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In grade school I would hold out for about a month after the switch to Daylight Savings Time: anytime somebody asked me for the time, I would provide it with an

In grade school I would hold out for about a month after the switch to Daylight Savings Time: anytime somebody asked me for the time, I would provide it with an hour offset to what they were expecting, and when they quoted a time in their system, I was vocal about correcting it to the original time zone. Somehow I was the nuisance for doing this, even though I think it’s quite clear that _they_ were the ones making time-keeping more difficult here - everything was working out just fine until they decided to change the meaning of 2pm for half of the year. If we’ve somehow got an entire society that can play gymnastics with time in this way, and claim to wrap their head around it, I don’t think changing the calendar is really a huge ask. But I think the only way to pull it off is for the government to mandate its use. There's just not enough interest in fighting the currents for this to reach critical mass otherwise. That said, I’m not convinced of the value of this calendar. Months are constructs that don’t have much meaning, but so are weeks - we could ax them both and just quote dates in terms of the numerical day within the year, for example. Or we could keep around weeks, but divide the year into quarters instead of months — that seems the most business friendly thing, and people already tend to think of the year in terms of four seasons outside of business; I wonder if Kodak considered it. Or, we could keep around the idea of weeks but rearrange them to be 10 days long to better fit with our decimal number system (7 days on, 3 days off? I might be amenable to that). I guess months are valuable for businesses which provide long-term services and bill by the month, like ISPs or credit cards. But I’m hesitant to rebuild our time system to suit a business use-case that’s particularly widespread _today_ without some plan on how to easily change it when it no longer is useful. DST was founded in a similar way, and now we’re stuck with it for way longer than it ever made sense to keep it around.

SSLy 8y ago
>Or, we could keep around the idea of weeks but rearrange them to be 10 days long to better fit with our decimal number system (7 days on, 3 days off? I might be amenable to that). Of all the things mentioned above this one won't be accepted by the general population, ever. It was tried already in the revolutionary France, and is one of the few things that were rolled back.
SkyMarshal 8y ago
>If we’ve somehow got an entire society that can play gymnastics with time in this way, and claim to wrap their head around it, I don’t think changing the calendar is really a huge ask. But I think the only way to pull it off is for the government to mandate its use. There's just not enough interest in fighting the currents for this to reach critical mass otherwise. While we’re at it let’s convert to the Metric System too. Rip all the bandaids off at once.
- jorjordandan 8y ago
  You must be from the US, Liberia or Myanmar.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Or the UK, where they drive in miles and weigh themselves in Stones. In the USA, you can buy soda in liters and most cars use metric wrenches.
    - gregknicholson 8y ago
      In the UK, you can buy pop in litres :)
- bluejekyll 8y ago
  While I agree in theory, in practice it’s still a bigger problem, as actual infrastructure needs to be changed for the metric system. As was proven with the recent change of the DST dates, most calendars are handled by computers these days. It would be relatively straightforward to change the calendar. There would be problems though. Monthly payments for things, for example, would need to be adjusted. So there would still need to be significant lead time.
  - Tsubasachan 8y ago
    Other countries have done it in modern times, the UK for one.
roenxi 8y ago
> If we’ve somehow got an entire society that can play gymnastics with time in this way, and claim to wrap their head around it, I don’t think changing the calendar is really a huge ask. It wouldn't even be the first time. September, October, November and December are _clearly_ meant to be 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th month. I always thought that July & August were the interlopers, being named after Emperors, but I read somewhere that I was wrong. I share your frustration that there is a faction who seems to have dedicated their existence to making time as irregular as possible.
- dwcnnnghm 8y ago
  I had believed something similar. They are definitely remnants of a 10 month calendar, but July and August were existing months (Quintilis and Sextilis, respectively) renamed for the emperors. January and February appear to be the additions [0]. There is quite a bit of interesting history in the rest of that article about how the months have changed. I can't remember if I'd read about a past society that did this, or it was an idea someone had proposed for a future one, but I love the idea of a 360 day year (12 months, 30 days each), with a 5 or 6 (leap year) day festival at the end commemorating the New Year. It would change birthdays for everyone born after January 30, which seems like it'd cause enough outrage to prevent it, but it's a fun thought! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Legendary_10-month_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Legendary_10-mo...
- jcranmer 8y ago
  The history of the Roman calendar is somewhat unclear. The Julian reform is well-attested, as is the immediately pre-Julian calendar. This latter calendar is 12 months starting with January with day lengths of 29/28/31/29/31/29/31/29/29/31/29/29, plus an occasional intercalary month of 27 days whose insertion caused February to shrink to 23 days. The Romans themselves maintained that before the Republican calendar, the year consisted of 10 months of alternating 30/31 days, with the winter months (of what would be January and February) consisting of a vague collection of days omitting a fixed month. But this explanation is dated essentially to people writing "what we used a millennium ago," and there's no attestation of this calendar much closer to its usage period. In any case, it's definitive that the year used to start in March. When and why it transitioned to January is unclear. For what it's worth, even after most of Western Europe transitioned to using a Julian calendar, the starting date was quite inconsistent until very late. (England only switched in the 18th century, at the same time it adopted Gregorian calendar).
philistine 8y ago
Weeks are exceedingly important constructs! They're the whole reason any hare-brained scheme never amounted to anything. They are used by religious communities. When your god says you must do something on Sunday or Saturday or Friday, you're not going to listen to anyone trying to tell you we don't need any of those. I mean you're fighting against multiple gods if you're trying to change the nature of weeks. Just like all the past attempts, you'll fail. I am an atheist and I know this.
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  True. Even in my thoroughly atheist and liberal nation of birth I get payed double when I work on Sunday. I have no special feelings for it, Sunday or Monday its all the same to me. But thousands of years history and culture can't be erased easily.

