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Their example is silly and I can’t get over how silly. It starts with the assumption that somehow you know it’s 4:25am in another country across the world. How
by ogre_codes 6y ago
Their example is silly and I can’t get over how silly.
It starts with the assumption that somehow you know it’s 4:25am in another country across the world. How do you know this? Because you are aware there are difference in time of day between one place and the next. Armed with that knowledge you are required to do math about appropriate calling times regardless of whether there are time zones or not.
But it’s even worse than that. Most of us don’t just take a crapshoot and guess whether it’s normal waking hours and shoot off a random phone call. Knowing when it’s a good time to call someone is more important and often you arrange calls before hand via text or email. With time zones the conversation (via text message or email I assume) goes something like this: Q: “When can is a good time to call you?” A: “Any time between 8am and 10am is fine”... now you have a math problem to solve to know when you can call. Without time zones, the answer is immediately clear and relevant to you.
Quite often you don’t even know what time zone the other person is in.
Likewise, businesses can post their hours publicly and people don’t have to do math to figure out whether they can call AmCo in the UK at 9:45.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ifdefdebug 6y agoDo you live somewhere not far from Greenwich meridian? Because otherwise "oh, it's 03am, high noon, time for lunch" or "13h00, bed time" feels awkward to me...
- tooltower 6y agoOne can argue that's just social conditioning. If you grew up with 3 am being lunch time, then it won't feel awkward. And you'll just accept that everyone in the world has a different lunchtime.
- heterodoxxed 6y agoYou're right, it is social conditioning; like a warm December in Australia.
- chias 6y agoIf you grew up with 3am being lunch time it won't feel awkward, until of course you move somewhere where 3am is sleep time and then it's awkward again.
- notahacker 6y agoA mid-morning switch of date would take a bit more getting used to, but yeah, the time alignment isn't that weird considering we already handle quirks like some cultures having mid afternoon naps
- ogre_codes 6y agoI think switching days in the middle of the workday is the single biggest good argument for time zones. When lunch is is something you’d get used to quick. Having it be Monday before lunch and Tuesday after would be a head F*. It would also screw with date calculations in a big way. Having the whole of North America on one big time zone would be fairly easy. This is basically what China does.
- ogre_codes 6y agoNo, don’t live near Greenwich but I’ve never quite understood why 12:00 is lunch time, it’s just an arbitrary number. My lunch time is 20:00 Zulu. It’s just as relevant a number as 12:00 PST.
- xwolfi 6y agoWithout time zones part of the answer is obvious indeed but the other, previously very easy (what phase of the sun is it: will you be tired or just waking up during our meeting) completely absent. Timezone are super convenient and if you dislike it you can take the time at a previous colonizer of your choice, say england, and just use BST time with each other.
- hodgesrm 6y agoNot sure if you are arguing for or against time zones. Here's my two cents. I work with a team spread over 11 time zones and talk to them constantly on Slack and email. Time zone math is simple: just add or subtract the offset to see if it's a good time to ping them. I know where people are already. Hard to see a problem with this. The one thing that's really confusing is daylight savings time. That is a mess and should be eliminated, because every major region does it differently. It's a mess even within regions like the US, where the word "capricious" comes lightly to mind.
- Osiris 6y agoThat require you to know the offset. That's no different than knowing what hour their morning starts.
- hodgesrm 6y agoKids usually go to school around 8am and that families eat dinner around 7pm. Those times are similar in many places. I try to remember events throughout the day, not just when they arrive at work because I tend to make judgement calls about scheduling people's time based on what I know about their entire daily schedule. All you have to remember is the offset and everything else fits.
- issamehh 6y agoYou have to know the offset though. And if it is with multiple people you might even have multiple offsets. There's nothing easier about offsets over differing work times
- ogre_codes 6y agoAll you care about is the offset, regardless of whether time zones exist or not. Knowing the east coast is 3 hours ahead of us, I know calling at 8PM is probably a bad idea. You don’t need that intermediate step of figuring out what number is associated with that on the east coast. You don’t care that Bob is in EST, you just need to know that he’s 3 hours ahead of you.