Re: Events we never saw (Y2K)

From: Aaron Lynch (aaron@mcs.net)
Date: Mon Jun 19 2000 - 19:37:19 BST

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Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 13:37:19 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: Events we never saw (Y2K)
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    At 05:40 PM 6/18/00 -0400, Wade T.Smith wrote:
    > >Are you talking about the Y2K computer code problem? Or about religious
    > >millennial beliefs?
    >
    >I think he's talking about how the one and the other were allowed to
    >intermingle.
    >
    >- Wade

    Yes, to answer Lawrence's question, the article discusses both secular and
    religious doomsday beliefs. It accepts that there were software problems,
    but debunked the notion that they would cause "the end of the world as we
    know it." The end of the world myth was spreading in secular, religious,
    and mixed forms--especially in late 1998 and early 1999. The doomsday myth
    and numerous ancillary myths are explained in evolutionary thought
    contagion terms. (A calm-down movement helped put the doomsaying into
    decline long before January 0.)

    The article "The Millennium Thought Contagion" is the lead article in the
    November/December 1999 Skeptical Inquirer. It is also incorporated into the
    Social Information Resource Service (SIRS), an educational article bank
    used in school & public libraries for grades 8-12. A version that has
    slightly different wording in places is at
    <http://www.year2000.com/archive/NFthought.html>. (This article was
    previously announced on the memetics list.)

    --Aaron Lynch

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