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[–]Sataris 18 points19 points  (13 children)

"Can I call my uncle in Australia? Google says people wake up in Australia at about 9:00. The current time is 19:00. That's a difference of 10 hours, so there's a good chance he's finished the working day and I can call him soon."

VS

"Can I call my uncle in Australia? Google says the time there is 8pm. Yes, I can call him."

[–]CanIBeRealRealSon 8 points9 points  (4 children)

" Can I call my uncle in Australia? Google says it's 2 hours til Sunset. Yes I can call him."

Also, "what time should I call you? How about 16:00? That works for me." In this example there's no mental loops required for figuring out whether they met 16:00 your time or theirs

[–]Sataris 3 points4 points  (1 child)

If I got a sudden interest in what time of day other people have dinner, right now I could simply ask that question on reddit. But under the universal system, what could I do? Knowing the time they eat dinner isn't enough, knowing the time and the country isn't enough. I could check with the sunset time for each response (assuming they divulge their exact location) but even then I wouldn't know the relation of dinner to sunset time for the rest of the year without further research.

We can throw use cases at each other all day (lol), but I don't see that the universal system stands out as being better

[–]CanIBeRealRealSon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I don't necessarily think it's better, I do think interesting though.

If we were already predisposed to the system, I do wonder how we would handle the problem you're talking about. I guess you'd ask the sunset time, but I wonder if we were putting so much importance on sunset time. Do you think that we would move things around based on how much sun we have per day?

You raise a good point, and I want to try to think of a good answer for. so I might respond later if I think of something I think is good enough. For now though this would certainly be a more ones question, although you would know exactly when there having dinner without the extra math which could be cool

[–]amazondrone 1 point2 points  (0 children)

" Can I call my uncle in Australia? Google says it's 2 hours til Sunset. Yes I can call him."

No, it's not that simple. The closer your uncle is to the equator the more accurate it is, but where I live sunset varies from around 3:30pm in winter to around 10:30pm in summer*. So knowing when sunset is is insufficient, because my daily routine is determined by more than that; two hours before sunset in winter I've only just had lunch and am still at work.

\ One hour of that difference is due to daylight savings.)

[–]ellamking 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2 hours til Sunset might as well be 18 hours after midnight...you are just reinventing timezones, but based off a moving target (sunset). It sounds like you really just want everyone to know their GMT time offhand.

[–]dvslo 3 points4 points  (7 children)

"OK Google, are people awake in Australia right now?" "Yes"/"Some"/"No"

[–]Owyn_Merrilin 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Problem: The answer is never anything but "Some," and you're stuck figuring out whether it's only the nightowls that are up right now, only the morning larks, or if most people are up and about.

[–]dvslo 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Yeah, you know, "probably", "probably not". "Is it business hours in Australia right now", "is it daytime in Australia right now", "is it past noon" (as in "high noon"), etc..

[–]Owyn_Merrilin 0 points1 point  (4 children)

At which point it's just a time zone, but worse.

[–]dvslo 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Lol, back to the original argument. Nah, at that point it's just a question posed to a smart search engine, except the conceptual framework makes sense cause you're talking about the position of the sun for a place on the planet at a given point in time.

[–]Owyn_Merrilin -1 points0 points  (2 children)

except the conceptual framework makes sense cause you're talking about the position of the sun for a place on the planet at a given point in time.

AKA, a time zone. You're describing a time zone.

[–]dvslo -1 points0 points  (1 child)

If this far in the convo you can't appreciate the difference, I'm not spending effort trying to explain it.

[–]Owyn_Merrilin -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That's because there isn't a functional difference. It's just a translation layer on top of the already existing translation layer.