3 ms·

More to the point, you cease to be able to predict what people many miles away from you are doing: It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? The way thi

by msla 5y ago

More to the point, you cease to be able to predict what people many miles away from you are doing: It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? The way things work now, it's approximately midnight in Denver, or close enough that the safe answer to the question "What is my business partner in Denver doing?" is "Sleeping" which neatly answers the question of what their likely response will be were I to call them now. Now, imagine we abolish time zones: It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? It's 6 AM. It's 6 AM in Beijing, in Cairo, in Honolulu, at McMurdo Station, and in Sidney, Montana. I have little idea what anyone in Denver is doing, unless I happen to know that Denver is placed such that their dawn is six-ish hours after mine. But I have no way to express that conveniently, and nobody else thinks in those terms, so I can't build up a database of such information. At least, not without reinventing something... It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? What would I be... It's 6 AM in London. Something occurs... The clock is striking thirteen. I almost... DENHAM'S DENTIFRICE! Consider the lilies of tzdata... DENHAM'S... Sorry, got a bit caught up there.

majormajor 5y ago
> It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? > The way things work now, it's approximately midnight in Denver, or close enough that the safe answer to the question "What is my business partner in Denver doing?" is "Sleeping" which neatly answers the question of what their likely response will be were I to call them now. Memorizing a timezone offset is basically still what you'd need to do. To know that it's approximately midnight in Denver, you have to have that memorized or look it up. Once you have that 6 hour number, in a single-timezone world, you'd simply say "ok what were people here doing 6 hours ago?" and you'd have your same answer. Of course people would still publish those sorts of "conversion tables"/offsets, because people would still have that exact problem! But they'd possibly be a bit more precise than historically - with current computer tech, it might actually be more accurate, e.g. using actual GPS coords instead of broad swaths, so it would be like "Denver is 6.24 (or whatever) hours behind your current location." Let alone how much better that might work for cities in single-timezone China, say. (I'm personally against this idea, anyway, but that particular argument has never satisfied me.)
- msla 5y ago
  > Of course people would still publish those sorts of "conversion tables"/offsets, because people would still have that exact problem! But they'd possibly be a bit more precise than historically - with current computer tech, it might actually be more accurate, e.g. using actual GPS coords instead of broad swaths, so it would be like "Denver is 6.24 (or whatever) hours behind your current location." Let alone how much better that might work for cities in single-timezone China, say. This is keeping (a rationalized version of) time zones in every respect except for how people set their clocks. In the system you propose, people would operate at the equivalent of 9 AM to 5 PM, except you expect that they'd quote different times (even with fractional hours) to maintain the façade that time zones no longer exist. A business no longer operates nine to five, it's 1:15 PM to 9:15 PM, and people can't just say "Oh, Denver is six hours behind London right now" because Denver isn't exactly ninety degrees west of London. Ironically, aside from everyone around the world setting their clocks to the same time, that's how time worked prior to the introduction of time zones, so I can't fault you for coming up with that idea.

by msla 5y ago

majormajor 5y ago

> It's 6 AM in London. What time is it in Denver? > The way things work now, it's approximately midnight in Denver, or close enough that the safe answer to the question "What is my business partner in Denver doing?" is "Sleeping" which neatly answers the question of what their likely response will be were I to call them now. Memorizing a timezone offset is basically still what you'd need to do. To know that it's approximately midnight in Denver, you have to have that memorized or look it up. Once you have that 6 hour number, in a single-timezone world, you'd simply say "ok what were people here doing 6 hours ago?" and you'd have your same answer. Of course people would still publish those sorts of "conversion tables"/offsets, because people would still have that exact problem! But they'd possibly be a bit more precise than historically - with current computer tech, it might actually be more accurate, e.g. using actual GPS coords instead of broad swaths, so it would be like "Denver is 6.24 (or whatever) hours behind your current location." Let alone how much better that might work for cities in single-timezone China, say. (I'm personally against this idea, anyway, but that particular argument has never satisfied me.)

msla 5y ago
> Of course people would still publish those sorts of "conversion tables"/offsets, because people would still have that exact problem! But they'd possibly be a bit more precise than historically - with current computer tech, it might actually be more accurate, e.g. using actual GPS coords instead of broad swaths, so it would be like "Denver is 6.24 (or whatever) hours behind your current location." Let alone how much better that might work for cities in single-timezone China, say. This is keeping (a rationalized version of) time zones in every respect except for how people set their clocks. In the system you propose, people would operate at the equivalent of 9 AM to 5 PM, except you expect that they'd quote different times (even with fractional hours) to maintain the façade that time zones no longer exist. A business no longer operates nine to five, it's 1:15 PM to 9:15 PM, and people can't just say "Oh, Denver is six hours behind London right now" because Denver isn't exactly ninety degrees west of London. Ironically, aside from everyone around the world setting their clocks to the same time, that's how time worked prior to the introduction of time zones, so I can't fault you for coming up with that idea.