An open letter to Steven Wohlberg, author "End Times Delusions:

I recently read your book “End Times Delusions” and enjoyed it immensely. I have strongly believed (for the past fifteen years) that the Pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching is a false doctrine. The insights I gained from your book have further strengthened my beliefs. Thank you.

However, there is one aspect of your book which I believe is in and of itself an end-times delusion. You stated, “Many believed the infamous Y2k computer glitch would spark a global economic meltdown as the world’s clocks ticked over to 2000 A.D., yet January 1 arrived with hardly a hiccup.” Perhaps some background information on Y2k would be helpful to you.

I am a now retired, thirty year Information Technology (IT) professional. In 1995, I was Director of IT for a multi-national pharmaceutical and chemical company. That year (1995), IBM announced it would not provide an operating system “fix” to the Y2k dilemma. That same year, IBM further announced they were placing a new emphasis on “consulting” services as a revenue source. “Consulting services” are a euphemism for fixing their technical glitches for a fee rather than as an included part of their operating system maintenance agreements. “Fixes” to all such glitches had been included in the fees paid for maintenance agreements historically. Though we howled loudly about this to IBM it was of no avail. They were adamant. Obviously, they had a strong profit motive. It is important to point out that by the year 2000, IBM’s revenues from “consulting services” had grown from about 5% in 1995 to over 25%. A huge profit was obviously foreseen. Y2k was the cleverest bit of “planned product obsolescence” and “engineered profits” ever forced upon the world.

This left “application developers” such as myself (Those who use IBM’s technology to develop transaction processing systems for government and industry) with a huge problem. We were facing an approaching storm of monumental, world-wide proportion all alone. And worse, we were the ones whom everyone would blame if we couldn’t pull off a solution. Our response was to “scare the pants” off everyone so we could get the priority and the funding to fix this problem on our own. We obviously succeeded. But if we hadn’t, it would have been millennial midnight for certain. And it was all necessitated because IBM wanted to make a lot of money from a flaw in their operating system..

The “hardly a hiccup” mindset related to Y2k is a dangerous end-times delusion. The technologists themselves will never again be able to martial the resources to respond to an impending world-wide technical crisis, such as the “mark of the beast”, because everyone will think back to Y2k and say that we’re “crying wolf”…again.

The end-times delusion of Y2k is not one of “actuality”…but one of “motive”. And whose motives do you think were being served?

Dallas Wilkinson
Author – “Sidekick Harry and the Remarkable Three”; www.sidekickharry.com