Why don't the whole planet just use UTC+00:00 / Universal Time without time zones?
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We could just get used to the fact that in this location 6 PM means noon and in this other location it's 3 PM
It's changing all the time anyway, so time is almost never aligned with the sun.
Sounds a lot like getting used to time zones. Just get used to it being 3pm there when it's 6pm here
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It's because a lot of the way humans go about their life is based on traditions. Getting everybody to switch from a system that already works pretty well is just a hassle.
Examples:
- English spelling is faaar from phonetic and children take longer to learn how to spell than in Spanish for example. (though, cough, enough, plough instead of something like thouğ, koff, enaf and the US plow)
- Metric system adopted globally would streamline a lot of global industries that have no cater to each system.
- Driving right side everywhere. Sweden switched but asking India to switch makes way less sense.
- Date formats. Arguably the best if everyone uses ISO 8601 but nobody does.
I do use ISO 8601
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We could just get used to the fact that in this location 6 PM means noon and in this other location it's 3 PM
It's changing all the time anyway, so time is almost never aligned with the sun.
Yeah, the number on the clock is just a number. Does it matter if it says 12 or 6 or 20?
That said, if we were going to a universal time zone, I would definitely get rid of AM/PM and do 24-hour clock.
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Here are some reasons told through what-if.
TL;DR:
People like to sleep in the dark generally, and businesses that close are open when more people are awake.You still sleep at night and have businesses open during the day. It's just that the numbers displayed on the clock are different when this happens. Maybe standard business hours are 2-10 or 14-22 instead of 9-17 (I advocate 24-hour clock instead of AM/PM).
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Because that would be a nightmare. "I'll meet you for lunch at 2AM", "No, I had a huge breakfast yesterday". You would need to relearn the times every time you went to a different place, "oh, right, the restaurants only serve lunch until 10AM" or "Sorry sir, but there's an extra fee for night time services starting 1PM". Those are much more likely day-to-day phrases than scheduling a meeting with someone from another continent. And you don't gain anything by this, because whenever you're communicating across timezones you can simply use UTC as a standard and everyone knows how to convert that to their own time. So there's no good reason and a lot of drawbacks.
Only because we're already familiar with the current way of doing things, though. If we had all been on UTC for our entire lives, it would be a simple matter of getting to a new place, asking when local noon is, and going about our business.
"Hey, when is local noon here?"
"'bout 0330."
"Cool, thanks. Want to get together for drinks tomorrow night? Say, around 1045?"
They're all just numbers. They have no inherent meaning, only what we imbue then with.
It would get a little bit tricky with the date switching over in the middle of the day, of course. In my mind, that's the biggest reason.
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You still sleep at night and have businesses open during the day. It's just that the numbers displayed on the clock are different when this happens. Maybe standard business hours are 2-10 or 14-22 instead of 9-17 (I advocate 24-hour clock instead of AM/PM).
The issue (as the link illustrates, but I didn't go into detail) comes with long distance communication. Time zones serve as a rough approximation for 'where is the sun' at a specific place that you want to communicate/trade with and that is a rough approximation for 'when are people/places likely to be awake/open. Without that you Would need to find published hours for people/places and that can be tough.
Replacing time zones isn't impossible of course, but it's definitely not as simple as 'just use UTC+0'. That shifts the inconvenience elsewhere
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Why isn't this a popular thing?
This is a surprisingly divisive topic every time I see it or suggest it. I reckon the divisor is "people who use and work across timezones a lot" and "people who don't". Fuck I hate timezones.
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Only because we're already familiar with the current way of doing things, though. If we had all been on UTC for our entire lives, it would be a simple matter of getting to a new place, asking when local noon is, and going about our business.
"Hey, when is local noon here?"
"'bout 0330."
"Cool, thanks. Want to get together for drinks tomorrow night? Say, around 1045?"
They're all just numbers. They have no inherent meaning, only what we imbue then with.
It would get a little bit tricky with the date switching over in the middle of the day, of course. In my mind, that's the biggest reason.
So every time you deal with somebody in a different location, you can't assume anything about the hours and times you have to ask them or go look it up Even if you have a decent idea where they live because you're not going to know the time disparity of every city out there.
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So every time you deal with somebody in a different location, you can't assume anything about the hours and times you have to ask them or go look it up Even if you have a decent idea where they live because you're not going to know the time disparity of every city out there.
So… like it is already? Ever tried to call someone in a different time zone? It’s fine-ish 1 or maybe 2 hours off, but much beyond that still requires a minimum of research.
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kind of my point. Trains need accurately measured time in order to run properly.
The proposed change to UTC globally does not change the accuracy of time measurements. I think it’s a terrible idea, but I fail to see how your point here relates.
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The proposed change to UTC globally does not change the accuracy of time measurements. I think it’s a terrible idea, but I fail to see how your point here relates.
