Time Zones are outdated, why don't we all switch over to 1 time standard

[xaeniac]

OP this would not work with the general population. Sorry

 

[purbeast0]

this thread is the only place on the planet i've ever read people having problems with time zones and not being able to do the conversions. in the real world and in my life, nobody has every had problems with the timezone differences, and i've been as far as 6 hour time difference away.

 

[eelw]

Adding or subtracting really that difficult?

 

[Bue11er]

The world probably isn't interested in the effort it would take to get used to such a system. Way to entrenched in its ways. Few would benefit from such a change. Frequent international flyers? Currency traders? Can't think of many others who would use a whole world clock...

 

[BurnItDwn]

Really we should just keep our own "local time" and then also keep in mind "UTC"

Its easy enough to remember, CDT = UTC -5, CST = UTC -6, and that CDT is evil horrible, and CST is awesome.

Nothing has to change locally, and anybody dealing with larger scope projects, can just convert to/from UTC, IST, EDT, PDT, MDT, EST, PST, MST, and what not as needed.

 

[crashtech]

Or you can just use Google. Type in "What time is it in Manila?" and it tells you. No brain required.

 

[ctbaars]

What does A420 say about this?

 

[BurnItDwn]

Or you can just use Google. Type in "What time is it in Manila?" and it tells you. No brain required.

We should encourage people to use their brains, lack of use causes them to fall out.. and we as humans already have too many brainless ones.

 

[IronWing]

Adding or subtracting really that difficult?

With time zones it really is because they get narrower at the poles and wider at the equator so you have to think about how wide are the minutes and seconds for the latitudes of the two locations for which you are dealing with. Spheroidal arithmetic is hard.

 

[BoberFett]

Which has zero advantages of any kind.

Unless you're supposed to call someone in Arizona at 4:30.

Wait, what time zone are they in?

Oh yeah, Pacific.

Wait, it's summer, so that's actually Pacific Daylight Time.

Oh but, it's Arizona, so they ignore Daylight Savings.

Time zones are arbitrary and make no more sense than just having different longitudes operate in different hours of the same 24 hour day. You're just used to the existing system.

 

[kt]

No, I think most people in this thread don't understand what he means.

From what I've read so far everyone seems to have a grasp of what he meant to say but it doesn't make sense for keeping track of the "time" of day. Sure it's easier to say 7AM and it's universal everywhere but 7AM here is morning but could be night time somewhere else. Keeping track of the "time" of day somewhere else without the use of time zone will be a nightmare.

 

[who?]

After 2am this coming Sunday central time will be UDT-6.

 

[who?]

Time zones are not arbitrary, they're based on the idea that the Sun should be directly overhead at 12p.m..

 

[master_shake_]

slow down there,

first we have to ween the elderly off daylight savings time.

you don't want to kill them do you?

hell the whole world doesn't even use the metric system yet and you want to start screwing with time?

what is this progressive thinking or something?

 

[BoberFett]

Time zones are not arbitrary, they're based on the idea that the Sun should be directly overhead at 12p.m..

Serious?

So what you're saying is that if you stand on the Utah side of the state line while your friend stands on the Nevada side of the state line and the sun is directly overhead, then it's noon for both of you?

Or even better, if you stand in the NE corner of Nevada with the sun directly overhead, it's still 11am, but your friend is standing in the SW corner of Idaho a hundred miles away where the sun has still not reached it's peak, it's noon?

Or maybe it's arbitrary...

 

[Krazy4Real]

This is the smartest thread in the world.

 

[kt]

Unless you're supposed to call someone in Arizona at 4:30.

Wait, what time zone are they in?

Oh yeah, Pacific.

Wait, it's summer, so that's actually Pacific Daylight Time.

Oh but, it's Arizona, so they ignore Daylight Savings.

Time zones are arbitrary and make no more sense than just having different longitudes operate in different hours of the same 24 hour day. You're just used to the existing system.

You're confusing Daylight Saving (not Savings) with time zones. Daylight Saving can go for all I care but time zone has its use.

 

[pcgeek11]

I think this is the stupidest thread I have ever read.

 

[BoberFett]

You're confusing Daylight Saving (not Savings) with time zones. Daylight Saving can go for all I care but time zone has its use.

Except that DST is rooted in time zones in order to have more sensible daylight hours at different times of the year.

Basically DST is evidence that time zones are pretty stupid.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Time zones are arbitrary and make no more sense than just having different longitudes operate in different hours of the same 24 hour day. You're just used to the existing system.

Time is arbitrary too, if we want to get technical. That doesn't mean it isn't helpful to have some unit of measure associated with our perception of the passage of time. Similarly, time zones offer a way for us to deal with the fact that the sun is going to be in a different position relative to different longitudes at any specific moment. Changing the equation from "it's 18 hours earlier in Arizona" to "it's the exact same time in Arizona... what time do they get up in Arizona?" doesn't actually solve anything. What you really need to know is "are they awake in Arizona at this specific moment" and you're going to have to do the same math regardless of how you phrase it.

 

[who?]

Physicists can't find any reason for time to exist.

 

[Maximilian]

Because fucking world war 3 breaks out over what country gets to be awake from 08:00 to 00:00 and essentially have nothing change for them.

 

[crashtech]

Um, that would be the UK.

 

[IronWing]

What you really need to know is "are they awake in Arizona at this specific moment" and you're going to have to do the same math regardless of how you phrase it.

Just call them up and ask them. No math needed.

 

[02ranger]

The world probably isn't interested in the effort it would take to get used to such a system. Way to entrenched in its ways. Few would benefit from such a change. Frequent international flyers? Currency traders? Can't think of many others who would use a whole world clock...

Honestly I don't think it would benefit those people much either. Like somebody else said, just because the time on the clock is the same doesn't mean people on the other side of the world are going to start getting up when it's dark and sleeping during the day. They're still going to want to be up during the daylight hours, meaning you still have to do some conversion to figure out if it's daylight hours or not.

The only way having the same time worldwide works is if everybody decides to start the "day" at the same hour, regardless of light conditions. Even if people would be agreeable to that, who gets to have daylight from 7AM-8PM? Who gets stuck with it being dark during most of that time? Would never work for a LOT of reasons.