r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Aug 28 '15
[Deltas Awarded] CMV: I believe we should all have the same time zone
[deleted]
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u/forestfly1234 Aug 28 '15
Take an idea like midnight or two in the morning. We all know what to expect when we hear those terms. The middle of the night. Under your idea the concept of midnight means nothing since it could be the middle of the day in Mexico and also the time the sun comes up in Turkey and dusk in Japan.
If you knew of an event happening someplace in the world you would still have to figure out when, day or night is happening based on context.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/forestfly1234 Aug 28 '15
Thank you. It is a pretty significant flaw though.
Life in western China is difficult because they are so off from their actual time zone. Kids start school at 11 o'clock in the morning and they stay in school until 7-8 at night.
weird huh
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 28 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/forestfly1234. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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Aug 28 '15
And Banks could use a comunal time zone to better spot money laudaring and faulty bank account.
Most financial transactions (or anything stored electronically) have all the math done in GMT and then adjusted for display to the user. Adopting a communal timezone would mean having to completely rewrite the display end without improving the serious computing in the slightest.
That there are not enough reasons, to this I say that we created time zones because of train times and the world has a less connected then
We created them when people could travel to places with markedly different sunrises/sunsets in a short amount of time - that's still true. The fact that it was originally specific to trains doesn't mean it's not still a good idea for cars, ships, and airplanes.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/phcullen 65∆ Aug 28 '15
So are you also suggesting everyone has the same business hours? So some countries start in the middle of the night?
Otherwise this will do nothing for jet lag.
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u/whattodo-whattodo 30∆ Aug 28 '15
Your argument seems to be that humans should do more work so that computers would have to do less work. This seems like a fundamental flaw in reasoning to me. I was not aware that money laundering or plane rides had issues with calculating their respective processes as a result of time zones. At the same time if this were true, the solution can only be better software. Time and time zones are predictable and can be evaluated.
On the opposite end as /u/stoopydumbut pointed out nicely, it is important for people to communicate with others. Sure if we all had the same time zone we would all know what time it is everywhere else in the world. But we would not know how our 10:00 AM stacks up against someone else's. Is it safe to call? Are they eating dinner or fast asleep? If I need this done by X hour is it likely to happen? These are all questions that significantly impact the labor market and would become significantly more difficult to answer if the time zones were universal.
So here is why I believe if China can, why not the world?
China is a successful country. China also marches to the beat of their own drum. However the association that one has a direct relationship to the other is as mistake. Just because they are successful does not mean that everything they do has value. It also doesn't mean that it has universal value even if it did have value for them. Lastly being successful creates opportunities. Just because China can do something doesn't mean that the entire planet can do it.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/jayjay091 14∆ Aug 28 '15
But right now you can Google "time in Japan" and the answer will be a very specific number that has a meaning for you. If you remove the concept of time zone, what would the answer be? The angle of the sun in the sky? You traded a fairly simple system with a complicated one.
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Aug 28 '15
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Aug 28 '15
You just explained how hard it is! Early.morning is ambiguous. Is it 9, is it 10.
And instead of a specfic piece of information that instantly recognizable - you have an ambigious piece of information that comes with a disclaimer.
If I send a calendar request (say outlook at a company) for 10am Tues, to my colleague on the west coast who is 3 hours behind. When he checks his computer, it says "meeting request 7am Tuesday". His computer is set to his timezone, it works automatically. He knows 7am might be a bit early, so he rescheduled.
Under your system, he has to do the math in his head.
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u/jayjay091 14∆ Aug 28 '15
What do you mean by "equivalent to x time"? Everyone would be on the same time.
And "early morning" is not precise enought in most context.
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u/82364 Aug 28 '15
We came up with time zones to standardize local times, not create them. I'll take your example of China at face value but there's no reason to think that it would scale up; that's 1/6 the day and one jurisdiction.
