5 ms·

Inventing new time concepts, now and then, is very narrow sighted. Think of archaeologists in 1000 years from now come over documents with 100 different time c

Inventing new time concepts, now and then, is very narrow sighted. Think of archaeologists in 1000 years from now come over documents with 100 different time concepts. B.C. and A.D. suffice, anything else is political nonsense or anti-religious propaganda.

antonvs 8y ago
> B.C. and A.D. suffice, anything else is political nonsense or anti-religious propaganda. You should read up on the history of the Common Era to correct your parochial misconceptions.
rhplus 8y ago
AD/BC has a fundamental counting flaw [1] which is accounted for by ISO 8601 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Years
- XparentX 8y ago
  I agree, but (I don’t want to start any flame wars here) there is a well known narrative that explains the AD and BC. It has been around in 2000 years and will probably be around some 1000 years more. In Sweden we have been discussing about what type of signs should we put up to warn for nuclear waste. Will people in thousand of years be able to understand and decide the warnings? Same with time concepts, the future must have a sporting chance to understand what we where talking about.
  - jacobr 8y ago
    It has not been around for 2000 years, more like 1200 years in common use in parts of the world.
    - hnbroseph 8y ago
      and i think principally in 'christendom' for most of that, it was later that other parts of the world started accommodating it for pragmatic reasons like international commerce - or were 'required' to accommodate on account of various forms of colonial endeavor.
- dfxm12 8y ago
  I wonder what the practical side effects are of being off by one when discussing events that happened c. thousands of years ago.
  - mncharity 8y ago
    > I wonder what the practical side effects are of being off by one when discussing events that happened c. thousands of years ago. A days-as-dots representation[1] has one day precision at a thousand years BP, and since accuracy of a day or week is often possible, it was actually an issue. Wrestling with "everyone has their own odd calendar" was a pain. [1] "History shown with days as dots - so centuries fit on a screen"'s "Days-as-dots demo" was basically an exploratory UX test piece: http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/QEt9x http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/QEt9x . The Google Books and Google Newspapers links are regrettably rotted - it was great fun to click on random days in the 1800's and 1900's and read random newspapers of that day. :/ The inset NY Tribune from the Library of Congress still works. My fuzzy impression is the google newspapers database is simply unavailable now?
mcguire 8y ago
Given that dates in the past were often counted from the beginning of the reign of the local king, they're probably used to it.
- sp332 8y ago
  A.D. is the exact same tradition as that, just continued indefinitely. (It's an abbreviation of the Latin for "Year of Our Lord".)
stagger87 8y ago
I like that a lot of textbooks and history books are moving over to BCE/CE. I don't consider it propaganda.
- throwaway37585 8y ago
  They are numerically equivalent.
drcode 8y ago
I think you missed the most important point, in that radiologic dating after 1950ish is a lot less accurate due to nuclear testing- It would ABSOLUTELY be important for an archeologist in 1000 years to have special knowledge about these changes around the year 1950 in order to do their job properly.
hnbroseph 8y ago
> or anti-religious propaganda i think this is misleading if not a bit ethnocentric (or rather religiocentric?). the islamic, jewish and hindi calendars all have different numbered years, and presumably most others. to turn this around, the fixation on AD and rejection of other proposals could be described as christian supremacist 'propaganda'. it 'suffices' because it accommodates to your comfort and privilege.

antonvs 8y ago

> B.C. and A.D. suffice, anything else is political nonsense or anti-religious propaganda. You should read up on the history of the Common Era to correct your parochial misconceptions.

rhplus 8y ago

AD/BC has a fundamental counting flaw [1] which is accounted for by ISO 8601 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Years

XparentX 8y ago
I agree, but (I don’t want to start any flame wars here) there is a well known narrative that explains the AD and BC. It has been around in 2000 years and will probably be around some 1000 years more. In Sweden we have been discussing about what type of signs should we put up to warn for nuclear waste. Will people in thousand of years be able to understand and decide the warnings? Same with time concepts, the future must have a sporting chance to understand what we where talking about.
- jacobr 8y ago
  It has not been around for 2000 years, more like 1200 years in common use in parts of the world.
  - hnbroseph 8y ago
    and i think principally in 'christendom' for most of that, it was later that other parts of the world started accommodating it for pragmatic reasons like international commerce - or were 'required' to accommodate on account of various forms of colonial endeavor.
dfxm12 8y ago
I wonder what the practical side effects are of being off by one when discussing events that happened c. thousands of years ago.
- mncharity 8y ago
  > I wonder what the practical side effects are of being off by one when discussing events that happened c. thousands of years ago. A days-as-dots representation[1] has one day precision at a thousand years BP, and since accuracy of a day or week is often possible, it was actually an issue. Wrestling with "everyone has their own odd calendar" was a pain. [1] "History shown with days as dots - so centuries fit on a screen"'s "Days-as-dots demo" was basically an exploratory UX test piece: http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/QEt9x http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/QEt9x . The Google Books and Google Newspapers links are regrettably rotted - it was great fun to click on random days in the 1800's and 1900's and read random newspapers of that day. :/ The inset NY Tribune from the Library of Congress still works. My fuzzy impression is the google newspapers database is simply unavailable now?

mcguire 8y ago

Given that dates in the past were often counted from the beginning of the reign of the local king, they're probably used to it.

sp332 8y ago
A.D. is the exact same tradition as that, just continued indefinitely. (It's an abbreviation of the Latin for "Year of Our Lord".)

stagger87 8y ago

I like that a lot of textbooks and history books are moving over to BCE/CE. I don't consider it propaganda.

throwaway37585 8y ago
They are numerically equivalent.

drcode 8y ago

I think you missed the most important point, in that radiologic dating after 1950ish is a lot less accurate due to nuclear testing- It would ABSOLUTELY be important for an archeologist in 1000 years to have special knowledge about these changes around the year 1950 in order to do their job properly.

hnbroseph 8y ago

> or anti-religious propaganda i think this is misleading if not a bit ethnocentric (or rather religiocentric?). the islamic, jewish and hindi calendars all have different numbered years, and presumably most others. to turn this around, the fixation on AD and rejection of other proposals could be described as christian supremacist 'propaganda'. it 'suffices' because it accommodates to your comfort and privilege.