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Fucking white people and their... shuffles deck, pulls card ... methods of timekeeping. Out of all things, the author picked time to pick on. Time is one of th
by blueflow 5y ago
Fucking white people and their... shuffles deck, pulls card ... methods of timekeeping.
Out of all things, the author picked time to pick on. Time is one of the few physical things that are objective and real and still can be quite directly experienced by all humans regardless of cultural context or biases.
Nonsense article.
- throwaway2048 5y ago
- inglor_cz 5y agoThere seems to be a bizarre race in the contemporary discourse: what else can have a "colonial" sticker put on? IDK if people derive some prestige from outdoing one another in this regard.
- decremental 5y ago
- pessimizer 5y ago
- gambiting 5y agoI think they absolutely do. There are certainly specific places online(and in real world too) where your societal standing is entirely dependent on how outraged you are, or what new sources of oppression you can identify each week. Bonus points for thinking of ones no one has yet accused of anything - like time! "In reality, this process had already been taking place throughout the 1800s as a result of European colonialism, imperialism and oppression. Colonialism was not just a conquest of land, and therefore space, but also a conquest of time. " Just poetry.
- llimos 5y agoNot my favourite Twitter account, but if you like that kind of thing here's a long list of examples https://twitter.com/titaniamcgrath/status/1281024006792060929 https://twitter.com/titaniamcgrath/status/128102400679206092...
- ciphol 5y agoYep. The article is apparently ignorant of the long history of sophisticated clocks in non-Western countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices)
- throw0101a 5y ago> Time is one of the few physical things that are objective and real […] Don't look too closely at it, as things can get squirrelly the deeper you dig: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rovelli Edit: For those downvoting, you may wish to look up the question "Does time exist?": * https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-exploding-commonsense-notions-order-of-time-interview https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/14/carlo-rovelli-... * https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1888683587729 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1888683587729 Calling it "objective and real" is… debatable. Certainly the "objective" part, as Einstein theorized and empirical observation has shown.
- tgv 5y agoTime may not be absolute, but calling gravity subjective is safer (after all, the arrow of time seems to be very much part of nature). However, I bet you still feel squeamish about jumping from anything higher than a meter.
- throw0101a 5y ago> (after all, the arrow of time seems to be very much part of nature) Rovelli has much to say about the Second Law and entropy: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rWqJhDv7M * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_of_Time_(book)
- bagacrap 5y agohow can you tell whether something is part of "nature" or just part of our nature?
- civilized 5y agoPeople have this strange idea that Einstein destroyed objectivity in physics and validated all their pet postmodern theories. It isn't true. In relativity, time is a variable that is different for each observer, but it is still objective. It's not a matter of opinion for each observer. There are formulas that determine how all the variables change, and any observer can know what the other observers' variables are by watching how they move through space and using the formulas. While some naive Newtonian concepts such as a single universal time metric stop working, there's no wiggle room for observer A and B to be inconsistent with one another based on their personal opinions. There is one objective reality and one objective way to quantify it mathematically. Time isn't a single universal quantity in relativity, but it's still objective. Einstein didn't turn physics into cultural anthropology.
- rini17 5y agoWhite man trope vs. noble savages is just that, a trope. The point was elsewhere, that we synchronize our whole lives to an artificial clock, is that absolutely necessary? For example, is is known that teenagers would have health benefits from later school start time but it's almost impossible to implement that due to rigid clocks of everybody else. In fact, everyone would benefit from a good sleep.
- marcosdumay 5y ago> is that absolutely necessary? When you go to a store, do you expect to know if it's open beforehand or getting there and finding it closed at random is ok?
- morelisp 5y agoShould be we optimizing society for the education of our youth or our shopping convenience?
- dpark 5y agoThese are not mutually exclusive. Schools still need clocks to coordinate regardless of what time they start.
- marcosdumay 5y agoWhen your kids go to their school, do you expect the teacher and classmates to be there too? It runs through all aspects of society.
- 52-6F-62 5y agoI can honestly say that in Dundas, Ontario that is my experience. My life has not suffered for it.
- couchand 5y agoI frequently go to stores that are open at the convenience of the owner. Often this is out in the country, but there's even one storefront near me in NYC that proudly says, "open by appointment and by luck". You quickly get used to the human-scale patterns. Once when I was in Munich I needed medicine on a Sunday. Despite the pharmacy's posted hours stating it would be closed, I was somehow able to raise the pharmacist and get the medicine I needed. I was very grateful that day to have a human in the loop. I hardly think store opening hours are a good argument for the "absolute necessity" of supreme rule of the wall clock.
- mhalle 5y agoI think the ubiquity of clocks in western societies points to the fact that time cannot be directly perceived. Our perceptions of time are both individual and circumstantial. For instance, time dilation slows the apparent passage of time during sudden trauma like a car crash. Even in computation, where time is ideally measured very precisely, event based applications are extremely common, far more so than absolute or even exact relative time applications. Time is computationally and culturally important because of the need to synchronize. But cross cultural synchronization of meetings is hard even at the basic level because prevailing attitudes of “On time” are different in, say, Germany, Spain, and China. Richard Lewis has written about these cultural differences of time. Here’s a sample of some of his observations. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-different-cultures-understand-time-2014-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-different-cultures-under...
