Y2K Was The Dumbest And Most Easily Avoidable Crisis In History And I ABSOLUTELY Would've Put Us In The Exact Same Position If I Were In Charge

I am sadly old enough to have memories of the Y2K crisis. I was 13 at the time. I remember it being on the news and being a general topic of discussion, but I didn't really understand the issue causing all the panic. At least I don't remember knowing about the details of it. Eddie wanted to do a deep dive on it for this episode and the deep dive revealed that basically the equivalent of all of us were at fault here. 

Watch the video, listen to the ep, or at least press play on both...please.

TLDR/W/L version is that the date codes on all the computers and software in the world were only 2 digits instead of 4 for the years. That meant computers wouldn't know what time it was when the year struck 2000. People didn't know if it would be year 00, 1900, 19100, or if it would trigger a chain reaction where just nothing worked. Kind of a big deal and they needed an international coalition of software engineers and $100 BILLION to fix this problem starting in 1998. 

You know when someone first realized this was a problem? It was 1953. THE FIFTIES! Computers were BARELY even a thing and the ones that did exist were bigger than our old office in Ukrainian Village. They knew all the way back then that this would be a major problem that would only compound as more and more people, industries, and governments were reliant on computers. They basically just looked around the room and said "eh...fuck it. I'll probably be dead. Let's save some cash now and let someone else worry about tomorrow". 

Computer scientists, man. They're just like us. Smarter, of course, but procrastinators to the point that Family Guy and Simpsons satirizing Y2K wasn't THAT far fetched. And the only reason it was possible was because people were cheap and lazy. 

The more things change the more they stay the same. Now the new thing is global warming or whatever else could end humanity and the people in charge today are just like...eh whatever. They'll figure it out down the line. Classic us.