Quoting from Clarke's "Imperial Earth" (1976) (to show how old this topic is): "And I've run into something that complicates business on Earth to an incredible

Quoting from Clarke's "Imperial Earth" (1976) (to show how old this topic is): "And I've run into something that complicates business on Earth to an incredible extent. I knew about it, but hadn't realized its full implications. It's the problem of Time Zones. "There are some advantages in belonging to a corridor culture. We're not slaves of the sun, and can set all our clocks to the same time, all over Titan. But on Earth! "There are four time zones -- America, Africa, Asia, Oceania -- six hours apart. So when you want to speak to anyone, or make an appointment, you have to know what zone he's in. And when you move from one zone to another, you have to put your watch ahead -- or back -- six hours. "It's very awkward and confusing, but it was even worse a couple of centuries ago; then there were twenty-four zones, one for every hour of the day! The development of global telecommunications made that situation impossible -- not that it's very satisfactory even now. There's talk of going over to a single World Time -- probably Absolute Ephemeris Time -- and ignoring the day-night cycle, just as we do. But the arguments on both sides are nicely balance, and no one expects a decision in a hurry. After all, it took several hundred years to get the World Calendar adopted, and that was because the Martian and Lunar administrations simply wouldn't put up with Earth's ridiculous months any longer ..." I hadn't remember the "slaves of the sun" part. Upon rereading that, it looks like Clarke is suggesting that it is better to slaves of international business instead of the sun. This essay, which says "And so starts weeks of international business chaos", also emphasizes the needs of international business over local solar conditions.