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All the problems listed aren't real world problems. No one has a problem understanding the calendar and there are no engineering problems with it either unlike

All the problems listed aren't real world problems. No one has a problem understanding the calendar and there are no engineering problems with it either unlike the inch. For the few folks in astronomy we have computers. Why would there be a problem? Half the world's population prays according to a base 7 week. Nor is this proposal new. Its been tried (at least) twice before failed spectacularly embittering people. Based 10 (french) or 5 (soviet) weeks were introduced at the blood thirsty peak of thise anti-religious regime with the explicit goal of also erasing worship to the God of Abraham.

jowea 3y ago
About understanding, we're used to it but you can't trivially know whether 02/05/2026 is a Monday. Even remembering whether July has 30 or 31 days can be a chore. Irregular months also can have some small annoying effects since "in a month" is not always the same amount of days. There's even the 360 day calendar for that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-day_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-day_calendar Just one more in the long history of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform#Proposals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform#Proposals
- thsksbd 3y ago
  Actually there are trivially easy ways to calculate DOW off the top of your head. No one bothers because it was never a real problem. People used to carry their calendar books on them to keep track of their engagements. Now we carry a smartphone. Nevertheless, my colleague bothered to do it and he could tell you the DOW without pausing. He is of average intelligence maybe a little more intelligent than I (though I was better at mental math)
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    Actually there are trivially easy ways to calculate DOW off the top of your head. Then what are they?
- robobro 3y ago
  Year 2, month 5, day 2026?
  - jowea 3y ago
    I guess we could solve the "is it DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY?" problem while we're at it, but ISO8601 already did.
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    You appreciate that no calendar can get around the mod 365 and leap year adjustments? That's baked into the Earth orbit around the Sun
brvsft 3y ago
This is denial. There are absolutely problematic side-effects with the existing calendar system, and the obvious use-cases that jumped out to me are on the business/financial side. Yes, the changing length of months makes financial planning slightly more difficult. The arbitrary nature of how many non-business days occurs in a month cause issues (some months can have many more 'business' days than other months, skewing financial data for those months and the months surrounding them). Don't get me started on the fact that different years have, in the US, different lengths of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, skewing consumer behavior. I'm not saying this is a good enough reason to even begin trying to upend the existing calendar system and replace it. But the somewhat random nature of how weekends and certain holidays are distributed throughout the calendar can have effects on business, and presumably other areas. One might suggest it is all awash because the bad effects of one year/week/month will erase the good effects of a future one, but I don't find that comforting if it contributes to, say, the company I work for having an under-performing year, resulting in layoffs (granted, there would be other factors here as well). Regardless, the inconsistency is a problem. I recall working at a FinTech company and hearing some team gloat about something like an 8% increase in MoM revenue, only to be shut down by someone in finance pointing out that there were 8% more bank days that month. Imagine someone wasn't thinking of this and people got promoted (or fired) because of a total nothing-signal being misinterpreted as a hugely positive (or negative) performance. The existing calendar allows this.
- Juliate 3y ago
  > But the somewhat random nature of how weekends and certain holidays are distributed throughout the calendar can have effects on business, and presumably other areas. Yes, and? Isn't it to be expected? Calendars are long-living standards, that adjust over long periods of time, because of the practical impact they have on societies. Why should those commons adjust themselves in order to satisfy self-imposed, often antisocial business requirements? (how MoM revenue performance is calculated and rewarded is strictly a concern for said businesses). If it should contribute to an underperforming year for your company, it would be a way lesser factor than the lack of preparation or perspective from its owners/executives, because the calendar-related discrepancies are already known in advance (and it's not a particularly recent phenomenon either). Would even such a deciyear (or any other new) calendar be adopted, it would "diverge" again in the next 10/20 years by the simple sheer force of society cultural evolution: "we will have more bank days here", "we need more working days there", "ho, we need to mark this particular date because of this event", "ho, these partner countries follow a new tradition, we need to adjust somehow". Ok. Perhaps a new calendaring system could make sense for businesses. The only way forward would be for businesses first to design and adopt it, in parallel with the public calendar system, and show how it works better. Would there be a favorable business case? Especially in relation with financial and regulatory requirements which are still based on civil years? (and even different across countries)

