4 ms·

I never heard of this before but now that I looked it up I think it's a good idea. People will probably still want to keep their local times but at least for co

I never heard of this before but now that I looked it up I think it's a good idea. People will probably still want to keep their local times but at least for coordinating international stuff we should have one standard time for the entire world. It's insane that we still have to look up how certain time zones correlate to our own local times for online meetings and such. This can all be improved. Remember back in the day there weren't even time zones, each city used their own local time. That's basically the situation we're in now from a global point of view.

davnicwil 4y ago
For meeting coordination I think we will probably just converge around a defacto standard existing timezone like UTC. We would all develop an intuition for what different times in UTC 'mean' (first thing in morning, after lunch, mid afternoon, etc) relative to the one we're in so we're not looking it up all the time. Maybe keep a UTC clock showing on relevant devices. I don't think there's a need for a completely new system.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I have a UTC clock in my Mac menu bar already. I expect I always will.
coldpie 4y ago
We already have that, it's UTC. And we don't need to learn a whole new system of time measurement to use it.
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  Currently you have to know all your timezones and do the conversions in your head if you travel a lot for example. Additionally the organizers of many events and conferences, even very international ones, do not use UTC. So no, UTC doesn't solve that problem in practical terms. If the entire world used UTC for their local time, then it would be a similar solution. I personally wouldn't mind that actually. It would take a bit to get used to but in the long run it makes much more sense in an ever more globalized world. Same as the world adopting the metric system, and in science specifically SI-units. Surely you agree even though that was a bit of a hassle when countries changed over from their old unique units at the time, in the long run it was the right decision. Imagine what it would be like working in an international team always having to convert units of measurement. It's still an issue in engineering sometimes, because outside of science the US didn't make the switch and it's extremely annoying.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    You have to know how the sun behaves at your local position relative to the universal time regardless of whether we call that knowledge "time zones" or something else. It sounds like what you want is for everyone to be more explicit about their time zone: instead of saying "the conference starts at 3 PM" they should say, "the conference starts at 3 PM UTC-6", right? From that you can easily derive that it's 9 PM UTC, and interpret that however you like for your current location.
    - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
      Maybe you haven't experienced it yet but it's not as simple. I live in different countries and regularly have to deal with this. There's often confusion about time zones. Sure, it's "just a simple" conversion in theory but firstly the point is that ideally you should not have to do this at all and secondly no one calls it "UTC-6". You're lucky if they add a time zone at all, and when they do it's usually "EST", "Beijing time", "Eastern" (which can be Australian, American or whatever, your job to know from context), etc. Then you have to deal with DST, but only in some countries during some parts of the year. And don't forget the countries that add half hours, or Nepal which is extra special with an additional 3/4 because why not. It's utter madness. Unless you're a savant who can remember all regions with corresponding time zones and all the exceptions, you'd be looking this up, which is what people normally do.

davnicwil 4y ago

For meeting coordination I think we will probably just converge around a defacto standard existing timezone like UTC. We would all develop an intuition for what different times in UTC 'mean' (first thing in morning, after lunch, mid afternoon, etc) relative to the one we're in so we're not looking it up all the time. Maybe keep a UTC clock showing on relevant devices. I don't think there's a need for a completely new system.

BurningFrog 4y ago
I have a UTC clock in my Mac menu bar already. I expect I always will.

coldpie 4y ago

We already have that, it's UTC. And we don't need to learn a whole new system of time measurement to use it.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago
Currently you have to know all your timezones and do the conversions in your head if you travel a lot for example. Additionally the organizers of many events and conferences, even very international ones, do not use UTC. So no, UTC doesn't solve that problem in practical terms. If the entire world used UTC for their local time, then it would be a similar solution. I personally wouldn't mind that actually. It would take a bit to get used to but in the long run it makes much more sense in an ever more globalized world. Same as the world adopting the metric system, and in science specifically SI-units. Surely you agree even though that was a bit of a hassle when countries changed over from their old unique units at the time, in the long run it was the right decision. Imagine what it would be like working in an international team always having to convert units of measurement. It's still an issue in engineering sometimes, because outside of science the US didn't make the switch and it's extremely annoying.
- coldpie 4y ago
  You have to know how the sun behaves at your local position relative to the universal time regardless of whether we call that knowledge "time zones" or something else. It sounds like what you want is for everyone to be more explicit about their time zone: instead of saying "the conference starts at 3 PM" they should say, "the conference starts at 3 PM UTC-6", right? From that you can easily derive that it's 9 PM UTC, and interpret that however you like for your current location.
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    Maybe you haven't experienced it yet but it's not as simple. I live in different countries and regularly have to deal with this. There's often confusion about time zones. Sure, it's "just a simple" conversion in theory but firstly the point is that ideally you should not have to do this at all and secondly no one calls it "UTC-6". You're lucky if they add a time zone at all, and when they do it's usually "EST", "Beijing time", "Eastern" (which can be Australian, American or whatever, your job to know from context), etc. Then you have to deal with DST, but only in some countries during some parts of the year. And don't forget the countries that add half hours, or Nepal which is extra special with an additional 3/4 because why not. It's utter madness. Unless you're a savant who can remember all regions with corresponding time zones and all the exceptions, you'd be looking this up, which is what people normally do.