Contact: Mary Jane Dunlap, University Relations, (785) 864-8853 or [email protected]
Y2K SOLUTION SNARLED IN CATCH-22
LAWRENCE -- The best solution to the Y2K problem is snarled in a web of human organizational behaviors, says Allan Hanson, cultural anthropologist at the University of Kansas.
Y2K refers to the difficulty computers will have recognizing "00" as the year 2000, rather than 1900.
"A lot of people still think this is a pseudo-problem. But some corporations are spending as much as $600 million to rectify the problem," Hanson says.
In an article appearing in the January/February issue of Society, Hanson argues that the Y2K solution requires a maximum flow of information. Cooperation, not competition, is needed to find solutions for this complicated problem, Hanson says.
"Our human interdependence on computers has made human beings cyborgs, part organism and part machine, yet we still function as if we were independent of computers," Hanson says.
"We compartmentalize ourselves as individuals or as a company," Hanson says. "We need a new way of thinking, one that better reflects the interdependence we now experience.
"My point is the more companies approach solving Y2K cooperatively, the sooner it will be solved and the less havoc it will cause," Hanson says.
The standard every-business-for-itself mentality of business, government and most organizations is self-defeating, Hanson cautions. Fear of lawsuits, coupled with philosophies of free enterprise and survival of the fittest instilled by economist Adam Smith and natural historian Charles Darwin, drive organizations to horde rather than share information about solving Y2K, Hanson says.
Hanson offers a Catch-22 scenario from the Department of Defense as a near-comic example of self-defeating behavior in seeking Y2K solutions.
"The Defense Integrated Support Tool (DIST) is a database containing information on some 9,000 computer systems in the defense department. DIST is important for Y2K remediation projects. In February 1998, the National Security Agency decided that the information contained in DIST is highly sensitive. They classified it at a level where most defense department personnel working to fix the Y2K problem no longer have access to it," Hanson writes.
Hanson became interested in the Y2K problem when his wife, Louise, a freelance writer and editor, began producing a newsletter addressing Y2K issues.
"All the attention seems to be on the practical or technical issues. Nobody has been looking at a more general, cultural perspective," Hanson says of the impact Y2K will have on our lives.
Come New Year's Eve 1999, Hanson plans to be at home without major fear of the unknown.
"Y2K is serious and costly, but it is not Armageddon. It will be solved sooner or later," he says.
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