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this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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So You Want To Abolish Time Zones
In a nutshell:
Before abolishing time zones:
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
Google tells me it is currently 4:25am there.
It's probably best not to call right now.
After abolishing time zones:
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
It is 04:25 ("four twenty-five") there, same as it is here.
Does that mean I can call him?
I don't know.
Yeah it’s too bad that we can’t have the convenience of both, right?
Hey, wait a minute…
Relevant username
What time zone is that minute in?!
It's a situation where there are benefits to either option but one probably outweighs the other massively in frequency. I schedule many more international meetings and make many more international calls than the number of times I've needed a global event time. And that's kinda saying something since I'm a space geek that looks for astronomical events, which are all UTC. It's fewer steps to look up the distant current time and do the math from my current time for a passive event than it is to have everyone be UTC, then look up a distant wake time or business hours, then do math to figure out what the functional time is for something requiring human input.
China is one universal time despite spanning from +5 to +9
Yeah but in your example, you wouldn't need to look anything up either. You're presumably very familiar with the offset of your time to their time? You'd also become familiar with their "universal time" versus your time. You'd just know what hours they'd be awake and asleep because you will have done the translation a few times.
In addition, I - personally - would find it easier to memorize times in a single system: e.g. remembering that people in China are awake from 9pm to 8am is easier for me to remember. I typically already do this in my own head. I'll convert times to my own local time and then memorize that. Do other people not do that? I find it much easier to look at my own clock and know if I can reach out to someone internationally.
I don't know, I'm not seeing how that's different. You're remembering how your clock maps to other countries, I'm remembering UTC offsets. I feel like the main thing I'm actually seeing here is really a DST issue and remembering partial-hour offsets. Neither of those would go away with abolishing time zones
It's not that different. But you're mentally mapping a UTC offset to your local time as well? Doesn't that mean you have to do something like:
Genuine question here. Seems like you're doing twice the time-conversions when using UTC.
If UTC is being used, I'm only converting once. If a time is given in UTC, I only need to convert to my time. If I'm looking for a time at some place (and not just looking it up directly) then I'd combine the absolute values of the offsets before doing a time conversion. I wouldn't say my 9am is 2pm UTC and 2pm UTC is their 4pm, I'd just do my 9am is their (9+5+2=) 4pm.
Working with time zones makes it easier to keep times in your own perspective. You look up their offset and take a decent guess that their working hours match yours and you'd probably aim for something a little off from your start/end times and safely land towards the middle. To me, that sounds more reliable than hoping to find business hours posted without a distinct, clearly defined geographical divide in which you know the sun is going to shine there.
I suppose that's where the "simplicity" really comes from in my above points: time zones give you tables of information about times elsewhere, UTC-only requires a map and interpretation. Would places refine their day time shifts narrower than an hour? A minute? A second? Look at the central time zone in the USA. Columbus, Georgia is EST at -5. Ladonia, Alabama is -6 in CST, just across the state border. 1000 miles away, Seminole TX is on the other border of CST and Lovington, New Mexico is across the border in MST at -7. With time zones, the whole region from TX to AL agrees what an 8am start time is, despite effectively being offset by a whole hour, celestially. But solar noon is only at 12 for people in the middle, at the east border of TX, 500 miles between the two city pairs above. So if everyone goes to UTC, how do you know what a place uses as their schedule? Would Marshall, TX, stay at -6 while the GA/AL pair use -5.5 and the TX/NM pair use +6.5? That 8am local start time would become 1pm UTC for Marshall, 1230utc for ga/al, and 130utc for tx/nm pairs. Would Dallas, between Marshall and Seminole, be -5.78 and start the work day at 01:46:48pm utc? Way harder to track. Hence, the railroads gave us time zones
Whether you realise it or not, there are two hours you are using here. Your local time that you suppose is automatically converted in your brain, and the international time that you can already use and is called UTC.
Learn to use UTC, problem solved.
Why do you want to create problems when there is a solution already?
That time means nothing anymore. Time is something real, not a mere number that's irrelevant to reality. Midday is the middle of the day and the zenith of the sun, or close enough. Midnight is the middle of the night. Etc. It doesn't need to be exact, but it needs to mean something. In France for example 4PM is the name of the snack you eat that this time.
Language is also a social construct.
So, let's put it this way. Let's say you have this nonsensical idea of a unique timezone for the planet. We'll base it on UTC for simplicity.
You are in new York. It's 1000. For you in new York, it's the middle of night. You'll wake up in a few hours. Your day usually goes about with wake up and work around 1400, lunch around 1800, end of work around 2200, sleep around 600. You can live you life with that. It's merely a social construct. It's completely stupid as a construct because it's not setup for your actual day. The 0 means absolutely nothing. The 12 and the 24 neither. Why have a 24 hours clock for this? But a decimal clock would do nothing more.
Now you need to work with someone in the UK. Can you talk to him right now? Who knows? You need to ask Internet about the time delay between where you live and where he lives. You learn it's +6. Or -6. Who cares. Now you juggle with 2 times at your work: your usual one, and your colleague one. Congrats, you made a timezone again. When you need to know when he starts work, you do the maths : 1400-600=800. He must starts at 800, unless there's some cultural differences.
Now what you call 1800 is called 1200 for him. You made the same concept, the lunch time, have a different name depending on where you live, and that is after the translation.
