That didn't really happen, sadly Brexit will, deal or no deal!
The millennium happened, the bug didn't
I just remember the millennium bug was a lot of fuss about nothing. Supposed experts predicted flight being grounded, intensive care units being closed and cash machines breaking down but nothing changed. I wonder if Brexit will be similar.
Yes but the difference is that the millenium bug was never real. Regardless of the expectations, it never existed and therefore none of the things it was expected to cause actually happened. The European Union, and the UK's exit from it, *are* real things.
Real things have real consequences that unreal things do not.
As someone who was working in the IT industry doing software development at the time, I can assure you that the Y2K bug was very real.
However, it was well known and well documented and in most cases fixed years before there was ever any issue.
The fact is: date handling in computer programming languages is usually managed at either an operating system level, at the programming language library level or at the database management level. These are all major subsystems used by very large numbers of people and were typically patched quite a few years before the 1st of Jan 2000.
From that point, it would have been isolated instances of poor/lazy programming practices which needed fixing, and anyone dealing with critical systems would have patched those issues in the years leading up to 2000.
I was working for a company which did a lot of consulting and bespoke software development for large corporate and government clients - we had to certify that everything we did was Y2K compliant so there was a lot of checking done and remediation work as required.
There were plenty of bugs which did occur on or after 1st Jan 2000 - but none of them were hugely significant - no planes dropped out of the skies. Because if planes had started dropping out of the skies, Boeing or Airbus, or whoever had built them - would have been out of business faster than you can say "conspiracy theory" and multi-billion dollar businesses don't typically like to go out of business.
That being said - I do agree with the core sentiment behind the comments - there was a massive media beatup about it all and end-of-the-world type fearmongering. There were plenty of self interest groups who fostered that attitude to their own ends too.
When they start making Y2K disaster movies - you know the hype is real ... even if the reality turned out to be disappointing to those people secretly hoping for a shakeup in the status quo.
I know we were standing around on a hill over looking Sydney Harbour on 31st of Dec 1999, waiting for the NYE fireworks and debating what was going to happen. It was almost disappointing when nothing did.
Interestingly, the Year 2038 (unix) bug is potentially an even bigger problem than Y2K ever was since it represents a fundamental issue with computer architecture - any system incapable of dealing with integers more than 32 bits long will be unable to represent a date higher than the year 2038. This typically cannot be "patched" or upgraded. Most PC CPUs sold these days are 64 bit capable and so won't have this issue - but there would still be a heap of small or old devices which will simply be unfixable and will need to be replaced. Think of all the IoT devices around the world running on 32 bit CPUs - if they try and process dates as part of their functionality, they WILL all stop working in 2038. That being said 19 years is quite a long way away (that's an eternity in the IT industry!) - and I doubt many of those old devices will still be in use by then.
The issue with comparing Brexit to Y2K is that the Y2K bug was something that was very well defined and known and could be fixed in advance. However, Brexit can only be "fixed" if an orderly transition is managed as was originally intended. That was the whole point of the negotiation process - to find an orderly path to leaving the EU which was then well defined and known. If you don't end up with an orderly process, then I can understand why a lot of people are anxious.
From my own perspective as an external observer - I suspect what will happen is that "things will change, but you will adapt". Things are always changing when dealing with other countries. You simply adapt as required. It's been going on pretty much for ever and the British have a long history of adapting to extreme or adverse situations.
In my experience - the biggest short term issue you will face (and indeed already are), is that when people are uncertain about what's going to happen - particularly in economic terms - then they naturally become quite conservative. One outcome is that they stop spending discretionary funds because they fear they may need that money if things do change for the worse.
This will of course flow on to zoos and other beneficiaries of discretionary spending - nobody NEEDS to visit a zoo (members of this site notwithstanding
), so if people are uncertain about whether their job is safe or whether things are about to become more expensive - then they may choose not to spend money in the short term and that will have an immediate short-term impact on zoos. Whether that continues after Brexit will depend on a lot of factors.
Personally, I suspect that once the whole Brexit thing is finally resolved - the real tangible impact on most individuals will be far less than the current impact that the uncertainty is having. Once you know what the reality is, you can manage and adapt. But until then, you can only guess and speculate - and that tends to lead to overly conservative outcomes (fed by media speculation/fearmongering!) which is not good for anyone.
The rest of the world watches on with keen interest!
