5 ms·

Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is.

by neolog 6y ago

tialaramex 6y ago
It is parochial but probably from a different perspective than your parent intended. The universe does not actually have universal time. We're stuck on this little ball of rock, so this could actually work for Humans on Earth if they wanted it to. But you couldn't do this if your civilisation is much bigger. The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right?
- frosted-flakes 6y ago
  It wouldn't change anything except make the math a bit harder. There are actually timezones that are offset half an hour from the adjacent one, like Newfoundland, and it works just fine.
- smegger001 6y ago
  I am imagining a 1000 years form now the rest of the solar system is trying to get earth knock off this bullshit timezones plus daylight savings time and just use UTC like everyone else
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right? They aren't arbitrary. They're a compromise/trade-off between several conflicting goods (e.g. aligning the clock to solar time and using time for regional coordination). If you change their number/size on goal will get worse and the other better.
deleted 6y ago
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tablespoon 6y ago
> Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is. Parochial in the sense that he's advocating major societal changes based on his narrow interests as a software developer. It's like if I went on a foreign vacation, and after some communication difficulties, saying the whole world should drop their local languages and standardize on English because I'm an English-speaker, and, by the way, a common language would make international commerce more efficient. The proposal is mainly a selfish one to slightly reduce my costs at massive cost to others, and my non-selfish (non-parochial) "reason" for it is prioritizing a minor use-cases over far more common ones. If we abolished local time/time zones in favor of universal time, it'd just get re-invented again.

Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is.

by neolog 6y ago

Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is.

It is parochial but probably from a different perspective than your parent intended. The universe does not actually have universal time. We're stuck on this little ball of rock, so this could actually work for Humans on Earth if they wanted it to. But you couldn't do this if your civilisation is much bigger. The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right?

frosted-flakes 6y ago
It wouldn't change anything except make the math a bit harder. There are actually timezones that are offset half an hour from the adjacent one, like Newfoundland, and it works just fine.
smegger001 6y ago
I am imagining a 1000 years form now the rest of the solar system is trying to get earth knock off this bullshit timezones plus daylight savings time and just use UTC like everyone else
tablespoon 6y ago
> The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right? They aren't arbitrary. They're a compromise/trade-off between several conflicting goods (e.g. aligning the clock to solar time and using time for regional coordination). If you change their number/size on goal will get worse and the other better.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tablespoon 6y ago

> Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is. Parochial in the sense that he's advocating major societal changes based on his narrow interests as a software developer. It's like if I went on a foreign vacation, and after some communication difficulties, saying the whole world should drop their local languages and standardize on English because I'm an English-speaker, and, by the way, a common language would make international commerce more efficient. The proposal is mainly a selfish one to slightly reduce my costs at massive cost to others, and my non-selfish (non-parochial) "reason" for it is prioritizing a minor use-cases over far more common ones. If we abolished local time/time zones in favor of universal time, it'd just get re-invented again.