by OsrsNeedsf2P 12 hours ago
My dream world is everyone using 24 hour clocks set to UTC
My dream world would have 86400 time zones, one per arc-second of the globe, so we can all sync our clocks at high noon.
Mine would use Swatch Beat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time I’m writing this at @296.77
My favorite depiction of your dream world: https://qntm.org/abolish
> Uncle Steve is zero hours ahead.
Uncle Steve is the same number of hours ahead that he has always been, and that's a thing that could be looked up just as easily as finding his time zone. I think the author is greatly exaggerating the degree to which time zones solve any of the problems mentioned. Uncle Steve might be on a different sleep schedule from me, regardless of whether or not he's in a different time zone.
Days of the week definitely become interesting in a global UTC system, but noon used to literally mean "the sun is at it's highest point". I suspect that people would grumble for a year or two and then forget that another system ever existed.
There's certainly a bit of dramatization/exaggeration here, but the main point is that it doesn't really fix the stated problem while also being a huge change for everyone to adapt to.
I feel like days are a non-issue; they would just start at different times (UTC) in different territories. This wouldn't make things any more complicated than they already are (currently, if I want to talk to someone in Australia, I have to look up what time it is in Australia and infer the day of the week from that, if necessary. If everything is under UTC, I know what "time" it is, but I still have to look up what day it is).
Most of the issues time zones cause are not "day of the week" related anyways (at least in my experience), so I think having to figure out what day of the week it is somewhere else wouldn't be a common problem anyways.
I think you missed entire point of operation.
If everywhere runs on UTC, they will still have different times when people are working/not working/sleeping so you still have to look something up and figure it out.
With time zones, you look up "What time is it?", realize it's 4:30AM and since most people around the world follow similar schedule, you quickly realize he's fast asleep.
tbh I think a more realistic depiction would be:
Before UTC4ALL: is UB awake? what time zone is UB in? idk, what zone is Melbourne? +11? uh... carry the one... 6:25, maybe a bit early, let's try in an hour[1].
After: is UB awake? he said gets up at 13:30, so call in a couple hours.
You want to call someone, but you don't know when they're available? Maybe you should ask them, so they can tell you it's 13:30 to 4:00, with zero "is that my time or your time" worries. Or check your shared location-aware calendar, which already handles both cases equally well.
How often do you do several-thousand-mile phone calls without knowing anything about the recipient's schedule? Where I come from that's gonna be rude, send an async message instead.
1: yes, the math/calculated time is wrong. on purpose. as an example.
thank you for sharing, I was trying to find something similar that explains why UTC everywhere is such a bad idea!
My dream world is we apply time zone logic to every other unit of measurement.
1 metre can be 100cm or 200cm depending on the season and your location
My nightmare world would be one where we apply "everything else" logic to time.
1 kilosecond: about 17 minutes
1 megasecond: about 12 days
1 gigasecond: about 32 years
"Oh man, it's been a hot megasecond since we last spoke!" Said everyone, in my worst nightmares.
12 oz of alcohol would obviously be larger in the winter the closer you get to the poles. I think I like this idea.
My dream is everyone has a personal clock based on their GPS location and solar noon is always when the sun is highest overhead wherever they are. Go to sleep and wake up based on this clock and use it for nothing else.
And then it's going to be so fun guessing at which time each country in the world starts working
Ideally, you would be asking what time your specific colleagues start and end work, which could be quite different than the average of people who work in their country.
Not hard, visualize the locations on the globe and a pie with 24 slices. If you start work at 12, and you want to know when someone 2 slices West will start you add 2 to get 14. 2 slice East of you, subtract 2 to get 10.
Better than guessing what timezone the region picked when it spans multiple natural time zones, and whether they do or don't have time changes.
Also it's much easier for communication, because if someone sends you a message asking to have a call or meeting at X hour there's no need to know their timezone, because your X hour is the same as theirs no matter where you are in the world.
Mine too. People seem to have are hard time conceptualizing the hour as an arbitrary number, rather than having a static (usually incorrect) meaning associated with it like 12 as noon/midnight.
Time zones are a pain, but it might be too much to fix.
Now, 13 month calendar with each month 4 weeks, on the other hand..
But if we abolish time zones how will we keep trains from hitting each other on the tracks?
Sounds good on paper, terrible idea in practice.
Nah, it also sounds terrible on paper.
I'll correct myself: it sounds good for about 5 seconds before you think about it and realize it's an unworkable idea which creates more problems than it solves.
I will readily admit that I'm an idiot, but I've thought about it for literally multiple minutes, and I still love it. It even still seems workable!
I have all my clocks set to UTC. Works for me
I also did that for some time, I just don't perceived clocks to have a single point that is up and mentally rotated clocks all the time. The hours just lost their meaning beyond their numerical value.
Good for you. I am currently living in Japan, and I don't want sunrise to happen at 21:00, noon at 3:00, and sunset at 9:00.