<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # Y2K taught an almost opposite lesson from the one... > Y2K taught an almost opposite lesson from the one remembered by both camps: there really was a problem, engineers attacked it at enormous scale, and then people mocked them because catastrophe did not occur. Civilization has a strange habit of interpreting successful engineering as evidence that engineering was unnecessary. **Source:** [[articles/The End Is Near — AI Doom, Anti-Science Panic, and the Primates Who Sell Technological Exile|The End Is Near — AI Doom, Anti-Science Panic, and the Primates Who Sell Technological Exile]], [[research/AI-Tech Doomers Publication/preimages/2026-09-17-article-route/articles/The End Is Near — AI Doom, Anti-Science Panic, and the Primates Who Sell Technological Exile|The End Is Near — AI Doom, Anti-Science Panic, and the Primates Who Sell Technological Exile]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Y2K taught an almost opposite lesson from the one remembered by both camps: there really was a problem, engineers attacked it at enormous scale, and then people mocked them because catastrophe did not occur. Civilization has a strange habit of interpreting successful engineering as evidence that engineering was unnecessary.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/quotes/quotes-yk-taught-almost-evidence-engineering-unnecessary ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->