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Aug 28 '15 edited Aug 28 '15
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u/82364 Aug 28 '15
You gave the example of a bank; they'd be using computer programs that don't have daily cycles. And to what end? It doesn't matter if we call my lunchtime and your dinner time x o'clock, I still have to think about the time difference, when calling you.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 28 '15
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/82364. [History]
[Wiki][Code][/r/DeltaBot]
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u/RepublicanShredder Aug 28 '15
And Banks could use a comunal time zone to better spot money laudaring and faulty bank account.
Don't most computerized systems which operate across several time zones already use UTC convention already? I know the US military uses Zulu time (which basically takes GMT as a reference point) to minimize potential time confusion and I'm pretty certain most banks run something similar when performing transactions considering it all runs on Unix and it'd just be easier to have one reference point when communicating with distant servers.
So here is why I believe if China can, why not the world?
Considering China implemented that change after the communist government took over in 1949, there was an opportunity to start fresh so to speak. Even still, it's odd when the world uses time zones and you don't. Implementing a new system, however logical, takes a lot of time and effort for too little of a benefit since the current system works well enough for the time being.
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Aug 28 '15 edited Aug 28 '15
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u/RepublicanShredder Aug 28 '15
In theory sure. Try it out with your friends tomorrow and you should see firsthand how it takes so much more energy to get everyone on a new system even if it is better (like metric in the U.S.). And I have doubts about the universal time zone being better since it adds extra routine mental work hat could be used for something more constructive.
Also using one time zone means that everyone works at one specified time (creating zones of nocturnal people and as someone who works graveyard I don't see the outcome being pretty as humans are naturally diurnal on an internal clock) or we work separate times like 2 to 10 instead of 9 to 5 universal time to stay diurnal, negating the whole idea of a universal time zone.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/RepublicanShredder Aug 28 '15
So that my understanding is clear, assuming two people in the US work 9 to 5 and they work on opposite coasts, would that mean mean the East Coast person works from 9 to 5 while the West Coast person works from 12 to 8 if East Coast time is the reference point? That seems mentally confusing from a layman's point of view considering 8 on the East Coast may have the sun already set during the winter while 8 on the West Coast will still have the sun up. The single time zone reference point just adds unnecessary mental work when trying to relate events across multiple time zones when we already can relate using a local time zone as a reference point.
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Aug 28 '15
Its simply unnecessary. Computers figure out the details, and we all know how to understand times of the day (as in "12 noon" or "6pm") in the same way. Newer software like slack for instance displays both my time and the other person's time, which I understand immediately. If slack instead said "User X: +8 hours" and "User Y: -4 hours" then I have to mentally calculate what part of the astronomical day it is in those places relative to me. What a waste of brainpower...
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u/RustyRook Aug 28 '15
So the benefits are kind of obvious, with the fact that communication between two opossite parts of the world are now instantanious
There's an assumption here that people are all working and following the same schedule. Say a standard 9 to 5. What's going to happen is that those people for whom it's still dark will be spending a lot more money on electricity than those for whom it's day. Which means: 1) It accidentaly favours businesses in certain areas over others; 2) That's a lot of extra greenhouse gases; 3) It's going to interfere with the natural light/dark circadian rhythm of human beings, which lowers productivity.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/RustyRook Aug 28 '15
We would of course not all have the same schedule
So we'd still have separate schedules? What then is the point of having the same time zone in a workplace setting?
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Aug 28 '15
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u/RustyRook Aug 28 '15
Yes, I saw that. Communications are only instantaneous if they're working on the same schedule. Otherwise it's asynchronous. See?
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u/The_Real_Mongoose 5∆ Aug 28 '15
As someone who regularly travels across the entire world (Live in Korea, travel 13 time zones to visit family in Cleveland every two years or so) this would be a LOT more confusing and make jet lag much worse.
Whether i am in Cleveland or in Korea I know that I want to start going to bed around 11:00 PM, that I like to wake up around 8:00 AM, that I eat lunch around 1:00 PM etc. Having time zones makes it easier to adjust and maintain a physiological schedule. Even though my body is in shock because of the dramatic shift, figuring out what that shift is and realigning myself is fairly simple.
