Why Did Social ScientistsMiss the Bug? Alon Peled Department ofPoliticalScienceand PublicAdministration The Hebrew Universi~ofJerusalim, Israel alpeled@netvision,net.il he Y2K problem (also known as the "Millenium bug") has become an enormously popular topic of concern and discussion. A large number of Web sites, TV programs, newspapers and magazines, and popular books explain how a sensible computer engineering decision during the 1960s (to use the two-digit "YY" year format in order to utilize efficiently scarce computer-memory) has grown into a global nightmare that will descend on us exactly when the clock strikes the year 2,000. Doomsayers claim that nuclear and electric power grids, air traffic control systems, waste treatment facilities, hospital life support systems, and ATM machines will then interpret the new year ("00") as "1900," subtract 1900 from 1999, and conclude that they are about 100-years late for the next maintenance checkup. According to this doomsday scenario, these systems would then shut themselves down and bring our automated world to a quick halt. Mainly in the western world, governments and private sector corporations are in the midst of a spending blitz to fix the "millenium bug" in as many computer systems as possible. But in the developing world, governments and
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