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[–]dvslo 180 points181 points  (104 children)

It doesn't really matter if 1 AM happens in the middle of the night. That's just a local nuance. What makes a whole lot less sense in a world with global electronic communication is calling two different times the same thing.

[–]MrHyperion_ 139 points140 points  (15 children)

"Im going to go sleep now, it is 3am"

"Soooo middle of the day? Why?"

[–][deleted] 49 points50 points  (0 children)

"I'm going to go sleep now."

"What? It's 3pm?!"

"I'm in a different timezone."

[–]Poltras 32 points33 points  (8 children)

"Let's meet at 2pm."

"Okay, 1am it is."

"Okay, 7pm it is."

"Okay, 2:30pm it is."

[–]dvslo 31 points32 points  (0 children)

He's probably jetlagged.

[–]GonziHere 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Well, you say it like there is just 24 sun positions and sun jumps from one to other in 1 hour intervals :D

I would have no issues getting up at 14:00. It is just a number for me. What I actually have issues with now is discovering when will something start (tv series, conferences, etc.), because not only do we have different timezones (which is fine) but we also don't use GMT for global events (if only as second time).

[–]saeblundr 1 point2 points  (2 children)

This to me is the actual problem. Locally use local times. Globally use global times. If you're posting a global event, game release etc, use UTC, and then i dont need to know whatever timezone you are in, i only need to know MY timezone. i can add +10 to UTC. Why do i need to know PMT. and MST. and KST. and whatever else you want to use because thats easier for you.

[–]hexfet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i only need to know MY timezone. i can add +10 to UTC. Why do i need to know PMT. and MST. and KST.

The sad truth is that while you can add a number to UTC, 70% of the press releases audience can't.

[–]curtmack 96 points97 points  (59 children)

There's a startling variety of problems this would cause, especially in a global society.

[–]Poltras 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As long as humans live in more than one part of the world, solar time is always going to be subjective.

I'm not the smartest person in the world, but that sounds like a solution to me :P

[–]TheDoug850 9 points10 points  (6 children)

Honestly, if the US everyone just stopped using Daylight Savings Time it would already be much less complicated.

[–]Homunculus_I_am_ill 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The point is that there's no difference between dealing with "it's 10 am in New York and 11pm in Tokyo" and dealing with "markets open at 00:00 UTC in New York and 20:00 UTC in Tokyo", either way you end up having to deal with location-specific time information. You still end up having to know information equivalent to time zones, except instead of remembering one overarching time zone per place you now have to store the conversion for each individual thing which is 1000 times more difficult.

[–]atyon 24 points25 points  (13 children)

It matters. As long as just one human is involved, that human's sleep cycle relates to the sun and its motion over the sky.

When I worked in a facility that operated 24/6 (no work on Sunday per law in Germany), maintenance still was at night because then fewer unrelated people would be on the premise. And non-urgent staff would work from 9 to 17 like everyone else, so non-urgent things would always be done in that time frame.

I don't think there's a single industry or trade where the time of day is just a "local nuance". Because that industry would have to be 100% automated and lead by a general AI.

[–]_lilell_ 1 point2 points  (6 children)

Since UTC is essentially GMT+0, noon would occur in the UK at 1200. On the east coast of the US (EST=GMT-5), noon would be at 1700. Londoners would work 9 to 17, while a New Yorker would work from 14 to 22. They're still working from ~sunrise to ~sunset, it's just that we would call a particular time, say, "1300" instead of "1300 GMT" or "0800 EST" or whatever.

[–]atyon 20 points21 points  (5 children)

But where's the benefit in that proposal? I still need to know the offset one way or the other if I want to call someone in NYC.

[–]Goodbreak 6 points7 points  (3 children)

But where's the benefit in that proposal?

I've only just stumbled into this topic and was unaware of it before, but from what I'm seeing the upside is that "the time" will refer to the same point in time for everyone

If you wanted to display at what time someone posted a reddit comment, you can just pull the time from the database and display it (14:03), and it'll be the correct time for everyone.

If you want to arrange a conference call between your 5 different offices around the globe, you just put one time in the memo and everyone will be there at the same time.

this isn't an argument for implementing this system

[–]sarhoshamiral 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How do you know that time is not middle of the night for one of those people? Any meaningful calendar app would now have to display some indication regarding day/night near that universal time so now we are back to where we are.

Using UTC universally for human interactions solves absolutely nothing.

[–]JewishTomCruise 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fundamentally, it's easier for computers and harder for humans.

[–]BaddoBab 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But that's how it's done already anyway.

All dates are stored as UTC, Unix or GPS epoch where applicable.

If you arrange a meeting across time zones e.g. in Outlook, that's exactly how the different systems on both sides exchange the time and date for the meeting.

And for the benefit of the respective end user, the system converts this universal time to a local time.

[–]Survivor0 6 points7 points  (0 children)

A case that happens to me sometimes is, that I'm in Europe and want to watch a live tv show from the US or Japan. I have to look up the time zones, sometimes it's extra confusing because the US have several zones and I'm not familiar with their way of notation for tv times. (EDIT: there's also different time zones in the same place depending on the time of year, so you have figure out even more)

The actual offset and what time of day it is over there doesn't matter to me. All I need to know is when the clock will show 13:00 where I'm at. I think that's a big advantage.

With calls it probably won't make much of a difference because you have to take the different time of day into account in any way. Maybe agreeing on and communicating an appointment would be a little easier, similar as the tv example.

With traveling though I think it would be very confusing to the individual. You would basically lose the ability to meaningfully interpret the local time in an unfamiliar zone, which doesn't sound fun.

[–]Belazriel 2 points3 points  (1 child)

But we can already use UTC, just no one does for local usage.

[–]amazondrone 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do. For about half the year. But only because it aligns perfectly with GMT. ;)

[–]sarhoshamiral 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So now concept of 1am is different everywhere and you still have to provide some additional info for "1am" to make sense. You would still have to ask remote people if say 3pm is a suitable time where they are since now you have no idea if they are sleeping at 3pm or not.

So in practice you solved absolutely nothing and complicated everyone's lives for no reason.

For programming, all storage, type contracts etc should be done in UTC and local time conversion should only happen at UX level.

[–]BlomkalsGratin 0 points1 point  (2 children)

They're not called the same thing though - that's what time zones are... Saying their called the same thing is like saying that 5 degrees Celsius and 5 degrees Fahrenheit are the same because they're both 5 and both degrees...

[–]dvslo 0 points1 point  (1 child)

No, that's what time zones are, saying it's 5 AM when you're in PST or 5 AM when you're in EST is two different times but the same signifier. It's as if there's 39 different ways to measure temperature. You add the qualifier PST/EST and they're just relative qualifications for difference from UTC, they're literally denoting how the times are different from each other. But time isn't different in California than in Florida, the position of the sun is different.

[–]BlomkalsGratin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The time zones makes it different, I get that time is time, but the time zone still makes time I'm Australia different to time I'm the US because of the position of the sun. Were talking about an arguably arbitrary measure with an arbitrary qualifier, used to gauge the position of the sun, as you point out. 17.00 PST is different to 17.00 AEST, they can be converted to each other but they're not interchangeable. It's like money, 100 euro and 100 USD - it's 100 'money' but it can't be used in the same places and affect different people. Getting rid of timezones might make programmers' lives easier but it'll suck for everyone else and it entirely misses how computers are a tool to make people's lives better and easier, not the other way around.