3 ms·

> I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fa

by zokier 3y ago

> I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. Timezones are still a social construct, and decision made. Mainland China is wider than contiguous US, and yet it runs on single TZ.

justrealist 3y ago
Think about the concrete thing you're suggesting — making people 4 timezones away wake up early just to be aligned with bureaucrats! Eliminating timezones on its own does not make people wake up before dawn. Consolidating timezones while not forcing people into unnatural wake/sleep cycles accomplishes nothing. You still would have to figure out when people in SF wake up!
- Sankozi 3y ago
  Why do you think it accomplishes nothing? Benefits just from communication perspective are enough to consider single timezone. > You still would have to figure out when people in SF wake up! Exactly! It is argument against multiple TZs not for it.
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Think about this harder! Let's say everyone in the US was on "Eastern Standard Time". You're scheduling a meeting for eastern standard time. You still have to figure out when your San Francisco coworkers wake up, in Eastern Time! Except without timezones, you just have to remember that SF is 3-ish hours off so people wake up at 11am. If you just had timezones, you wouldn't have to keep this in your head!
    - Sankozi 3y ago
      I don't understand what is your point. With single TZ: - I need to learn when people at different location work. With multiple, perfect TZs: - I still need to learn when people at different location work, and additionally I need to translate (or add TZ to) every clock time when communicating with those people. Learning when people work is similar amount of work in both cases. You always have to keep at least time offsets for every city or even office. If you have multiple TZs you need to keep them and their offsets in your head.
      - justrealist 3y ago
        > With multiple, perfect TZs: - I still need to learn when people at different location work That's not true — I can roughly assume that everyone is at work by 9am their time. I just need to know their timezone. If I didn't have a timezone, I'd have to memorize the approximate offset of every city in the US.
        Sankozi 3y ago
        So instead knowing city -> offset mapping, you need to know both city -> TZ and TZ -> offset mapping, and end up with something worse (because TZ will never be perfect, so offset from TZ is usually worse than "human" offset based on the location). I really see no benefit.
  - msla 3y ago
    https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish TL;DR: People won't wake up at local midnight because the clock says 07:00. People won't wake up at local sunrise no matter what the clock says. People will wake up when the people they coordinate with wake up. If they can't change their clocks to reflect that, the hours they keep will be very unpredictable to outsiders.
- zokier 3y ago
  > Think about the concrete thing you're suggesting I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just informing that different countries make different decisions on their TZ arrangement based on their priorities, and the arrangement that US has currently is not just some inevitably from geography.
petesergeant 3y ago
> Mainland China is wider than contiguous US, and yet it runs on single TZ That's because a vast majority of the country (and certainly all the politically empowered citizens) live in a much smaller span for which the single timezone is pretty accurate. It works in China by not caring about people to the West.
- zokier 3y ago
  Well, another example is Spain that is at +1 purely for convenience, to get western europe under single timezone, rather than the +0 that their geography suggests.
  - acatton 3y ago
    Spain is not UTC+1 purely out of convenience. It's because of history https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spains-been-in-the-wrong-time-zone-for-seven-decades https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/... > So on Oct. 23, 1940, Hitler took a train to the Spanish border to woo Spain's Fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. > But Spain was in ruins from its own Civil War in the late 1930s, and Franco didn't have much to offer. He stayed neutral, but switched Spain's clocks ahead one hour, to be in line with Nazi Germany. > Ever since, even though Spain is geographically in line with Britain, Portugal and Morocco — its clocks are on the same time zone as countries as far east as Poland and Hungary. And the country/politicians are thinking about going back to UTC+0 due to all the problems UTC+1 poses due to geography.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    > to get western europe under single timezone Western Europe is not under a single timezone, though: the UK, Ireland, and Portugal are not on CET/CEST.
    - adolph 3y ago
      Under some circumstances "to get" describes an intent for a result rather than an obtained result.
delecti 3y ago
Independent of how many discrete groups we invent, there is a broader range of times of local solar noon in the lower 48 states than in Europe. So what I mean is that, because integers are easy to work with, and we've arbitrarily settled on 24 hours in a day, and given time zones exist, the number of them in the lower 48 US states (4 plus Arizona's situation) is pretty far from wild. China's decision is much more of a stretch.

by zokier 3y ago

justrealist 3y ago

Think about the concrete thing you're suggesting — making people 4 timezones away wake up early just to be aligned with bureaucrats! Eliminating timezones on its own does not make people wake up before dawn. Consolidating timezones while not forcing people into unnatural wake/sleep cycles accomplishes nothing. You still would have to figure out when people in SF wake up!

