this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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obligatory: https://qntm.org/abolish
Before I read this article, I also thought it would be a great idea to get rid of timezones entirely and just use UTC for everything. To quote from the link, (please forgive me for being lazy and not formatting it correctly)
Abolishing time zones brings many benefits, I hope. It also:
As long as humans live in more than one part of the world, solar time is always going to be subjective. Abolishing time zones only exacerbates this problem.
Timezones make intuitive sense for humans
UTC / Unix timestamps make intuitive sense for computers
The issue is bridging the gap
Well, a large part of the issue are all the damn exceptions
Eh, I think the article blows the situation out of proportion. Overall you're still in the same situation as before. Instead you would just be looking up a timetable of sunrises/sunsets, instead of a timezone chart. It ends up mostly reframing the question from "what time is it there?" to "what time of day is it there?". The real version of "after abolishing time zones" is "google tells me it is before sunrise there. It's probably best not to call right now."
I've been using UTC on my own clocks without issue, and the change is not some completely reality-breaking thing - not anymore than DST. From a matter of personal perspective it just shifts what time correlates to what time of day.
using UTC also simplifies the questions "what times can I call you at?" And "when should we have our call?" since you have the same temporal standard. Even before that, I was scheduling calls with family by stating the call would be at such-and-such time UTC.
The biggest difference is with when the date changes, and I think that ultimately is the hardest pill to swallow, and that's even compared to stomaching the sun rising at 2 AM. Having it change from June 5th to June 6th in the middle of a workweek, or even jumping to another month would bother alot of folks in a significant fashion.
Ultimately it's just a personal practice. No nation is going to abolish time zones if everyone still uses time zones. I just prefer it for various reasons.
If you want your sunrise to be at 12am, go ahead.
If you really want to fix something. Fix months
Between the two, months is much harder. With time, you just set your clocks to UTC. To get months fixed you need mass adoption, rewriting calendar software, etc.
Bold of you to assume people will agree to having sunrises at 9am while some other country gets the privilege of getting it at the usual 6
You're upset that it's sunrise at 06:00 somewhere and not that some other lucky bastard landed sunrise at 00:00?
(that might actually happen over the ocean, I have not checked)
Yeah it's just being angry about the fact that the Earth is rotating ball. Wanting to abolish timezones is different from Flat Earth only be degrees.
Sure the "what time is it there?" question goes away, but it's replaced by "what are your business hours?"
Ultimately it will be daytime in one part of the world while it's night in another part of the world. That will always cause problems.
This is a fantastic write-up, thanks for sharing!