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Time to Dump Time Zones

nytimes.com

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Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#111

Post by Mz »

Prior to railroads, local time was determined by making it Noon when the sun was directly overhead. Time zones became necessary when railways spread in order to be able to catch your train. Airplanes use Zulu Time because they can fly fast enough to make it a confusing mess to do anything else. This is the same problem the railways had, but the next order of magnitude up.

We already have and use Zulu Time for airplanes. There is no compelling argument here for making that universal. Local time zones still make sense in terms of setting schedules for local services, jobs, etc. The fact that I can talk to people all over the world isn't a compelling reason to move to a singular Earth Time.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#112

Post by cyberferret »

kryptiskt wrote: post #24

So you want to abolish time zones ( https://qntm.org/abolish )

The argument here though, is convenience rather than timezones.

To reference the premise in the article: What if Uncle Steve in Melbourne is a baker or a night security guard? Then 4:25am would absolutely be a fine time to call him.

All these machinations to find a mutually convenient time. Heck, I have trouble finding a mutually convenient time to arrange a sit down chat with my wife, and we both live (and work) in the same house in the same time zone. Meetings almost always means at least one party has to compromise their existing schedule and suffer some level of inconvenience.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#113

Post by pipio21 »

"Time" has always been linked to sun or moon or the stars.

In English you say o'clock because it is the time of a mechanical clock, it was normal and way more precise to use the sun for a long time in history so 12 was the time the sun was the highest(Zenith).

Astronomers used the moon and stars for calculating time with extreme precision, and they continue doing that.

This always gives you local time at the point of the observer. The man that writes the article probably lives without contact to the environment,in a city,goes to work to a building without the light of the sun but for those of us that do not, knowing when the sun is going to be the highest, the rising and setting of the sun is a great idea.

With GPS enabled clocks, like Apple watch and future smartwatches, every person could carry in his clock the real local time, the political local time zone time,and UTC. No need for globalist trying to force us into doing that.

In America and specially New York it looks like the only important thing in life are first money, then the economy. Instead of money and economy being in service of the world, in those places the world has to serve the economy and money.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#114

Post by rtpg »

salmon30salmon wrote: post #87
cyberferret wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the current concept of time is also based on the outdated industrial age concept of a 'working day' being 9-5. I doubt many of the people on HN for instance, work those set hours in this day and age. Nowadays it is purely a convenience factor to keep the worker drones in the same hive so they can gather for the next interminable meeting. With the rise of remote working, and other forms of communication tools, no…

For those who live in our Ivory Tower of the software industry that may be true, but the 9-5 concept is not outdated for a vast majority of working humans on the planet. Lets not project our reality onto the rest of the world.

Here's a fun thing though:

Japan adopted the 9-5. But Japan is on solar time, and thus the sun comes up at 4 AM during the summer in Tokyo. Japan also doesn't do DST. So 9-5 is actually 11-7 in "equivalent sunlight"

The idea of time zones is to keep people in sync, but most of the world is not even on a "12PM=Solar Midday" schedule! So when the sun comes up at 4, if feels weird, because it doesn't match what you see elsewhere on the same longitude.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#115

Post by smsm42 »

cyberferret wrote: post #81
minznerjosh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits the nail on the head. Abandoning time zones would only make sense if there were no more need for time translation. But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks, and without time zones it would become more challenging to communicate that translation. I would be in favor of doing away with DST and also eschewing AM/PM in favor of a 24-hour clock. I'm surprised this article didn't mentio…

But the current concept of time is also based on the outdated industrial age concept of a 'working day' being 9-5. I doubt many of the people on HN for instance, work those set hours in this day and age. Nowadays it is purely a convenience factor to keep the worker drones in the same hive so they can gather for the next interminable meeting. With the rise of remote working, and other forms of communication tools, no…

It's not outdated. Of course, if the only thing you do is programming and you never intend to leave the house, then it may be outdated. Otherwise, most establishments still have working hours - that may not be exactly 9-5 but pretty close to that framework - and people still have breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and there are a lot of business and social conventions based on those assumptions.