- blueflow 5y agoDid one of your pets ever die on you? You don't need clocks to suffer the consequences of time. I think you are conflating time itself and measuring it (clocks).
- pessimizer 5y agoI think you're conflating time and the death of pets. Time doesn't kill pets, we use the death of pets to mark time (like clocks.) edit: My cat died. Now, I can say that I moved house after my cat died, that I got my car before my cat died, or that I met Bill around the time my cat died. Dead pets create time.
- fourseventy 5y agoYes time kills pets...
- pessimizer 5y agoNo, a complex set of decay processes kills pets; time doesn't do anything. We label things that happen with time to organize causes and effects. You might as well say that time does everything, but that's mistaking the way you keep track of a thing with the thing itself. Time typed this comment.
- mc32 5y agoIf there were only multiverses where people could go live out their fantasies. This author could go live in a world where the inhabitants don’t measure time. There probably wouldn’t be much scientific progress, but at least they get to live the reap the life they sowed.
- Scarblac 5y agoDid you just assume my acceleration?
- morelisp 5y ago> Time is one of the few physical things that are objective How's life in 1904?
- Taywee 5y agoRelativity is still objective. Objective does not mean constant.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Trasmatta 5y agoIt's also a Kafka Trap, where any attempt to disagree with the premise can be blamed on "white fragility".
- goodpoint 5y agoThe author is absolutely correct in claiming that the *importance* of time in a culture is... cultural. Timezones and DST are especially politically sensitive. See: https://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-the-time/ https://blog.poormansmath.net/the-time-it-takes-to-change-th... Same for the ideas around what is a reasonable time to sleep, eat, work. There are all sort of biases for/against early risers and owls across different societies. Sounds like you and the other commenters might have an axe to grind here.
- kelseyfrog 5y agoTinezones are a great example. Why should zones be moulded to fit any geographic or political boundaries? Surely time is above petty human inventions like national borders. If time was a permanent unyielding fact this shouldn't be possible. Yet we bend time when it's convenient by reshaping the zones by which time operates.
- dpark 5y agoWe bend clocks, not time. We bend them for convenience and it has nothing to do with whether time is an “unyielding fact”.
- kelseyfrog 5y agoThere is no time outside of our ability to measure it. Every such measuring device is a clock. Separating the two is a pointless reification of time.
- dpark 5y agoOf course time exists. Measurement does not create a thing. It quantifies it. Time exists regardless of measurement, just like mass, volume, voltage, etc. If time did not exist outside of measurement we would have no reason to measure it. We created clocks (and other devices) to measure the passage of time, but we were well aware of its passage before we measured it.
- kelseyfrog 5y agoTry to steelman this: the reification of the construct of time makes it appear as an independent objective object.
- snowwrestler 5y agoIf you want to get a sense for where the author is coming from, I would refer you to the many stories of Amazon workers who pee in bottles because the clock-based schedule imposed by their employer apparently does not permit even the flexibility for universal bodily functions. Depending on a where a driver is on their route, taking a piss might be 2-minute pop into a fast food bathroom, or a 20-minute diversion to find a bathroom. This is a good example of how important and basic human experiences don’t conform to the idea of universal and repeatable time increments that can be bolted together to make schedules. Instead of the schedule accommodating the person, the person must accommodate the schedule. This is what the author means when they say the clock creates time. One of the ways we measure power in society is the ability to resist this. The Amazon driver has to pee in a bottle to keep their job. But everyone has to wait for the CEO if they need the bathroom between meetings.
- Spooky23 5y agoThat’s about control, not time. Plenty of soldiers, laborers and miners shit their pants on duty because of the controls placed upon them. That has nothing to do with time or clocks.
- PeterisP 5y agoYou'd get the same things in ancient slave labor long before clocks were invented. It's not about time or clocks, it's about exploitation.
- podgaj 5y agoTime is objective? The measurement of time is objective but the feeling of time is not.
- huetius 5y agoThere have been a lot of perspectives on time through human history. The Mayans were very gifted astronomers, and built their temples such that the sun would shine exactly through a small portal at the top of the temple on the equinoxes. Christian basilicas and Jewish temples had similar timekeeping functions. The Greek and Roman pagans saw time as turbulent and cyclical, subject to the caprice of the gods. The pre-modern, Christian worldview saw time as a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, but also as a vertically-structured fractal of cycles within cycles, and our orientation within was ascending upwards to an eternity outside time and space. The Protestant fathers saw the linear progression of time forwards towards salvation as the true content of the gospel — that our orientation is forwards, towards the future. Some Maori saw our orientation in time as backwards, that we walk with our back towards the impenetrable future, with the past visible in front of us. None of these, however, saw time as an infinitely critiqueable, totally relative social construct with no given reality outside of humanly mutable, intersubjective power relations. This makes the author of the article, in my sincere opinion, the “whitest” of them all.