Sankozi 3y ago
Why do you think it accomplishes nothing? Benefits just from communication perspective are enough to consider single timezone. > You still would have to figure out when people in SF wake up! Exactly! It is argument against multiple TZs not for it.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Think about this harder! Let's say everyone in the US was on "Eastern Standard Time". You're scheduling a meeting for eastern standard time. You still have to figure out when your San Francisco coworkers wake up, in Eastern Time! Except without timezones, you just have to remember that SF is 3-ish hours off so people wake up at 11am. If you just had timezones, you wouldn't have to keep this in your head!
  - Sankozi 3y ago
    I don't understand what is your point. With single TZ: - I need to learn when people at different location work. With multiple, perfect TZs: - I still need to learn when people at different location work, and additionally I need to translate (or add TZ to) every clock time when communicating with those people. Learning when people work is similar amount of work in both cases. You always have to keep at least time offsets for every city or even office. If you have multiple TZs you need to keep them and their offsets in your head.
    - justrealist 3y ago
      > With multiple, perfect TZs: - I still need to learn when people at different location work That's not true — I can roughly assume that everyone is at work by 9am their time. I just need to know their timezone. If I didn't have a timezone, I'd have to memorize the approximate offset of every city in the US.
      - Sankozi 3y ago
        So instead knowing city -> offset mapping, you need to know both city -> TZ and TZ -> offset mapping, and end up with something worse (because TZ will never be perfect, so offset from TZ is usually worse than "human" offset based on the location). I really see no benefit.
- msla 3y ago
  https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish TL;DR: People won't wake up at local midnight because the clock says 07:00. People won't wake up at local sunrise no matter what the clock says. People will wake up when the people they coordinate with wake up. If they can't change their clocks to reflect that, the hours they keep will be very unpredictable to outsiders.
zokier 3y ago
> Think about the concrete thing you're suggesting I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just informing that different countries make different decisions on their TZ arrangement based on their priorities, and the arrangement that US has currently is not just some inevitably from geography.

petesergeant 3y ago

> Mainland China is wider than contiguous US, and yet it runs on single TZ That's because a vast majority of the country (and certainly all the politically empowered citizens) live in a much smaller span for which the single timezone is pretty accurate. It works in China by not caring about people to the West.

zokier 3y ago
Well, another example is Spain that is at +1 purely for convenience, to get western europe under single timezone, rather than the +0 that their geography suggests.
- acatton 3y ago
  Spain is not UTC+1 purely out of convenience. It's because of history https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spains-been-in-the-wrong-time-zone-for-seven-decades https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/... > So on Oct. 23, 1940, Hitler took a train to the Spanish border to woo Spain's Fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. > But Spain was in ruins from its own Civil War in the late 1930s, and Franco didn't have much to offer. He stayed neutral, but switched Spain's clocks ahead one hour, to be in line with Nazi Germany. > Ever since, even though Spain is geographically in line with Britain, Portugal and Morocco — its clocks are on the same time zone as countries as far east as Poland and Hungary. And the country/politicians are thinking about going back to UTC+0 due to all the problems UTC+1 poses due to geography.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  > to get western europe under single timezone Western Europe is not under a single timezone, though: the UK, Ireland, and Portugal are not on CET/CEST.
  - adolph 3y ago
    Under some circumstances "to get" describes an intent for a result rather than an obtained result.

delecti 3y ago

Independent of how many discrete groups we invent, there is a broader range of times of local solar noon in the lower 48 states than in Europe. So what I mean is that, because integers are easy to work with, and we've arbitrarily settled on 24 hours in a day, and given time zones exist, the number of them in the lower 48 US states (4 plus Arizona's situation) is pretty far from wild. China's decision is much more of a stretch.