Följande avsnitt är skrivet av Ed Yourdon, författare till boken Time Bomb 2000. Tänkvärda metaforer.

Shouting 'Fire' in a Crowded Y2K Theater

Perhaps it's an indication that Y2K awareness has hit another group of heretofore oblivious folks: I've gotten half a dozen e-mails from strangers in the past week, warning me that my "alarmist" remarks about Y2K could trigger bank runs and general panic.  "It's like shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater," one person scolded me.  Perhaps so... but I'd like you to think about the issue carefully -- especially if you, too, find yourself surrounded by co-workers, friends, and family members who are much less concerned about Y2K than you are.

There's no question that it's criminally immoral to shout "Fire!" when you know there is no fire in the theater; this is often used as the example of the limit to the First Amendment right of free speech.  A variation on this theme has often been aimed at Y2K vendors (most recently in a remarkably nasty Forbes magazine article, to wit: even if it's not illegal, it's immoral to yell "Fire!" if you stand to profit from the sale of fire extinguishers, especially if you exaggerate the size and severity of the blaze.  Perhaps such an accusation is warranted in a few instances, but many of the "alarmist" statements showing up in the media recently have been from people like Alan Greenspan, who obviously has nothing to do with the sale of fire extinguishers.

While others of us may not be as famous or as saintly as Mr. Greenspan, I think it's fair to say that our Y2K warnings are not only sincere, but indicative of some important variations on the fire-in-a-crowded-theater metaphor.  Consider this variation: when the theater was built 10 years ago, you were one of the junior members of the construction crew.  You wondered why they didn't use all of the formal engineering disciplines you had learned in school, but the veteran construction workers told you that academic theory doesn't work in the "real world."  You were particularly concerned that the theater wasn't built with sprinklers or smoke detectors, and you recall overhearing a heated argument between the construction foreman and the general contractor.  The contractor argued that the sprinklers and smoke detectors were too expensive, and that the theater owner had not shown any interest in making the investment, because he planned to sell the theater within a few years.

Ten years have now passed, and you've settled down, gotten married, and begun raising a family.  Your kids are now clamoring for you to take them to the movies, and as you sit through the Saturday afternoon matinee performance, you notice that the fire exits have been blocked by soda vending machines and arcade games.  When you mention this to the theater manager, he shrugs and says it's never been a problem.  But it worries you, especially when you remember the absence of sprinklers and smoke detectors -- so you tell your children, to their considerable annoyance, that they may not come to the theater any more.  And because your friends and neighbors have children, you decide that you should tell them of the danger, too.  Indeed, your sense of civic duty compels you to stand outside the theater during your spare time, with a big sign that says, "Unsafe theater!"  But most of your neighbors ignore you, and the theater owner is angry: he accuses you of being an alarmist, reminds you that there have been no fires since the theater was built, and threatens to sue you for endangering his thriving business.

Here's another metaphor: you're sitting in the theater, along with a couple hundred other patrons, and you catch a whiff of smoke and see a flash of fire in the corner.  The rest of the audience apparently doesn't see or smell anything; they're far too engrossed in the film, a romantic farce called Monica Meets Bubba.  Again, you remember the lack of sprinklers and smoke detectors in the building, and you wonder what you should do.  This is a serious question: what is your moral responsibility at this point?  If there was a smoke detector system, the warning would be sounded without any involvement on your part; but you don't have that option.  It occurs to you that you should alert the theater management, since it's presumably their responsibility to deal with the problem.  But when you rush out to the lobby, you find that the cashier and clerks are sound asleep, and the theater manager has gone home for the night; when you call to warn him, he hangs up on you.  What now?  The easy option would be to leave, but you feel a sense of responsibility -- after all, you were involved in building this theater that's about to turn into a fire trap.  So you go back into the theater and begin tapping some of the patrons on the shoulder. "Pssst!" you whisper, quietly but urgently. "There's a fire in the theater!"  But only a few people pay attention; most of them frown at you and whisper in response, "Shush!  The Monica story is just getting to the juicy part!"

One last metaphor: you're sitting in the front row of the movie theater, together with your spouse and your two young children.  Again, you smell smoke, and you see a fire in the corner of the theater; and again, you remember the lack of smoke detectors and sprinklers, as well as the blocked fire exits.  What now?  If you jump up onto the stage and shout "Fire!" at the top of your lungs, you run the risk that (a) people will be trampled to death as they rush for the exit, and (b) your family might be trapped, because the only functioning exits are at the rear of the theater.  The sad irony is that most of the audience will shout at you to shut up and sit down; they really want to see the next episode of the Monica story.

Suppose this was not a theoretical exercise; after all, fires do break out in crowded buildings occasionally; and in the absence of effective leadership, everyone is on their own.  Some would be paralyzed by fear (as seems to be the case with Y2K), but those capable of acting would have to decide whether their own survival was more important than that of their fellow theater patrons.  In my case, there would be no hesitation: I would tap my wife urgently on the shoulder and whisper, "Psst! There's a fire!"  My wife, who is just as fascinated by the Monica story as everyone else, would be incredibly annoyed; but she knows me well enough to realize that I wouldn't joke about a life-threatening situation.  "Are you sure?!?" she would whisper back to me crossly.  And when I responded that I was absolutely, positively sure, we would both snap into a well-rehearsed parental-emergency mode: we would march the children quickly, quietly, and calmly up the aisle of the theater, and out through the exit.  Only then would I go back into the theater to warn the others, assuming that management was still abdicating its responsibility.

The Y2K "fire" has not broken out yet, though we'll begin seeing the first few flames in 1999, possibly as early as January 1, 1999.  But like many of my Y2K colleagues, I can already smell the smoke, and I believe, deeply and sincerely, that it's going to be a very bad fire indeed.  We can quibble about whether it's better to whisper or shout, but now that I've gotten my family out of harm's way, I've got to warn the rest of the audience before the theater is consumed by fire.   I feel obligated to do so, you see, because I helped build the theater.  It wasn't my decision to leave out the sprinklers and smoke detectors, but I still share some of the responsibility.  So does the cashier and so does the theater manager.  So does the construction foreman and so does the general contractor.  So does the original owner of the theater.  And so do you.