What would happen if we all stopped for 12 hours

[Andy Hamilton]

Our economy seems very fragile and I mean that for the world economy and not just in this country. So what would happen if nothing was generated for just 12 hours, no electricity used, no one went to work, no one bought anything, no one drove a car. I say 12 hours as it would mean the daylight hours for most.

It would not mean that you would have a dull day quite the opposite, time to catch up on cleaning the house (but not hoovering), tending to the allotment/garden, time spent talking and not sitting in front of the TV.

It could however, be a lot of stress for some of the people who could loose out over such a day.

[Boots]

I remember this happening in the US. Was it New Orleans? There was rioting, pillaging and mass violence. People didn't handle it at all... demanding help, abusing each other... it was quite awful if you can believe the media reports.

Same thing happened here with Cyclone Larry, folks just got dirty and seemed to think they had been targeted or something and were being mistreated or not properly attended to.

It seems to be during the rebuild phase where people tend to pull together again.

I also remember the Millenium panic. Folks were fighting over food supplies in the shopping centres trying to prepare for the 'end of technology as we know it'... abusing store staff.... all for nothing. January one rolled around ...

[nogginthenog]

I also remember the Millenium panic. Folks were fighting over food supplies in the shopping centres trying to prepare for the 'end of technology as we know it'... abusing store staff.... all for nothing. January one rolled around ...

It does annoy me a bit when people say 'nothing happened'. I work in IT (as a programmer), and we worked jolly hard to make sure everything was ready for y2k. Now, I only worked for a company that delt with shipping, so nothing essential. But we did have 40 offices worldwide, and believe me it would have cost the company millions (along with loss of jobs etc) if we hadn't been prepared.[/b]

[shiney]

If I stopped for 12 hours, there would be bedlam! My house would look like a bomb had hit it, everyone in the household would be starving and it would all be on my head!

[hedgewizard]

I also remember the Millenium panic.

Yep, I was on the Isle of Man at the time, not known for its proactive approach to anything, so I decided it would be a good idea to have a cupboard full of non-perishable goods in case the transport ground to a halt (everything comes in by sea). To this day, the unit where we keep all our bulk purchases is known as the Millenium Memorial Cupboard.

[bazil]

i dont have a direct quote but, i heard that if everyone stopped working for three days the current system would fall apart and would go the way of mad max

[Boots]

Now, I only worked for a company that delt with shipping, so nothing essential.

I would consider shipping fairly essential, unless you love spuds maybe... I think that's all folks ended up with when they last started knocking out the ships.

So what did you have to do Noggin? What was involved at your end? All I remember is folks were howliing that computers would meltdown and nothing that ran off them would run... Mine started up allright. Thankfully. Lights came on. I didn't even get a patch from Microsoft... The way I saw it, techies made a whole heap of money from that media boosted moral panic. Not a bad way to kick off a relatively young industry and ensure computers integrated every home.

[Stonehead]

The way I saw it, techies made a whole heap of money from that media boosted moral panic. Not a bad way to kick off a relatively young industry and ensure computers integrated every home.

Actually, the fact that nothing much happened was because the techies did their jobs and did them well.

I'm not really a techie (although I can pass as one), more the interface between the hardcore techies, end users and managers as I can speak the languages used by all sides.

A lot of companies would have had severe to extreme difficulties if the techies had not sorted almost all of the potential computer problems well in advance, but even more importantly, the techies also sorted a lot of glitches in embedded systems (everything from nuclear power plants to traffic lights has some sort of embedded software in it somewhere).

And it wasn't just the Millennium Bug. In the areas that I worked in for about five years prior to 2000, the technical support teams found hundreds of other glitches and errors and put them right. Some were small, some were significant but the wider effect of the Millennium Bug was that these glitches were found and corrected before they became an issue (or in some cases explained existing issues).

Yes, the media did get carried away as it does, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a very real issue at the bottom of it. IMO, it's unfortunate that the techies didn't get the credit they deserved - nothing happened because the geeks did save the day.

[Stonehead]

Our economy seems very fragile and I mean that for the world economy and not just in this country. So what would happen if nothing was generated for just 12 hours, no electricity used, no one went to work, no one bought anything, no one drove a car. I say 12 hours as it would mean the daylight hours for most.

It would not mean that you would have a dull day quite the opposite, time to catch up on cleaning the house (but not hoovering), tending to the allotment/garden, time spent talking and not sitting in front of the TV.

