3 ms·

I'd go even further and divide every human settlement into multiple districts with schedules shifting gradually between them. Like, in one "district" of the ci

by barnacs 10y ago

I'd go even further and divide every human settlement into multiple districts with schedules shifting gradually between them. Like, in one "district" of the city most people would be sleeping, it would be quiet and somewhat dead, while at the same time a few "districts" over in the same city businesses would be open, including banks, offices and other stuff on extremely strict schedules currently. Yet in another district it would be leisure time, where most people would be doing whatever they do between sleep and work. The point is, you could always find the appropriate district for whatever you want to do, be it business, leisure, sleep or anything. Also, with digital timekeeping devices (watches, calendars, digital presentation of business hours, etc) schedules could all be dynamic. Instead of "2016-11-09 16:00" you could schedule things like "3 days and 2 hours from now" and all devices would dynamically keep track of how much time is left until the event.

emodendroket 10y ago
Sounds like a completely unworkable mess.
- barnacs 10y ago
  Why do you think so? I believe it would work better than the current system. We could utilize roads, vehicles, parking space, other infrastructure, as well as manpower more evenly. Rush hours are a weird concept and painful for pretty much everyone every day - waiting in traffic or lines is not much of a joy. The fact that 9-5 workers all work at the same time means that any one worker doesn't have much chance to take advantage of what other businesses have to offer. Like, if you work exactly at the same time banks and government offices are open, when do you even run your errands? And why do we assume that from say 10pm to 6am everyone just wants to keep quiet and rest? Fck that noisy pub down the road, let's just shut it down already! To put it another way, since we currently have no practical control over the passage of time, it would make sense to separate activities spatially instead.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    Well, for one thing, a great many people commute to their jobs. For another, I doubt the zones would be far enough apart in hyper-local time for this to actually help congestion at all. That's before we account for headaches of the time changing six times as you drive to the grocery store.
    - barnacs 10y ago
      I think in the future the number of people commuting to their jobs will be decreasing. Anyway, let's keep to the present. You could optimize the location of the zones for traffic. For example, we know that everyone will sleep at some point, so the resting zone could be at the center of the city. Then throughout the day, people would commute in and out of the center in all directions at about a constant rate. That's already a lot better if you consider road and parking space utilization, than 2x1 hour rushes in specific directions like we have now. The main benefit is spreading traffic across time, not space though. Also, rush hours are not limited to traffic. You can experience them in stores, offices, restaurants, pretty much everywhere as most people with 9-5 jobs try and run their errands in the very limited time before/after work. And time wouldn't change between zones, neither would our measurement of time. This is all in addition to abolishing time zones. Once you dump the notion of 'local time night is for sleeping, local time 9-5 is for working' all this seems like the next logical step to me.
      - grzm 10y ago
        "Once you dump the notion of 'local time night is for sleeping, local time 9-5 is for working' all this seems like the next logical step to me." Can you expand on this? I read this as setting up schedules to potentially rotate everyone's sleep/work schedules, independent of the diurnal cycle. Though I wonder if I'm not reading too much into it.
        barnacs 10y ago
        I didn't really mean to imply that, but it would be interesting to see how reliant humans are on ~24 hour cycles apart from convention. It may be more deeply rooted in the way of nature than our work/sleep/leisure schedule within such cycles and changes in temperature and natural light may throw off our biology but with so many advances in artifical lighting and temperature control we shouldn't be so strict as to not even experiment with it :)
uryga 10y ago
Interesting, but I'm pretty sure our body's metabolism is tied to daylight, and this system would be pretty unhealthy for the "night-shift" people in the long-term. (I don't have science on this) Also I'm not entirely sure what benefits this brings. Seems like the only ones who'd gain something are people dealing with international matters - a small fraction of society. Could you expand on the gains for the average Joanne? :)

by barnacs 10y ago

emodendroket 10y ago

Sounds like a completely unworkable mess.

barnacs 10y ago
Why do you think so? I believe it would work better than the current system. We could utilize roads, vehicles, parking space, other infrastructure, as well as manpower more evenly. Rush hours are a weird concept and painful for pretty much everyone every day - waiting in traffic or lines is not much of a joy. The fact that 9-5 workers all work at the same time means that any one worker doesn't have much chance to take advantage of what other businesses have to offer. Like, if you work exactly at the same time banks and government offices are open, when do you even run your errands? And why do we assume that from say 10pm to 6am everyone just wants to keep quiet and rest? Fck that noisy pub down the road, let's just shut it down already! To put it another way, since we currently have no practical control over the passage of time, it would make sense to separate activities spatially instead.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Well, for one thing, a great many people commute to their jobs. For another, I doubt the zones would be far enough apart in hyper-local time for this to actually help congestion at all. That's before we account for headaches of the time changing six times as you drive to the grocery store.
  - barnacs 10y ago
    I think in the future the number of people commuting to their jobs will be decreasing. Anyway, let's keep to the present. You could optimize the location of the zones for traffic. For example, we know that everyone will sleep at some point, so the resting zone could be at the center of the city. Then throughout the day, people would commute in and out of the center in all directions at about a constant rate. That's already a lot better if you consider road and parking space utilization, than 2x1 hour rushes in specific directions like we have now. The main benefit is spreading traffic across time, not space though. Also, rush hours are not limited to traffic. You can experience them in stores, offices, restaurants, pretty much everywhere as most people with 9-5 jobs try and run their errands in the very limited time before/after work. And time wouldn't change between zones, neither would our measurement of time. This is all in addition to abolishing time zones. Once you dump the notion of 'local time night is for sleeping, local time 9-5 is for working' all this seems like the next logical step to me.
    - grzm 10y ago
      "Once you dump the notion of 'local time night is for sleeping, local time 9-5 is for working' all this seems like the next logical step to me." Can you expand on this? I read this as setting up schedules to potentially rotate everyone's sleep/work schedules, independent of the diurnal cycle. Though I wonder if I'm not reading too much into it.
      - barnacs 10y ago
        I didn't really mean to imply that, but it would be interesting to see how reliant humans are on ~24 hour cycles apart from convention. It may be more deeply rooted in the way of nature than our work/sleep/leisure schedule within such cycles and changes in temperature and natural light may throw off our biology but with so many advances in artifical lighting and temperature control we shouldn't be so strict as to not even experiment with it :)

uryga 10y ago

Interesting, but I'm pretty sure our body's metabolism is tied to daylight, and this system would be pretty unhealthy for the "night-shift" people in the long-term. (I don't have science on this) Also I'm not entirely sure what benefits this brings. Seems like the only ones who'd gain something are people dealing with international matters - a small fraction of society. Could you expand on the gains for the average Joanne? :)