Essay/Term paper: Loss of a friend

Essay, term paper, research paper:  High School Essays

Loss of a Friend



Today in society many people rely on computers as much as they rely on their lungs to keep breathing. If Y2K had occurred, modern life would have collapsed into a world of chaos. People would not know what to do with themselves or their families. Three main problems supercede the rest in the amount of chaos they would bring to life; people"s life savings would no longer be accounted for, the government would not be able to monitor the activity of other countries activities, and people would line the streets looting for all they can hold.

The first problem is that people who had worked so hard to save money for their children would have lost all of the money they had saved. The banks keep al of their records on computers and there would be nothing anyone could do to save their money. The people would storm the banks trying to get their money back. People need to have the security of that much money to fall back on in case something happened but when something finally did happen it would not only take away their security but the money they had invested. Americans invest money in hopes to get rich or to have so money put aside for retirement but with no computers they can"t prove that they had stocks in the first place. People would start to get angry and then violent.

The second problem facing this now primitive society is that the government would have no way of knowing if a strike from an adversary was eminent. Any group of people that wished to send a few nuclear warheads wrapped in pretty red bows over to the white house would have no problems doing so. All of our military intelligence would be lost and global chaos would soon follow. People"s insecurity would soon overtake them and they would feel the way Freud explains when he speaks of the "id" that lives inside of every human being. These wild feelings lead to the third social problem that would develop.

The third problem that would occur almost immediately after the computers shut down is looting. After every major event where the immediate outcome was negative looting soon followed. People realize that all of the things that they never had that they always wanted is at their fingertips. All they have to do is walk down to the nearest store, throw something heavy through the window and suddenly everything is free. People can"t fight the urge to take. The police would not have anyway to control all of the looters and once again chaos would prevail.

In conclusion, life is like a city with many different avenues. Computers are the center of so many people"s lives. The only way that having no computers would can occur without being a problem is if people stop making themselves so dependent on them. People need to go back to the way things were where things were written down. Then and only then people will no longer have to worry about Y2-anything.