Yeah, I think it's human nature to blow mysterious things all out of proportion. And then when we get together and tell ghost stories about the mysterious thing, and it starts to take on a life of its own.

I was so convinced Y2K was going to crash society. I was all looted up, ready to bug out when the city started burning. Turns out, there was enough preparation (and money dumped on the problem), and like only one power station that didn't get the upgrades on the east coast went down for 15 minutes.

I'm just as guilty of telling ghost stories and contributing to the disinformation. I remember writing a frantic, doomsday prediction email to my house rep in the lead up to Y2K and I swear based on some of his public comments that I was responsible for him quitting the house and heading for early retirement. I have no proof that was the case, but I'm still not proud of what I wrote.