Wed, February 3, 1999

A lot has been made of the upcoming odometer rollover we call "the millennium" (after all, Jesus is coming, so we'd better look our best!) but what is it, really? And when is it? There are a thousand different arguments, and no one is actually certain who is right. However, I'm damn sure that I'm right, and maybe you'll agree. Here's my 2¢ on the Y2K.

First of all, nothing is more arbitrary than time. Nothing. From the very origin of the species, man has been attempting to quantify his world in a language that he can understand. After all, gravity is not there because of all the formulas and equations, it's just there. The pursuit of science is, at its base, nothing more than an attempt to describe the umpteen indescribable phenomena that occur around us every instant. At least with mass and volume there's something tangible there. I won't go into the whole liters-vs.-quarts debate, but even if you apply different standards, you can convert one system of measurement to the next and at the end of the day you can hold a block in your hand and see that its mass exists to be measured. Not so with time.

When we decide to quantify time we say "Okay, let's agree that from now until... NOW! is one second. Good, okay..." Time isn't there. Time doesn't come and go or happen and not happen. It's much more convenient to impose some sort of measurment, so that we can be on time to our appointments and we know what time Friends is on, but you can't say that it actually means something. It's simply that we've all agreed that this is six a.m. and that is Tuesday and the other is April. Now, it's conveniently mapped out to sort of coincide with our trip around the sun and our rotation about our axis, and the boys in Boulder are constantly striving to keep our time and "the Earth's time" in sync. I keep an eye on them, and they're good – adding a leap second here, subtracting one there. Still, it's all essentially meaningless if we as a society don't agree on a starting point. ("At the sound of the tone it will be 10:04 exactly.")

So how can you say when the millennium is? Time, as far as we know it, is mere fiction. This galaxy and its infinite ongoing phenomena are not affected by our New Year's one iota. The galaxy won't notice, but those of us on Earth will. Over the last two thousand years, we've grown rather accustomed to the system that we agreed upon, and we're excited by the idea that a nice round number like 2000 is coming up. But just because four numbers change on the calendar rather than one doesn't mean we can call it the "millennium." The system must continue to remain consistent with itself.

When we started this mess, we didn't start with year Zero. Therefore the 20th century lasts from 1901-2000, just as the 19th was from 1801-1900. (This is where we get the "twentieth" in 20th century.) It's math. This presents a problem in that department stores are already having a field day with "Mark Of The Millennium" merchandise that is "marked" about one year too early. It all says "01-01-00" in big fat white print, even though that is nowhere near the millennium. Quizically, "01-01-01" would look just as snappy in fat white print, why not sell that? (Maybe they're smart and they figure they'll wait to cash in on that one till after January 2000, when everyone realizes the error!) The fever has caught on so rapidly that most of the nation's reputable news agencies now use the terms "2000" and "millennium" interchangeably. This merely perpetuates the misinformative cycle.

Now, by ironic coincidence we also have the Y2K bug, which threatens to confuse a lot of computers but probably won't be that much of a problem, beyond a few software upgrade expenses. It's unlikely that satellites and jetliners will rain to the earth, and the stock market probably won't crash (as long as Clinton's in office), but it is an important issue and computer users are wise to at least investigate their machines' year-2000 compliance. Unfortunately, there are two ways to colloquially refer to the problem. "Y2K bug" and "millennium bug". One is okay, the other is egregiously wrong. First, it's not the millennium. If 01-01-01 would crash all the computers, then maybe, but since 00 is the problem, it's not occurring at the millennium. Second, it's not even a millennial issue. If we had COBOL in the 1800s, then 1900 would have caused the same problem 2000 threatens to cause today. Therefore, referring to it as a "millennium bug," with the implication that it only comes around once every thousand years, is incorrect in the extreme. They're off by a power of ten.

Worst of all, the cutesy Kubrick-referential Macintosh ad aired during this year's Super Bowl refers to the bug millennially when "HAL" states that the millennium turned and all the computers went haywire. Now, I'm not a Mac person, but I like TBWA/Chiat-Day, who makes the ads, and I regard both as fairly bright companies. It deeply saddens me to see that the idiocy has reached such supreme levels that even Apple, a company that positions itself as more intellectual than the rest, has fallen prey to the fallacy. (Maybe they're just thinking too different.)

The worst danger comes from the religious nutjobs, who are the furthest off of all. I'm not a religious guy, but that doesn't mean that I feel entitled to look down upon those who believe. Quite the opposite. However, those extremist groups which believe that 2000 (or as they refer to it, "the millennium") will bring the second coming of Christ are even more deluded than most. I've already outlined how arbitrary our classification of time is. Historians admit that the whole B.C./A.D. thing was probably about four years off the religious mark anyway, and we've had all sorts of calendar changes and leap years since then. So is it even remotely possible that Jesus' concept of 2000 still aligns with what we tell ourselves? Not a chance. As a result, those who have the most riding on the final year of the 20th century will be the most disappointed. The rest of us can only fear the extremist reactions that will result when these cults realize that they've been duped.

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