SSLy 8y ago

>Or, we could keep around the idea of weeks but rearrange them to be 10 days long to better fit with our decimal number system (7 days on, 3 days off? I might be amenable to that). Of all the things mentioned above this one won't be accepted by the general population, ever. It was tried already in the revolutionary France, and is one of the few things that were rolled back.

SkyMarshal 8y ago

>If we’ve somehow got an entire society that can play gymnastics with time in this way, and claim to wrap their head around it, I don’t think changing the calendar is really a huge ask. But I think the only way to pull it off is for the government to mandate its use. There's just not enough interest in fighting the currents for this to reach critical mass otherwise. While we’re at it let’s convert to the Metric System too. Rip all the bandaids off at once.

jorjordandan 8y ago
You must be from the US, Liberia or Myanmar.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Or the UK, where they drive in miles and weigh themselves in Stones. In the USA, you can buy soda in liters and most cars use metric wrenches.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    In the UK, you can buy pop in litres :)
bluejekyll 8y ago
While I agree in theory, in practice it’s still a bigger problem, as actual infrastructure needs to be changed for the metric system. As was proven with the recent change of the DST dates, most calendars are handled by computers these days. It would be relatively straightforward to change the calendar. There would be problems though. Monthly payments for things, for example, would need to be adjusted. So there would still need to be significant lead time.
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  Other countries have done it in modern times, the UK for one.

roenxi 8y ago

> If we’ve somehow got an entire society that can play gymnastics with time in this way, and claim to wrap their head around it, I don’t think changing the calendar is really a huge ask. It wouldn't even be the first time. September, October, November and December are _clearly_ meant to be 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th month. I always thought that July & August were the interlopers, being named after Emperors, but I read somewhere that I was wrong. I share your frustration that there is a faction who seems to have dedicated their existence to making time as irregular as possible.

dwcnnnghm 8y ago
I had believed something similar. They are definitely remnants of a 10 month calendar, but July and August were existing months (Quintilis and Sextilis, respectively) renamed for the emperors. January and February appear to be the additions [0]. There is quite a bit of interesting history in the rest of that article about how the months have changed. I can't remember if I'd read about a past society that did this, or it was an idea someone had proposed for a future one, but I love the idea of a 360 day year (12 months, 30 days each), with a 5 or 6 (leap year) day festival at the end commemorating the New Year. It would change birthdays for everyone born after January 30, which seems like it'd cause enough outrage to prevent it, but it's a fun thought! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Legendary_10-month_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Legendary_10-mo...
jcranmer 8y ago
The history of the Roman calendar is somewhat unclear. The Julian reform is well-attested, as is the immediately pre-Julian calendar. This latter calendar is 12 months starting with January with day lengths of 29/28/31/29/31/29/31/29/29/31/29/29, plus an occasional intercalary month of 27 days whose insertion caused February to shrink to 23 days. The Romans themselves maintained that before the Republican calendar, the year consisted of 10 months of alternating 30/31 days, with the winter months (of what would be January and February) consisting of a vague collection of days omitting a fixed month. But this explanation is dated essentially to people writing "what we used a millennium ago," and there's no attestation of this calendar much closer to its usage period. In any case, it's definitive that the year used to start in March. When and why it transitioned to January is unclear. For what it's worth, even after most of Western Europe transitioned to using a Julian calendar, the starting date was quite inconsistent until very late. (England only switched in the 18th century, at the same time it adopted Gregorian calendar).

philistine 8y ago

Weeks are exceedingly important constructs! They're the whole reason any hare-brained scheme never amounted to anything. They are used by religious communities. When your god says you must do something on Sunday or Saturday or Friday, you're not going to listen to anyone trying to tell you we don't need any of those. I mean you're fighting against multiple gods if you're trying to change the nature of weeks. Just like all the past attempts, you'll fail. I am an atheist and I know this.

Tsubasachan 8y ago
True. Even in my thoroughly atheist and liberal nation of birth I get payed double when I work on Sunday. I have no special feelings for it, Sunday or Monday its all the same to me. But thousands of years history and culture can't be erased easily.