3 ms·

Cool project. Every date on your site seems to have an extra 1 appended to the start.

johnmorrison 7y ago
This is the Human Era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar) I believe it is a humbler, more appropriate calendar for talking about human history. I use it on my personal site because I don't need to conform to societal standards on my own site (although I don't use arguably superior numbering systems like dozenal or base-60 because that would be far too confusing) I feel that Gregorian makes it pointlessly difficult to talk about anything between 10k BC and 0BC, and warps intuitive understanding of some of the most important time periods in human history - for example, ancient Rome sounds ancient, but understanding that it existed 10,000 years into human society and we are only 20% later is helpful. Personally, I think the ~0BC Mediterranean societies carried out some of the most important and interesting work of humanity, and I'd like to improve my feel for the course of history around and since those times. I'll probably do a blog post soon with an interactive map and calendar from 0 HE to 12,020 HE that really showcases the true time in between important historical periods.
- madhadron 7y ago
  I hadn't run across the Holocene calendar before. Interesting. I have a similar peeve around the diagrams showing the history of earth as a day and humans evolving in the last second or so, which makes our tiny sliver of time seem like "the end" as opposed to a tiny sliver on the way to the earth getting burned up by the aging sun.
  - johnmorrison 7y ago
    This is a really great thought! I hadn't considered that before but what you're saying is really important for intuition as well, I think, for considering something like the Fermi paradox or great filter. Perhaps not only is the Earth a rare planet with the right characteristics to support sentient life, but perhaps too we have evolved in a very tiny window between two much longer periods in Earth's life where something like a human cannot evolve. It's always good to remember that where you are right now in your life is just in the middle of what will one day be a much longer past.

This is the Human Era (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar) I believe it is a humbler, more appropriate calendar for talking about human history. I use it on my personal site because I don't need to conform to societal standards on my own site (although I don't use arguably superior numbering systems like dozenal or base-60 because that would be far too confusing) I feel that Gregorian makes it pointlessly difficult to talk about anything between 10k BC and 0BC, and warps intuitive understanding of some of the most important time periods in human history - for example, ancient Rome sounds ancient, but understanding that it existed 10,000 years into human society and we are only 20% later is helpful. Personally, I think the ~0BC Mediterranean societies carried out some of the most important and interesting work of humanity, and I'd like to improve my feel for the course of history around and since those times. I'll probably do a blog post soon with an interactive map and calendar from 0 HE to 12,020 HE that really showcases the true time in between important historical periods.

madhadron 7y ago
I hadn't run across the Holocene calendar before. Interesting. I have a similar peeve around the diagrams showing the history of earth as a day and humans evolving in the last second or so, which makes our tiny sliver of time seem like "the end" as opposed to a tiny sliver on the way to the earth getting burned up by the aging sun.
- johnmorrison 7y ago
  This is a really great thought! I hadn't considered that before but what you're saying is really important for intuition as well, I think, for considering something like the Fermi paradox or great filter. Perhaps not only is the Earth a rare planet with the right characteristics to support sentient life, but perhaps too we have evolved in a very tiny window between two much longer periods in Earth's life where something like a human cannot evolve. It's always good to remember that where you are right now in your life is just in the middle of what will one day be a much longer past.