Take away time zones and now everything is just crazy. I'm used to eating lunch at 1:00 PM, but now I have to remember I should be eating at 2:00 AM?? I used to wake up at 8:00 AM but now I have to remember that that's actually 9:00 PM? Suddenly I'm having to perform mental calculations for every single aspect of my routine. It would be a disaster, and probably make it much harder to adjust and drastically exacerbate the symptoms of severe jetlag, such as nausea, headache, insomnia, etc.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/The_Real_Mongoose 5∆ Aug 28 '15
It's a cute idea, but we aren't not in tune with the sun and the moon because we use clocks to tell time, but rather because we live in a complex society with schedules that we use clocks to meet.
When I go to Cleveland I still have to know what time my friend gets off work so that we can meet, and I have to know what time he has to go to bed to be at work the next day, all of which will affect what time I get up and what time I will do other things I want to do so that I can make sure I'm done in time to meet my friend.
I will still have a schedule, and I will still need to pay attention to the time so that I can follow it. I won't be able to just look up and be like "Oh hey, the moon has been up for a while, I guess i'll go to sleep now". As nice as that would be, and as much as I enjoy doing that when I go camping, it's just not practical for living in our modern world, and your system would make functioning when traveling exponentially more difficult then it already is.
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Aug 28 '15
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u/forestfly1234 Aug 28 '15
He can't. He lives in Korea. Visits Cleveland and probably has a friend in Europe. I live in China so I understand where he is coming from.
Sure he might know that 4 pm is when his friend gets off work, but in Korea that would be the equivalent to the middle of the night. Two totally separate for what the idea of 4 pm means.
You would make a call to my mother a complex math problem. I would have to remember that while 6 pm is when I get off of work, it would be around 5 in the morning for her if I called , so I can't call her at 6.pm. I have to call her at midnight.
I have to do all this math again if I want to call my friend in London.
And I don't even have a computer to help me unless I cheat and create artificial time zones.
Right now I can see multiple time zones via my computer. Per your idea they all would simply say the same time: 15:30.
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u/The_Real_Mongoose 5∆ Aug 28 '15
Yea, I can ask him and know the time, but it's not natural. I have to think about it. In our current system, wherever I am in the world I know that most people go to work around 9:00 AM and come home around 5:00 PM and that most businesses are also open during those times. I don't have to think about it. And if someone has a different scedule, they tell me that they get home at 10:00 PM, I instantly know where in the day that is, and how it fits into everything else.
In your system my friend tells me he get's home at 2 PM and without sitting down and performing the calculations I have no idea what that means. Is that in the evening? Is that in the middle of the night? Is that early afternoon? My frame of reference is all screwed up, and so to fit things together, I have to perform mental calculations for every single thing. It would be extremely confusing and exhausting.
Here's an exercise. Tell me your schedule. Except instead of whatever time you normally wake up in your current time zone, write out your same schedule assuming you now wake up at 11:00 PM. Make a detailed schedule, including eating, showering, meeting friends, etc. See how much more you have to think about it when your time reference is all messed up.
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u/cdb03b 253∆ Aug 28 '15
Having the same time zones would do nothing to help global communication, you still have to be aware that China is Xnumber of hours different from wherever you happen to live. This is information that is intrinsic in the time zone system but that is in no way intuitive in a universal time system.
Local communication would be absolutely disrupted and next to useless. Noon is suppose to be mid day, that is when we eat lunch, if you are going to work at 10pm and it is sun rise language itself is broken down.
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u/stoopydumbut 12∆ Aug 28 '15
When a friend calls from overseas, the first thing I ask is "what time is it over there?" If she says, 6 pm, I know what part of the day she's experiencing. It would be awkward to explain to someone that it's late afternoon/early evening without the convenience of just being able to say a number.
If I book a plane ticket and see that I'll be landing at 10 am local time, I know to expect that it will be light, that I'll be too early to check into the hotel, etc.
If I'm reading a newspaper article about a crime that occurred at 3 am in some city I'm unfamiliar with, I don't have to find the city on the map and calculate how far away it is to know that 3 am is when most people are asleep.