I think of it as a tangent because for the people I pointed to it's not a preference. It's not "easier" but rather, there is no other option but absolute direct

I think of it as a tangent because for the people I pointed to it's not a preference. It's not "easier" but rather, there is no other option but absolute directions. On another tangent, there are some fields which use relative date almost exclusively, like Ma used in paleontology and geology - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year#SI_prefix_multipliers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year#SI_prefix_multipliers and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myr . And "BP" is used in archeology and some other fields as a date before 1950 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present .