Why even have a time at this point. It's more confusing than anything. Let's just have minutes.
You'll have wakeup +200 for example. At wakeup +400, it's midday. Midday +400 is the break. Break+400 is dinner. Dinner +400 is sleepy time. Now that would be much more sensible than your unified clock. There would still be problem with timezones interaction.
But there's nothing to do about timezones. It's and effect of the spherical earth and general relativity. In physics, there is a clock for each and every position, and a delay between each. Most of the time it doesn't matter, so you use your local time. But when it does, you do timezones. Because that's how the world physically works.
There is no reason to use a world timezone either, and here we are, discussing about it...
It is a downside, because with a time zone you know immediately if a time is suitable or not. For instance, if you see that in the uk is 4am, you know immediately that it isn’t suitable. If there isn’t a “standard”, you need to check every time if that time is suitable or not, and it isn’t as straightforward.
We already gave up the meaning of time when time zones where implemented. If it's only going to be an approximation anyway then why bother with the added complexity of 230+ extra time zones?
Y'all are just mad that "It's 5 o'clock somewhere" wouldn't make sense as a jokey excuse for day-drinking anymore. =3
Timezones exist because that's how time make sense everywhere.
Je joke works because the earth is a sphere btw. It's not a joke, it's a fact. That's the whole point.
No, timezones don't make sense everywhere, you clearly have not lived on the edge of timezones where the shift from what would be local time is notable.
We could all just cover our windows, take Vitamin D supplements and actually all live on the UTC timezone.
And let the brits enjoy UTC+0 like nothing happened while the rest of the word scrambles to adapt to the new time system? This is tyranny! I demand a new system where my region is the one with UTC+0 instead!
Have UTC+0 run horizontally, instead.
And increase its width to run from +80° to -80°.
Squeeze the rest of the timezones into the poles
No! In summer time we'd be a whole hour out of our natural time! It would be too much to handle.
You still need to convert in your head to "decide if usually awake at this time". This solves nothing. Plus what if they're somewhere unfamiliar on a trip?
Meanwhile stuff like world time buddy or other locations on clocks are very accessible tools
The joke is that the whole world could go to sleep/wake up/work at the exact same time, day or night.
I lived in a tiny apartment with a streetlamp just outside my only window. Even with blackout curtains that room had no day/night cycle. I'm still trying to get back on a normal day/night cycle, fifteen years later.
So, that's another method you could try.
In one of these stories you used Google and in the other you didn't. Both of these problems are solveable with Google
You already have to Google for what time it is in another part of the world, and Google can also tell you when sunup, solar noon, sundown, and midnight are in Melbourne, so it sounds like you aren't any worse off without time zones.
If you actually want to know if the sun is up somewhere else, then you want a world clock. At a glance visibility on the current position of the sun for every location on the globe, no time zones necessary.
Just add 11 to utc.
No harder than having different times in different places.
I am too late. I knew this would be the top post, even though the arguments brought forth in the blog post are utterly stupid. I would even go so far as to say their arguments are presented in bad faith, because I refuse to believe the author actually thinks that's how it would go. (They have some seriously awesome posts, I most highly recommend https://qntm.org/mmacevedo)
With time zones:
you Google what the timzone offset is (aka at which point in your local timezone the sun rises over there). Considering this sunrise time you then have to make a judgement if your uncle would be awake now.
Without times zones: you Google at which time the sun rises over there. Considering this sunrise time you then have to make a judgement if your uncle would be awake now.
It's literally the same process.
Ah yes, sunrise. That things that never ever changes depending on the time of year or location on the planet. Very dependable and memorizable thing, the sunrise.
Yeah, which makes the points, it's non trivial to know when to contact people with timezones anyways. The time zone only adds more complexity.
I think the point is that people's routine isn't tied to sunrise. For example, in the summertime I start work about 4 hours after sunrise, and in the winter I start work 20mins after sunrise. The difference would actually be more dramatic without daylight savings With timezones and modern internet you don't need to look up the offset at all, you just look up the current time in that zone and decide if that's an appropriate time to call. Speaking as someone who deals with timezones a fair bit, both in work and personal life. And as someone who understands the headache of dealing with them in international computer systems, the time zone system is a very nice compromise. Though daylight savings need to die
If your start time has a 4 hour swing, how could you just look up your local time and make a choice to call?
Uh, yeah? Because it defines your circadian rhythm?
The arguments are exactly the same. It basically boils down to the philosophy if you want the daily life to be controlled by clocks or by the natural sleep/wake cycle of the body.
Some prefer by the clock, because it provides a fixed constant, even if it may run counter to our very nature. You very well may prefer that. Others argue for a more natural sleep cycle, especially when it comes to school for example. Complaints about work starting too early are not exactly rare either.
Huh, you know what? I think you're right.
Just coordinate via asynchronous communication to schedule a time. It's not 1935.
You: "hey uncle text me when it would be a good time to have a call"
6 hours later
Uncle: "hey i just got up, lets have a call at 4:50"
You: "thats a bid late for me, im in bed by 4:00, what about 3:30?"
Uncle: "sure sounds great"
No one needed to know anything about when people wake up, where on earth they live, etc.
Problem solved. This actually makes it problem simpler. With different time zones:
With one time zone:
Exactly, it always requires knowing your uncles habits.
No shit, so no difference to the current situation.