It could however, be a lot of stress for some of the people who could loose out over such a day.

Now, back on topic. What exactly do you mean by "stopping" for a day?

If I take your post as read, then I'd just be doing what I do now! Wider society might shut down but I'd still be doing the chores, doing the crofting jobs, brewing, preserving, building, cleaning etc.

So, no change for me.

But if you mean "stopping" in a wider sense, ie not doing anything that could be regarded as work, then we'd be in trouble as most of what we do could be regarded as work. There'd be animals to feed, bedding to be changed, vegetables and fruit to be picked, sowed, weeded, etc, things to be made and repaired, and so on.

For me, if wider society stopped for a day I'd barely notice unless there was a major riot in Insch (!!!). But if we all had to stop work for a day, then that would be a disaster not just for us but for our animals.

[Boots]

On topic: That's definately not stopping then, is it? Folks STOP generating income and produce when they take holidays, get sick or suffer an injury. Farms don't fade away. Generation and regeneration can be disabled by a lack of power, fuel or water, or whatever brings it to life. If these were withdrawn, I could stretch my tank water only so far before I had to start carting it. Could run my generators until my fuel ran out, and then I would need to find alternative forms of lighting, cooling, cooking etc. All possible, but definately more difficult. I could not leave my animals confined if I was unable to meet their needs and would have to release them so they could meet them. My girls would not get to school, so I would have to consider alternative education. Twelve hours is manageable and people would probably just bide their time. In the wet season we often lose power and phones for that length of time. It's annoying but you know you can wait it out. Different story if there is no end in sight...

Off topic: Identifying and responding to glitches is an ongoing job for techies. I can't see how that was just something unique to the Millenium. Hopefully, Noggin will explain it better, because I am interested in what actually went on. If you can pass as a techie, you should sit the exam. There's good money it apparently.

[Stonehead]

Off topic: Identifying and responding to glitches is an ongoing job for techies. I can't see how that was just something unique to the Millenium. Hopefully, Noggin will explain it better, because I am interested in what actually went on. If you can pass as a techie, you should sit the exam. There's good money it apparently.

Yes, but it's often hard to persuade management to allocate time to find and sort glitches until something goes badly wrong. Then, of course, it's the techies' fault. With the MB, rattled management teams threw money at the tech departments so they could go through code and systems line by line.

As an example, in one company I worked for, the accounts were always out at the end of the year - only by a proportion of a percent but still large in actual money terms. It was always put down to human error.

When the tech support team went through the back-end systems for the MB, they discovered a glitch in the interface between two different systems that used different methods of rounding proportions of pence. It sounds trivial but you're still talking low tens of thousands of pounds.

In another business, the tech support team discovered two RATs (remote access trojans) and a built-in backdoor. The first two had definitely been used to access credit card information, while the third had clearly been put in by the original programming team but the exact reason why was not clear. However, the backdoor allowed full access to the credit card transaction sub-system and the identity verification sub-system.

These holes were found and plugged thanks to the MB panic.

If you can pass as a techie, you should sit the exam. There's good money it apparently.

Leaving aside which exams, it's still no thanks. I did very well indeed out of being the guy in between tech/end user/management; specifying, designing, implementing and debugging Content Management Systems, interfaces between CMSes and other backend systems, and Web-front ends to CMSes; and doing blue-sky thinking about fusions of old and new media technology as well as potential, completely new forms of mass media and communication. (As an example, I led a team rolling out what was then called web radio-on-demand way back in 1996/97. Now, web radio, mp3 downloads and podcasting are huge.)

I also managed to combine that with several other skills and interests of mine, and it was exciting, innovative and cutting edge. But, at the end of the day, I'd rather be poor and doing what I'm doing now.

[hedgewizard]

Well said!

[Andy Hamilton]

Really I was thinking about stopping generating money for the economy, so if we all had the same day off unpaid, did not purchase anything, did not turn on any electrical items, did not drive or get public transport and did not turn on a tap. - would it be a mad max type affair or would it just take a long time for the economy to recover?

I think it would not be too dificult to do dependaing on the weather really, we don't get a rainy season anything like yours boots but we can get cold temperatures that we make us need to turn on our heating.

Stoney - I actually meant stopped for the day generating money for the country, especially in the jobs like mine that are just selling software.