3 ms·

Not really. It only changes the numbers on a clock. Whether the clock says 1900 or 2300 doesn't inherently need to relate to anything about the rotational axi

Not really. It only changes the numbers on a clock. Whether the clock says 1900 or 2300 doesn't inherently need to relate to anything about the rotational axis or sunrise/sunset, latitude, astrological readings of the zodiac, etc. Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Timezones are what makes that bad in the first place! This idea that we for some reason need to keep changing and tinkering with the labels on the clocks due to flaky political reasons is just a silly old superstitious tradition. Just pick one timezone and let's all use it already. In fact, you can already see how well that can work if you live away from the equator. As the year progresses, the days get shorter and longer day by day - but we don't adjust the clocks by a couple of minutes every single day. Because it doesn't matter whether the clock labels match up with the sunlight. If it did in fact matter, then we'd need special clocks that sometimes run faster during daylight and sometimes slower, depending on latitude and date so that we get the same number of 'minutes' of daylight at the same 'times' each day even though the actual lengths and times vary. But we don't do that of course both because it would be totally nonsensical, and also because it doesn't matter.

tzs 4y ago
> Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Whoever picks 2300 for the coordinated activity still usually needs to know how far east/west the other parties are from them in order to pick a time that they all will be awake, which generally means a time that is during the daytime in their locations, and for many activities also should be a time during normal business hours in each person's location. Their normal business hours will generally be shifted about one hour for every 15° longitude difference. People will generally prefer normal business hours in a given area to be the same to make it easier to coordinate local events. And so we still end up with zones based on longitude where within the zone business hours and other periodic daily things are coordinated to fall at the same time, and those times are shifted from those in the adjacent zones.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Additionally, either the calendar day boundary is tied to 00:00 new-UTC, which would be incredibly awkward for everybody not living near wherever the meridian ends up (which invariable will be a large fraction of the world's population, no matter which meridian you end up choosing), because now all of a sudden the calendar day changes in the middle of everybody's waking hours (public holidays starting and stopping at e.g. 2 o'clock in the afternoon anyone?), or else each location needs to offset the calendar date change by some suitable value so it ends up roughly were it used to be (i.e. at a time when most people sleep), which again means basically re-introducing time zones through the back door.

tzs 4y ago

> Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Whoever picks 2300 for the coordinated activity still usually needs to know how far east/west the other parties are from them in order to pick a time that they all will be awake, which generally means a time that is during the daytime in their locations, and for many activities also should be a time during normal business hours in each person's location. Their normal business hours will generally be shifted about one hour for every 15° longitude difference. People will generally prefer normal business hours in a given area to be the same to make it easier to coordinate local events. And so we still end up with zones based on longitude where within the zone business hours and other periodic daily things are coordinated to fall at the same time, and those times are shifted from those in the adjacent zones.

iggldiggl 4y ago
Additionally, either the calendar day boundary is tied to 00:00 new-UTC, which would be incredibly awkward for everybody not living near wherever the meridian ends up (which invariable will be a large fraction of the world's population, no matter which meridian you end up choosing), because now all of a sudden the calendar day changes in the middle of everybody's waking hours (public holidays starting and stopping at e.g. 2 o'clock in the afternoon anyone?), or else each location needs to offset the calendar date change by some suitable value so it ends up roughly were it used to be (i.e. at a time when most people sleep), which again means basically re-introducing time zones through the back door.