through that, and told us the stories.
All the adults told us it would be better for us than for them. While they fucked everything up and then blame us.
I mean, you take your pick-which generation would you actually want to switch with? Baby boomers had it better economically (if you were a white man) but a lot less tolerance for everything from being a single woman to interracial marriage (much less gay marriage or transgender recognition)
All the adults told us it would be better for us than for them.
All the adults told us that it was our responsibility to do better than they’d done things. Some of the adults tried to help out along the way, while other adults knee-capped us and robbed us and threw us in jail for the crime of becoming poor.
And there’s a real selection bias along the way. A friend of mine was six years old when her dad shoved her out of the way of a speeding car. He died. She and the driver lived. She got to grow up in a world without a father willing to give everything to protect her. But the guy who killed her dad kept on ticking.
As we carve out more and more space for reckless, heartless people, we lose the honest and selfless ones along the way. In the end, a generation that selects for selfish people is going to be dominated by the most ruthless.
Most of the adults did tell me to do better, but they also kept repeating that I had it better than they did. Which was partially true at the time depending on who said it, but they still messed things up and blame me for not fixing their mistakes.
And what does that story have to do with generational pressure?
And what does that story have to do with generational pressure?
The dead family aren’t around to give better advise
My guy, my life isn’t even halfway over yet. It’s been incredibly rough so far, certain things which my life never truly recovered from… And much worse can possibly still happen in the decades to come.
