3 ms·

So a month will be 36.524ish days. Where in the metric regularity does 36.524ish fit? I can see that it's somewhere between the 10s and the 100s column... A ye

by ChoHag 10y ago

So a month will be 36.524ish days. Where in the metric regularity does 36.524ish fit? I can see that it's somewhere between the 10s and the 100s column... A year isn't 100 days, it isn't 1000 days, and the whims of naked apes with a penchant for euclidean geometry isn't going to change that.

marak830 10y ago
Ahh I see what your getting at, I was a little lost by end of the chain. Well we could just convert a second, day, month, year into metric. (Thanks for the answer btw, was curious :-) )
- ChoHag 10y ago
  We could, but we gain nothing but more work. We can't not consider current timekeeping. There is exactly 0 chance we can get everybody to change in the same instant and even if they did history is still there. Education, and thus civilisation's shared consciousness, will include the old timekeeping until the renaissance, industrial revolution, the inventions of computers and space travel and the near-ELE cataclysm of the final death knell of religion are all historical footnotes. Computers will need to understand the old timekeeping forever. We won't reduce the amount of bullshit humans deal with, we will have increased it. And with all that, the earth's orbit still won't be 1000 days. And all for what? So I can count the hours in a day without getting my feet cold? Woo!
  - marak830 10y ago
    Well we use to use cubits and chains for measuring everything too. Science is slowly moving to si, we should probably all start cobaidering a proper system for time that works around metric. I don't like the idea of explaining to my children that we use this system, because it's the way it has always been done. That's a horrible idea .
    - ChoHag 10y ago
      I look forward to teaching my child that we use this system and using its peculiarities to spawn discussions on number theory, astronomy, history, even art. Among other things.
seszett 10y ago
Well, the decimal calendar had 12 months of 30 days each, with either 5 or 6 extra days depending on leap years. Months had three ten-day "weeks". As you see, nobody is trying to fight physical reality, since day and year are hard lengths that you can't redefine. But decimal time, decimal calendar and more generally decimal units are all about trying to eliminate as much as possible the historical peculiarities that are not grounded in physical reality: The irregular length of months, the weird 24 hours in a day, and the base 60 which has been obsolete for millennia now. All of these do not give any advantage to the users of these units today. Divisibility by 3, 6 or 12 are useless today because we now master decimal numbers easily. I know Imperial units users still often use fractions, but metric units users don't, and it just works. Not once in my life have I been thinking "oh, how I wish I could express 0.41 centimeters in fractions". In the same way, your now 1-hour task would take you something like half a decimal hour instead, or 50 decimal minutes, and you wouldn't even think about it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ChoHag 10y ago
  > Well, the decimal calendar had 12 months of 30 days each, with either 5 or 6 extra days depending on leap years. So not 10^x, 10^y and 10^z consistently without the constant need for special-case exceptions? > Months had three ten-day "weeks". So not 10^x-day weeks then? > decimal [time-measuring] units are all about trying to eliminate as much as possible the historical peculiarities Eliminate? I think you mean change. > The irregular length of months, the weird 24 hours in a day, and the base 60 which has been obsolete for millennia now. All of these do not give any advantage to the users of these units today. There is nothing more right about 24 than 10, unless you need to take your socks off to count. There is nothing more right about 60 than 10, unless you need to take your friends' socks off to count. 10 gives advantages to people who count on their fingers. But, amusingly, less advantage to finger-counters than just about any other even-numbered base that isn't 2. > Divisibility by 3, 6 or 12 are useless today because we now master decimal numbers easily. I see you're a maths teacher! I, also, love the pure enthusiasm of the classroom. You can smell it a mile away. I think that's enough from me. The rest is just imposition anyway.

by ChoHag 10y ago

marak830 10y ago

Ahh I see what your getting at, I was a little lost by end of the chain. Well we could just convert a second, day, month, year into metric. (Thanks for the answer btw, was curious :-) )

ChoHag 10y ago
We could, but we gain nothing but more work. We can't not consider current timekeeping. There is exactly 0 chance we can get everybody to change in the same instant and even if they did history is still there. Education, and thus civilisation's shared consciousness, will include the old timekeeping until the renaissance, industrial revolution, the inventions of computers and space travel and the near-ELE cataclysm of the final death knell of religion are all historical footnotes. Computers will need to understand the old timekeeping forever. We won't reduce the amount of bullshit humans deal with, we will have increased it. And with all that, the earth's orbit still won't be 1000 days. And all for what? So I can count the hours in a day without getting my feet cold? Woo!
- marak830 10y ago
  Well we use to use cubits and chains for measuring everything too. Science is slowly moving to si, we should probably all start cobaidering a proper system for time that works around metric. I don't like the idea of explaining to my children that we use this system, because it's the way it has always been done. That's a horrible idea .
  - ChoHag 10y ago
    I look forward to teaching my child that we use this system and using its peculiarities to spawn discussions on number theory, astronomy, history, even art. Among other things.

seszett 10y ago

Well, the decimal calendar had 12 months of 30 days each, with either 5 or 6 extra days depending on leap years. Months had three ten-day "weeks". As you see, nobody is trying to fight physical reality, since day and year are hard lengths that you can't redefine. But decimal time, decimal calendar and more generally decimal units are all about trying to eliminate as much as possible the historical peculiarities that are not grounded in physical reality: The irregular length of months, the weird 24 hours in a day, and the base 60 which has been obsolete for millennia now. All of these do not give any advantage to the users of these units today. Divisibility by 3, 6 or 12 are useless today because we now master decimal numbers easily. I know Imperial units users still often use fractions, but metric units users don't, and it just works. Not once in my life have I been thinking "oh, how I wish I could express 0.41 centimeters in fractions". In the same way, your now 1-hour task would take you something like half a decimal hour instead, or 50 decimal minutes, and you wouldn't even think about it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ChoHag 10y ago
> Well, the decimal calendar had 12 months of 30 days each, with either 5 or 6 extra days depending on leap years. So not 10^x, 10^y and 10^z consistently without the constant need for special-case exceptions? > Months had three ten-day "weeks". So not 10^x-day weeks then? > decimal [time-measuring] units are all about trying to eliminate as much as possible the historical peculiarities Eliminate? I think you mean change. > The irregular length of months, the weird 24 hours in a day, and the base 60 which has been obsolete for millennia now. All of these do not give any advantage to the users of these units today. There is nothing more right about 24 than 10, unless you need to take your socks off to count. There is nothing more right about 60 than 10, unless you need to take your friends' socks off to count. 10 gives advantages to people who count on their fingers. But, amusingly, less advantage to finger-counters than just about any other even-numbered base that isn't 2. > Divisibility by 3, 6 or 12 are useless today because we now master decimal numbers easily. I see you're a maths teacher! I, also, love the pure enthusiasm of the classroom. You can smell it a mile away. I think that's enough from me. The rest is just imposition anyway.