It's a lot easier to remember "north and south are opposite" than it is to remember, "Oh right, 9 am is morning in England, early morning in New York, and the m

It's a lot easier to remember "north and south are opposite" than it is to remember, "Oh right, 9 am is morning in England, early morning in New York, and the middle of the night in Los Angeles." And so on for every possible time of day. Whereas it's (relatively) easy to guess, "Los Angeles is in California, that's three hours behind me in New York, so it would be 6 am there at 9 am here, so it's too early to call them yet." Not perfect, but not too bad for simple cases, and easy to do in your head most of the time. Timezones are about standardizing _human_ time, not actual time.