7 ms·

I found the calendar thing funny too. Then I remembered we're all counting from the birth of Jesus.

AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
Well, the supposed birth of Jesus. Guess you've got to choose something. Could go back to Ab Urbe Condita, I suppose. Or start a new calendar from 1776 or some other auspicious year. It's not like AD was used until like the 8th Century.
mcphage 10y ago
> we're all counting from the birth of Jesus At some point people realized they got the year wrong for Jesus's supposed birth. But the reaction was, "eh, fuck it", so our calendar isn't really based even on that anymore.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  I mean, we still call it "the year of our Lord." FWIW Japan uses, in parallel, the Western system, but also a system where the years are counted from the beginning of the reign of the current emperor.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    >I mean, we still call it "the year of our Lord." BC/AD is deprecated for non-religious uses. The international standard is CE/BCE for common era/before common era.
    - takno 10y ago
      I've always found this odd. Declaring the last 2000 years the "Christian Era" seems much more offensive than a couple of letter standing for some fairly arbitrary latin. Added to which, even in countries which could be described as being in a Christian era, it just didn't get going for a couple of hundred years after 0AD
      - Mikeb85 10y ago
        BCE/CE stands for Before Common Era/Common Era.
        jff 10y ago
        What makes it so Common? What great event occurred on the year 1 CE that we decided we should start marking our years from that point? Ovid writing "Metamorphoses"?
        mcphage 10y ago
        > What great event occurred on the year 1 CE that we decided we should start marking our years from that point? Absolutely nothing. You need to have a starting point, and for historical reasons we ended up with that one. It isn't a meaningful date for anybody, but it turns out having a common reference point is more important than having a significant reference point, so nobody cares.
        jff 10y ago
        > It isn't a meaningful date for anybody It's actually a very meaningful date to a lot of people on this planet, although I'm not one of them. We used to refer to years past that date using a short phrase in a dead language. However, this short phrase in a dead language referred to a religious figure, which is Not OK. So we decided we'd rename it "Common Era" but keep the numbers the same because that would be a big hassle. As a result, our calendar still counts how many years have passed since the alleged birth of Christ, but because people might be offended by the words "Anno Domini" we've called it something different. If I were in the position to pick a new calendar start date, I'd probably just go with the Unix Epoch... AE, Anno Epocha? We'd now be in the year 46AE :)
        galdosdi 10y ago
        mcphage may have meant that it isn't a meaningful date for anybody, because we now know that 1 AD is probably at least several years off from the birth of Jesus Christ.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      It is still very commonly used by everyone besides academics and, as others have said, papering over it by calling it the "common era" isn't really that convincing.
      - nommm-nommm 10y ago
        I was replying to "we still call it..." "We" are officially not calling it "the year of the lord" in secular contexts because inclusive language is really important. The language has changed. Certainly it has a meaning traced back to religion for historical reasons but so do a lot of other things and it's inconvenient to throw out very well established conventions sometimes. And, yes, new terminology takes a while to catch on.
        pc86 10y ago
        I first heard BCE/CE maybe ten years ago or a little less. I have literally never heard anyone outside of a college classroom use it in a way other than making fun of people using it. We can say what the "standard" or "correct" is all we want, but if 99.999% of people use BC/AD, it's BC/AD.
        nommm-nommm 10y ago
        Yes, it often takes years for new terminology to catch on and sometimes it doesn't. If a whole generation grows up seeing it in textbooks, and hearing it in the classroom I have no doubt that it will catch on eventually. Most people don't talk BCE outside of a classroom anyways.
        mcphage 10y ago
        > I first heard BCE/CE maybe ten years ago or a little less. Well, if your username is a guide, and you were born in '86, then that makes you 29 or 30, so 10 years ago would be 19 or 20, so in college. That makes sense for the first time for someone to hear about it; it takes a while for ideas to trickle down into elementary & HS textbooks.
        emodendroket 10y ago
  - ddeck 10y ago
    As do other countries, such as Taiwan, who use the minguo (民國) calendar that counts from the founding of the Republic of China. The local system is the primary one used - it's currently year 105 here.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      Well Japan's is a bit more baroque since every once in a while the emperor dies and it gets reset (currently it's the Heisei era, which began in 1989).

