As the Year 2000 approaches, so does an epic collision with technological shortsightedness. The impending disaster is already a hot topic in the world of high tech, but more of us should be paying attention. A coming computer crisis — call it the Year 2000 Crisis — says a great deal about the values and philosophy of our society in the waning days of the millennium.

Thousands of computer programs are fast approaching obsolescence. Most date- oriented software — and that includes programs running everything from pension funds to burglar alarms to personal finances to elevators — is designed to recognize just six digits: two each for the year, month, and day. Thanksgiving may be November 28, 1996, to you and me, but to a computer, it is 961128. The software running the computer automatically assumes that the first two digits of the year are 19.