Some jobs have the luxury of ignoring that, but that's just a perk, not a wide tendency. Just as if remote working in software allows one to work in one's pajamas, it doesn't mean all other clothes besides pajamas are now an outdated concept.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#116

Post by ProxCoques »

minznerjosh wrote: post #61
darawk wrote: post #17

Hmm...this is an interesting idea. However, the core of the argument seems to be this: > “The economy — that’s all of us — would receive a permanent ‘harmonization dividend’ ”— the efficiency benefits that come from a unified time zone. But this editorial is pretty light on actually supporting that. The basic argument seems to be that it reduces 'translation costs'. But..does it? What about the benefits of being able…

This hits the nail on the head. Abandoning time zones would only make sense if there were no more need for time translation. But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks, and without time zones it would become more challenging to communicate that translation. I would be in favor of doing away with DST and also eschewing AM/PM in favor of a 24-hour clock. I'm surprised this article didn't mentio…

I get the impression Americans don't use 24-hour clock much. In Europe it's pretty much standard if you want to communicate time reliably. Or am I mistaken about the American love of am/pm?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#117

Post by jack9 »

darawk wrote: post #17

Hmm...this is an interesting idea. However, the core of the argument seems to be this: > “The economy — that’s all of us — would receive a permanent ‘harmonization dividend’ ”— the efficiency benefits that come from a unified time zone. But this editorial is pretty light on actually supporting that. The basic argument seems to be that it reduces 'translation costs'. But..does it? What about the benefits of being able…

> But this editorial is pretty light on actually supporting that.

Why would it need to? This smacks of not having tried to understand the many, varied, and changing rules trying to tie locality to time. One inch into US Arizona's boundaries and you're off by an hour, if you are at one point in the calendar vs another. How many man hours have gone into maintaining this system, and continue to?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#118

Post by cyberferret »

smsm42 wrote: post #115
cyberferret wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the current concept of time is also based on the outdated industrial age concept of a 'working day' being 9-5. I doubt many of the people on HN for instance, work those set hours in this day and age. Nowadays it is purely a convenience factor to keep the worker drones in the same hive so they can gather for the next interminable meeting. With the rise of remote working, and other forms of communication tools, no…

It's not outdated. Of course, if the only thing you do is programming and you never intend to leave the house, then it may be outdated. Otherwise, most establishments still have working hours - that may not be exactly 9-5 but pretty close to that framework - and people still have breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and there are a lot of business and social conventions based on those assumptions. Some jobs have the luxu…

I propose that it should be outdated though. Does a lawyer have to be in the office at 8am to finish drafting that closing statement for his hearing next week? Does an accountant have to finish his client's tax assessment before 5pm?

I know lots of lawyers and accountants who do that stuff at all hours - exactly the same hours as I do my programming work.

20 years ago, I used to do the whole 'business lunch' thing with a lot of them too. Nowadays, it is usually a quick 'coffee catchup' at all sorts of hours - sometimes 9pm, which works better for us than the 12pm or 1pm lunch sessions used to.

Technology, plus the burdens of modern working life, means that 9-5 is really just a placeholder for "Oh, well those are the official times that denote when I will be available to do work stuff", but heck, that is really my "interruption time band" and my REAL work times are usually outside of that...

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#119

Post by emodendroket »

ProxCoques wrote: post #116
minznerjosh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits the nail on the head. Abandoning time zones would only make sense if there were no more need for time translation. But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks, and without time zones it would become more challenging to communicate that translation. I would be in favor of doing away with DST and also eschewing AM/PM in favor of a 24-hour clock. I'm surprised this article didn't mentio…

I get the impression Americans don't use 24-hour clock much. In Europe it's pretty much standard if you want to communicate time reliably. Or am I mistaken about the American love of am/pm?

People use the term "military time" interchangeably with "24-hour clock" if that helps.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#120

Post by emodendroket »

cyberferret wrote: post #81
minznerjosh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits the nail on the head. Abandoning time zones would only make sense if there were no more need for time translation. But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks, and without time zones it would become more challenging to communicate that translation. I would be in favor of doing away with DST and also eschewing AM/PM in favor of a 24-hour clock. I'm surprised this article didn't mentio…

But the current concept of time is also based on the outdated industrial age concept of a 'working day' being 9-5. I doubt many of the people on HN for instance, work those set hours in this day and age. Nowadays it is purely a convenience factor to keep the worker drones in the same hive so they can gather for the next interminable meeting. With the rise of remote working, and other forms of communication tools, no…

> With the rise of remote working, and other forms of communication tools, no one has to be constrained by those arbitrary work hours any more

No, that's completely untrue for the vast majority of workers.

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