RE: Y2K: Am I paranoid?

Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:44:32 -0600

Randall Randall wrote:
> It's been rumored that on Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> >Why would the military go along with it?
>
> Because they're told it's their duty, and the first coupla
> people to refuse get court-martialed?

Actually, our military code of justice would *require* them to refuse to obey such an order. You could plausibly face a court martial for complying with it. The idea is that a soldier takes his oath to the Constitution, and this oath takes precedence over the orders of his superior officers.

The only way you can get a scheme like this through the system is to have such a desperate situation (mass chaos, the imminent collapse of civilization) that the officers conducting the trial believe the measures are necessary for their own survival. Then they might turn a blind eye - but how could such a crisis possibly occur? You need something much worse than a few power outages to get that kind of panic.

Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com