The cultural relationship with time is more important than its absolute measurement.
This was the statement at the top of this discussion. It values the local concept of what time should be over an objective measurement of what time is.
The proposed change wouldn't cause much of a problem. But the idea under the statement I quoted would.
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The cultural relationship with time is more important than its absolute measurement.
This was the statement at the top of this discussion. It values the local concept of what time should be over an objective measurement of what time is.
The proposed change wouldn't cause much of a problem. But the idea under the statement I quoted would.
Fair, thanks for the context
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Only because we're already familiar with the current way of doing things, though. If we had all been on UTC for our entire lives, it would be a simple matter of getting to a new place, asking when local noon is, and going about our business.
"Hey, when is local noon here?"
"'bout 0330."
"Cool, thanks. Want to get together for drinks tomorrow night? Say, around 1045?"
They're all just numbers. They have no inherent meaning, only what we imbue then with.
It would get a little bit tricky with the date switching over in the middle of the day, of course. In my mind, that's the biggest reason.
Why exactly is asking for "what time is the local noon" more convenient than asking "what timezone is this"?
How is "local noon is at 2:45" somehow easier to adjust to than "adjust your clock by X hours"? You don't need to relearn every thing like what time breakfast is served when local noon is 08:50.
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So… like it is already? Ever tried to call someone in a different time zone? It’s fine-ish 1 or maybe 2 hours off, but much beyond that still requires a minimum of research.
Your ring up a person, they go "why the fuck are you calling me at 09:45?", sounding really upset. You don't understand why. He's in a place where that means it's the middle of the night and as a local he understands it.
Oooor
He could just say "do you know what time it is here? It's two am!" and you'd understand.
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Only because we're already familiar with the current way of doing things, though. If we had all been on UTC for our entire lives, it would be a simple matter of getting to a new place, asking when local noon is, and going about our business.
"Hey, when is local noon here?"
"'bout 0330."
"Cool, thanks. Want to get together for drinks tomorrow night? Say, around 1045?"
They're all just numbers. They have no inherent meaning, only what we imbue then with.
It would get a little bit tricky with the date switching over in the middle of the day, of course. In my mind, that's the biggest reason.
Answer quickly, if noon is 0330 what time is dinner, what is a 9-5 job and what time do you expect to have breakfast. There are lots of adjustments you will need to make, whereas with the current system you know that as a general rule you can expect dinner at around 8, most people to work 9-5, and places to serve breakfast at 8 or 9, so you switch your clock when you arrive and you're done.
If you're a local who never moved timezones z then yeah it makes no difference what the numbers are, you would get used to waking up at 9PM and switching date midway through the day, there might even be 2 different words for tomorrow, one for the next day one for the next date, but the moment you traveled to a different location all of your years of being used to general time where things happen go out the window, it's much more of a hassle than adjusting your clock and assuming times will be mostly similar.
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It spans 4,5 hours one way, and 0,5 hours the other way*
So, it's a big deal.
Fine, let's do it your way.
Close to five hours of time difference versus twelve hours.
One was rather disruptive to say the least. The other would be either catastrophical, or be regarded as a joke.
Of course we won't hear any dissent about the Chinese time zone! We wouldn't hear any dissent about China!
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Why isn't this a popular thing?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Almost a century ago, the fascist dictator of Spain wanted to appease Hitler and decided to move the timezone from the UK one to the German one. With daylight savings the situation in summer was a bit ridiculous: dark until 9 am and sun until 10 pm, it was very confusing as a tourist to have all the stores to open so late in morning and go out to eat dinner so late
I can't imagine what kind of mess would be going to Japan as a tourist on UTC+0
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Why isn't this a popular thing?
I work with someone who does 9-5 in the next state, a messily -4 hours away.
They get to work when I have lunch, when I'm waiting on something from them in the afternoon they're just dealing with morning shit. When their system crashes at 4:50 in the afternoon as usual I'm making dinner.
So does this colleague suddenly have to work 9-5 in +0 time. Or do they keep working real 9-5?
Worst of all, he sees a bit of daylight on the sunrise commute home. Yet I as a +10 would never see the sun.
How do you propose any of this work?
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Why isn't this a popular thing?
That would be shifting from timezone to "workzone" or "noonzone". At this moment you need to setup a meeting with people, then you ask which is their timezone. With global UTC timezone, then you need to ask, which are your work hours? (workzone).
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That's different, your day remains Wednesday their day remains Tuesday, they're talking about going to lunch on Tuesday and coming back on Wednesday, do you call that your Tuesday lunch? Tuesday Dinner? Wednesday breakfast? Wednesday lunch?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]This also already happens, albeit for fewer people. I used to have a job that started at 7pm. My lunchtime was literally from 23:30 to 00:30 the following day.
I admit I did not like that job very much, but it wasn't anything to do with each work day spanning two dates.
