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The weekend is 100 years old

theguardian.com

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Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#131

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

wahern wrote: post #54
Gecko4072 wrote: post #40

For the elders here, what are the actual ways to not live under the rule of an industrial clock? I’m not talking about starting your own company get rich quick scheme or moving into the woods (unless..), but really, I don’t see many ways about it. You could move somewhere rural, lower expenses, but then you are socially isolated to an extent. So, move to where people are, oh but then the only way to support the lifes…

You'd have to go back nearly 2000 years, at the very least, to find a time when civilizations weren't living under the tyranny of time keeping devices. Here's a poem from 195AD Rome satirizing the tyranny of the sun dial: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/time/hacked-days Leaving civilization is probably your only option. Other than joining a handful of remote tribes, or living as a recluse, I don't think there's anyw…

Run your own business that provides a service that isn't on a time clock. It's much easier to get a job making sandwiches or teaching kids or working in a factory. Doing your own thing is harder. Maybe you write books, maybe you write copy or edit books for others. Maybe you are a contract software engineer and work on your own schedule. Maybe you do some job over the internet.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#132

Post by throw0101a »

Telemakhos wrote: post #89
throw0101a wrote: post #4

Also, the week itself as a 'hard' delineator of time also appears to be fairly recent: > Henkin treats the seven-day week as a social and cultural institution, focusing primarily on the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike years, months, and days, which have astronomical foundations, the week is an entirely historical and social construct with no scientific basis. The study argues that the early American republic…

Christianity gets its seven day period from Judaism, and it may well hearken back to Babylonian astronomy (seven planets, including the sun (Sunday) and moon (Monday)). The Romans, on the other hand, had an eight-day week with market days every eighth day (ninth counting inclusively, hence their name nundinae ). In the middle ages, market towns had market days on fixed days of the week, every week, providing a commer…

The week was an existing structure in Christian-based societies but not to the extent that it seems to have been the at the end of nineteenth-century versus the beginning, i.e., there is documentary evidence that people treated the 'seven day cycle' differently in 1800 versus 1899 (in the US):

> A substantial portion of the research [in the book] is based on nineteenth-century diaries, correspondence, and courtroom testimony to illustrate how ordinary Americans internalized weekly rhythms. The shift from almanacs, which organized dates by month, to preformatted diary books structured by the week reflected and reinforced changing temporal habits. The book examines diverse subjects including freed slaves, physicians, and children from elite families to demonstrate the breadth of weekly consciousness across social groups. […]

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#133

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

debo_ wrote: post #105

Other Western or global societal norms that started in America: - female body hair removal[0] - diamond engagement rings[1] - to-go beverages in disposable paper cups[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_removal_of_leg_and_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_cup

Ancient Egyptian women, above a certain socioeconomic threshold, also removed their body hair. (So did the men.)

Hair traps odors (ever smell your hair after a campfire, or going to a Korean BBQ?), but it's kind of a bitch to constantly remove. People with the means and the time to remove their body hair have done it at various periods throughout history.

Women in ancient Egypt also wore makeup, could own property, could divorce men without social repercussions, etc.

Many aspects of society that we think are new are actually things that just kind of arise given a couple hundred years of peacetime and abundance, and/or things that wealthy people have been doing on and off at various periods throughout history.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#134

Post by [deleted] »

Telemakhos wrote: post #89
throw0101a wrote: post #4

Also, the week itself as a 'hard' delineator of time also appears to be fairly recent: > Henkin treats the seven-day week as a social and cultural institution, focusing primarily on the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike years, months, and days, which have astronomical foundations, the week is an entirely historical and social construct with no scientific basis. The study argues that the early American republic…

Christianity gets its seven day period from Judaism, and it may well hearken back to Babylonian astronomy (seven planets, including the sun (Sunday) and moon (Monday)). The Romans, on the other hand, had an eight-day week with market days every eighth day (ninth counting inclusively, hence their name nundinae ). In the middle ages, market towns had market days on fixed days of the week, every week, providing a commer…

[deleted]

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#135

Post by debo_ »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #133
debo_ wrote: post #105

