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Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

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Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#821

Post by krazykenny »

Very entertaining! I suppose if we have to start from scratch we might build a better system, but who has the time? It just shows the amount of change that has occured in the past couple of thousand years. Yeah, it might not make sense, but it works...mostly. Just get rid of DST and keep the rest for now!

This reminded me of a Joe Rogan bit, where he imagines how the human race will explain Kim Kardashian to aliens.

Many things will seem illogical to beings who have figured out interstellar travel...

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#822

Post by KaiserPro »

leto_ii wrote: post #122

Couldn't this whole thread just be condensed to: we have a thing called culture which is not completely rational or efficient? I'm sure the aliens would get that - they would probably have something similar, albeit with different irrationalities and inefficiencies.

yes, but then it'd be dull and not funny. the whole USP of Foone is that they explain things in a fun and engaging way.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#823

Post by myth2018 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #782
myth2018 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however 12h _sometimes_ is used conversationally; That happens in Portuguese (brazilian, at least). Digital clocks go through 0-23 hours, but the second half is _sometimes_ named as 1-11 afternoon/night (whatever fits your taste). Hour 0 is never referred to as 12, though: it's always 0 or "half night"

> "half night" Minor nit, but probably important since the equivalent vocabule exists in English: "midnight".

true that. Thanks

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#824

Post by thaumasiotes »

bloak wrote: post #795
thaumasiotes wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that? According to who? Compare what Ovid wrote about the name of May: > You may ask whence I suppose the name of the month of May to be derived. The reason is not quite clearly known to me [because there are too many theories]. [J. G. Frazer's translation for the Loeb series] That the name honors a Maia is one of three theories he goes on to present, the others being that May is named after the pe…

Oxford English Dictionary says: classical Latin Māius (adjective and, short for Māius mēnsis , noun), probably For April, on the other hand: classical Latin Aprīlis, use as noun (short for mēnsis Aprīlis month of April) of masculine of Aprīlis of April, of uncertain origin; perhaps (Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource. In the UK you can often get free online access through free membership of a public librar…

> Oxford English Dictionary is a great resource.

Absolutely true, but difficult to get access from the US without a university affiliation.

However, it isn't obvious that the OED is a better source on the meaning of a classical Latin month name than a classical Roman is. It's certainly possible, but not close to a slam dunk. And the OED is appropriately hesitant to say that it knows the origin of the name.

I'd be curious when the entry was updated, except that I can imagine the entry for "May" being updated for quite a few other reasons than to review the etymology.

(I might as well note that Ovid also presents two theories for the name of June, one that it is named in honor of Juno and one that it is named in honor of either the goddess Youth [Iuventas] or youths [iuvenes] in general, forming a contrast with May. There appears to be no real distinction between honoring Youth or honoring youths, despite the fact that honoring Maiestas and honoring the maiores are explicitly presented as separate theories.

I would say the June-from-Juno theory is on much stronger ground than the May-from-Maia theory simply because Juno is so much more important a god, but that is also open to debate.)

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#825

Post by pfdietz »

arrow7000 wrote: post #505
gardenhedge wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty certain. It just doesn't make sense for (intelligent) aliens to be out there.

Why not? We know of one occurrence of intelligent life. It would be pretty weird if it happened exactly once and no more

Observer selection bias makes our own existence entirely irrelevant to the question of whether there are other intelligences out there.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#827

Post by thaumasiotes »

mcv wrote: post #800
thaumasiotes wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be considered the first day of Fall? Even taking a purely astronomical perspective, the autumnal equinox would be the center of Fall, not the beginning.

Spring and autumn start on the equinox, summer and winter on the solstices. Though it's true they tend to be called "mid summer" and "mid winter" day. It's certainly weird. We also tend to associate summer with days getting longer and winter with days (the period between sunrise and sunset) getting shorter, but the opposite is true: in summer, which is the period from about 21 June to 23 September, days are getting s…

> Astronomical winter starts on the shortest day, and astronomical summer on the longest day.

This is a convention used only by modern calendars. Astronomers have no opinion on when particular seasons occur. They care about things like when stars rise above or sink below the horizon. But they don't use the change in the sky to determine when winter occurs. People notice that winter occurs around the same time every year, and they associate whatever the sky is doing at that time with the beginning of winter.

As you already note, the solstices are called "midsummer" and "midwinter". That is because they are traditionally identified as the middle of summer and the middle of winter. Why do you believe that they are the beginning instead?

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#828

Post by fdghsjakjhflds »

throwaway290 wrote: post #79
thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #48

>"YOUR CALENDAR IS BASED ON A RELIGIOUS LEADER THAT NOT EVERYONE BELIEVES IN?" Instead of taking the opportunity to make a holier-than-thou twitter rant the would-be probee would do better to reply to this by explaining that almost every religion and many cultures have one or more of their own.

Yes, and for some theirs is the main one. It's now year 2565 BE in Thailand, you won't really see "2022" that much outside of strictly tourist-oriented references. Use a Thai VPN when googling and that's the date you will see in search result listings. I believe the next version of ISO 8601 is expected to support different calendar & time systems.

> you won't really see "2022" that much outside of strictly tourist-oriented references

Both are used. While government orgs are likely to favor the Buddhist calendar, many businesses will use Gregorian. It's definitely not an artifact of tourism.

To wit: When are the most fireworks set off? Your choices are 'global' new year, Thai new year and Chinese new year.

I would guess 100% of Thai people (at least those living in Thailand) know what year it is in both calendars.

Use DDG and you won't be forced to use the locale / language Google has deemed appropriate for your IP address.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#829

Post by hnbad »

Nition wrote: post #780
rendall wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the percentage would be of Biblical scholars who believe that Jesus was an actual person if we excluded those who believe, say, Moses parted the Red Sea or even those who believe Jews were enslaved in Egypt at the time.

Most scholars, even the non-Christian ones, believe that Jesus was an actual person. Whether he really performanced miracles is of course a very different matter.

The problem with that statement is that if you take away all the supernatural claims and give some room for creative embelishments and naming inaccuracies you end up with not just one but several "actual persons" but their existence becomes entirely irrelevant to the existence of a historical "Jesus".

It's a lot like the "god of the gaps": if you are willing to compromise on a definition of god that gives up on all supernatural claims in history and that only works through mechanisms indistinguishable from natural events, you're no longer talking about the same YHVH that painted fiery letters on a throne room, appeared in burning shrubbery, flooded the entire surface of the Earth and turned people into salt.

I think trying to argue about external facts when studying religion is largely a moot point. It's neat when you can tie religious doctrine and historical accounts together but a religion doesn't cease functioning because its historical claims are inaccurate. The historical claims are entirely accidental to the religion itself and should be viewed as mythological, not empirical.

Re: Someday aliens will land and all will be fine until we explain our calendar

#830

Post by buchoo »

fsckboy wrote: post #581
comeonbro wrote: post #170

I didn't appreciate until recently that the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar. Like not by some forgotten technocrats incidentally during his time, but Julius Caesar himself as a subject matter expert, as a side-project. With consultation, certainly, but by his initiative, from long-standing engagement with the problem in one of his early jobs from long before he was a main character…

> the calendar we live by today was personally designed by Julius Caesar Pope Gregory has entered the chat there have been some changes to the calendar since Caesar, especially when people went to bed Thursday 4 October 1582 and woke up on Friday 15 October 1582, and thereafter there were no more leap years on centuries except every 400 years. https://www.onthisday.com/articles/gregory-conquers-julius-c...

One fun historical tidbit is that St Teresa of Ávila died on the night of the 4th to the 15th of October, 1582.
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