Well, the supposed birth of Jesus. Guess you've got to choose something. Could go back to Ab Urbe Condita, I suppose. Or start a new calendar from 1776 or some other auspicious year. It's not like AD was used until like the 8th Century.

mcphage 10y ago

> we're all counting from the birth of Jesus At some point people realized they got the year wrong for Jesus's supposed birth. But the reaction was, "eh, fuck it", so our calendar isn't really based even on that anymore.

emodendroket 10y ago
I mean, we still call it "the year of our Lord." FWIW Japan uses, in parallel, the Western system, but also a system where the years are counted from the beginning of the reign of the current emperor.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >I mean, we still call it "the year of our Lord." BC/AD is deprecated for non-religious uses. The international standard is CE/BCE for common era/before common era.
  - takno 10y ago
    I've always found this odd. Declaring the last 2000 years the "Christian Era" seems much more offensive than a couple of letter standing for some fairly arbitrary latin. Added to which, even in countries which could be described as being in a Christian era, it just didn't get going for a couple of hundred years after 0AD
    - Mikeb85 10y ago
      BCE/CE stands for Before Common Era/Common Era.
      - jff 10y ago
        What makes it so Common? What great event occurred on the year 1 CE that we decided we should start marking our years from that point? Ovid writing "Metamorphoses"?
        mcphage 10y ago
        > What great event occurred on the year 1 CE that we decided we should start marking our years from that point? Absolutely nothing. You need to have a starting point, and for historical reasons we ended up with that one. It isn't a meaningful date for anybody, but it turns out having a common reference point is more important than having a significant reference point, so nobody cares.
        jff 10y ago
        > It isn't a meaningful date for anybody It's actually a very meaningful date to a lot of people on this planet, although I'm not one of them. We used to refer to years past that date using a short phrase in a dead language. However, this short phrase in a dead language referred to a religious figure, which is Not OK. So we decided we'd rename it "Common Era" but keep the numbers the same because that would be a big hassle. As a result, our calendar still counts how many years have passed since the alleged birth of Christ, but because people might be offended by the words "Anno Domini" we've called it something different. If I were in the position to pick a new calendar start date, I'd probably just go with the Unix Epoch... AE, Anno Epocha? We'd now be in the year 46AE :)
        galdosdi 10y ago
        mcphage may have meant that it isn't a meaningful date for anybody, because we now know that 1 AD is probably at least several years off from the birth of Jesus Christ.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    It is still very commonly used by everyone besides academics and, as others have said, papering over it by calling it the "common era" isn't really that convincing.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      I was replying to "we still call it..." "We" are officially not calling it "the year of the lord" in secular contexts because inclusive language is really important. The language has changed. Certainly it has a meaning traced back to religion for historical reasons but so do a lot of other things and it's inconvenient to throw out very well established conventions sometimes. And, yes, new terminology takes a while to catch on.
      - pc86 10y ago
        I first heard BCE/CE maybe ten years ago or a little less. I have literally never heard anyone outside of a college classroom use it in a way other than making fun of people using it. We can say what the "standard" or "correct" is all we want, but if 99.999% of people use BC/AD, it's BC/AD.
        nommm-nommm 10y ago
        Yes, it often takes years for new terminology to catch on and sometimes it doesn't. If a whole generation grows up seeing it in textbooks, and hearing it in the classroom I have no doubt that it will catch on eventually. Most people don't talk BCE outside of a classroom anyways.
        mcphage 10y ago
        > I first heard BCE/CE maybe ten years ago or a little less. Well, if your username is a guide, and you were born in '86, then that makes you 29 or 30, so 10 years ago would be 19 or 20, so in college. That makes sense for the first time for someone to hear about it; it takes a while for ideas to trickle down into elementary & HS textbooks.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
- ddeck 10y ago
  As do other countries, such as Taiwan, who use the minguo (民國) calendar that counts from the founding of the Republic of China. The local system is the primary one used - it's currently year 105 here.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Well Japan's is a bit more baroque since every once in a while the emperor dies and it gets reset (currently it's the Heisei era, which began in 1989).