Other Western or global societal norms that started in America: - female body hair removal[0] - diamond engagement rings[1] - to-go beverages in disposable paper cups[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_removal_of_leg_and_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_cup

Ancient Egyptian women, above a certain socioeconomic threshold, also removed their body hair. (So did the men.) Hair traps odors (ever smell your hair after a campfire, or going to a Korean BBQ?), but it's kind of a bitch to constantly remove. People with the means and the time to remove their body hair have done it at various periods throughout history. Women in ancient Egypt also wore makeup, could own property, c…

From what I recall of pre-Nubian ancient Egypt, Egyptians also bathed by coating themselves in oil and then scraping it off.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#136

Post by tanjtanjtanj »

stevecoalbear wrote: post #16
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #2

The lack of understanding about the change in day-to-day life over the last 200 years is truly unfathomable - I fully do not understand it but the little that I appreciate is absurdly profound in the differences It’s like we’re living on an entirely different planet than the people who existed prior to the industrial revolution Bertrand Russell’s grandfather was alive during napoleon’s rule and he speaks about the di…

It once came up whether my grandmother went to music festivals in her youth. Of course not, she said, they hadn't been invented yet! They didn't have electronic music, because they didn't have electronics. And nobody was playing guitar on stage for 12 hours. You could hold a short small concert in a hall, but you couldn't hold a big rave.

That's not quite right (other than the electronic part obviously). There were traveling coach shows, dance and performance halls, and at a minimum week-long performance events (religious ones too) before anyone here on earth was alive.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#137

Post by mc3301 »

bentley wrote: post #102
ciupicri wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviets had a 5 day week between the two world wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_calendar

“One of the five days was randomly assigned to each worker as their day of rest; the purpose of this system was to allow factories to operate every day, always having most of its workers present to maintain production.” I can see why that didn’t last long—part of the appeal of the weekend is being able to spend one’s time off with family and friends.

But... one bad thing about everyone having the same 2 days off is that the hiking trails, shopping centers, swimming lessons, gym, amusement parks, beaches, banks, and whatnot are crowded with everyone.

If you've ever been in a position where you can do "weekend stuff" any day of the week, it can be noticeably better in many ways.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#138

Post by hamper653 »

vander_elst wrote: post #96
hamper653 wrote: post #92

We should have a 5-days week: A, B, C, D, E. Weekend would be E and A. 12 months of 6 weeks each, except "February" with an extra week. A would always the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, 26th or 31st (in "February"). B would always be the 2nd, 7th, etc. Leap years would have a day F inserted between E and A at the end of "February" (of which it would be the 36th), keeping this new calendar consistent with the current one…

Very curious to understand the thinking behind this, why should the weekend be E and A? My first approach would be to have the weekend on D and E which would seem to be the end of the week.

> Very curious to understand the thinking behind this, why should the weekend be E and A?

So that the extra day on leap years could be inserted in a weekend while having its own unique number.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#139

Post by hamper653 »

bentley wrote: post #100
hamper653 wrote: post #92

We should have a 5-days week: A, B, C, D, E. Weekend would be E and A. 12 months of 6 weeks each, except "February" with an extra week. A would always the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, 26th or 31st (in "February"). B would always be the 2nd, 7th, etc. Leap years would have a day F inserted between E and A at the end of "February" (of which it would be the 36th), keeping this new calendar consistent with the current one…

You’d have to convince a lot of religious people to give up the day of rest they’ve considered a religious obligation for thousands of years.

Well, let’s rest (two days) every five days instead of seven.

Re: The weekend is 100 years old

#140

Post by grayclhn »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #122

We should just switch to the only calendar that makes sense: 5 seasons of 73 days each (5 × 73 = 365 days) 5 days in each week (73 ÷ 5 = exactly no remainder!) 5 Apostle Holydays (one per season, on the 5th day) 5 Season Holydays (one per season, on the 50th day) Why fives? The Law of Fives states that all things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly rela…

I prefer the law of evens — every thing that can be counted is an even number, or one away from an even number. Ergo, each year should be two days, and however many rotations of the earth it takes to get there is the only answer that makes sense.
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