jowea 3y ago

About understanding, we're used to it but you can't trivially know whether 02/05/2026 is a Monday. Even remembering whether July has 30 or 31 days can be a chore. Irregular months also can have some small annoying effects since "in a month" is not always the same amount of days. There's even the 360 day calendar for that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-day_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-day_calendar Just one more in the long history of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform#Proposals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform#Proposals

thsksbd 3y ago
Actually there are trivially easy ways to calculate DOW off the top of your head. No one bothers because it was never a real problem. People used to carry their calendar books on them to keep track of their engagements. Now we carry a smartphone. Nevertheless, my colleague bothered to do it and he could tell you the DOW without pausing. He is of average intelligence maybe a little more intelligent than I (though I was better at mental math)
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Actually there are trivially easy ways to calculate DOW off the top of your head. Then what are they?
robobro 3y ago
Year 2, month 5, day 2026?
- jowea 3y ago
  I guess we could solve the "is it DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY?" problem while we're at it, but ISO8601 already did.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  You appreciate that no calendar can get around the mod 365 and leap year adjustments? That's baked into the Earth orbit around the Sun

brvsft 3y ago

This is denial. There are absolutely problematic side-effects with the existing calendar system, and the obvious use-cases that jumped out to me are on the business/financial side. Yes, the changing length of months makes financial planning slightly more difficult. The arbitrary nature of how many non-business days occurs in a month cause issues (some months can have many more 'business' days than other months, skewing financial data for those months and the months surrounding them). Don't get me started on the fact that different years have, in the US, different lengths of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, skewing consumer behavior. I'm not saying this is a good enough reason to even begin trying to upend the existing calendar system and replace it. But the somewhat random nature of how weekends and certain holidays are distributed throughout the calendar can have effects on business, and presumably other areas. One might suggest it is all awash because the bad effects of one year/week/month will erase the good effects of a future one, but I don't find that comforting if it contributes to, say, the company I work for having an under-performing year, resulting in layoffs (granted, there would be other factors here as well). Regardless, the inconsistency is a problem. I recall working at a FinTech company and hearing some team gloat about something like an 8% increase in MoM revenue, only to be shut down by someone in finance pointing out that there were 8% more bank days that month. Imagine someone wasn't thinking of this and people got promoted (or fired) because of a total nothing-signal being misinterpreted as a hugely positive (or negative) performance. The existing calendar allows this.

Juliate 3y ago
> But the somewhat random nature of how weekends and certain holidays are distributed throughout the calendar can have effects on business, and presumably other areas. Yes, and? Isn't it to be expected? Calendars are long-living standards, that adjust over long periods of time, because of the practical impact they have on societies. Why should those commons adjust themselves in order to satisfy self-imposed, often antisocial business requirements? (how MoM revenue performance is calculated and rewarded is strictly a concern for said businesses). If it should contribute to an underperforming year for your company, it would be a way lesser factor than the lack of preparation or perspective from its owners/executives, because the calendar-related discrepancies are already known in advance (and it's not a particularly recent phenomenon either). Would even such a deciyear (or any other new) calendar be adopted, it would "diverge" again in the next 10/20 years by the simple sheer force of society cultural evolution: "we will have more bank days here", "we need more working days there", "ho, we need to mark this particular date because of this event", "ho, these partner countries follow a new tradition, we need to adjust somehow". Ok. Perhaps a new calendaring system could make sense for businesses. The only way forward would be for businesses first to design and adopt it, in parallel with the public calendar system, and show how it works better. Would there be a favorable business case? Especially in relation with financial and regulatory requirements which are still based on civil years? (and even different across countries)