2004 or 130,004?
I've always found the BC/AD calander system to be unnecessarily confusing (counting backwards then fowards), culturally biased, and misleading in that it hides the extent of human history.
Perhaps it's a deficit in my googling skills, but I can't find a good alternative system.
I suggested 130,000 yrs because that's the oldest dated homo sapiens fossil. Obviously that's a rough estimate, but it just sounds cool.
Of course, you wouldn't get rid of the before/after system for paleontological, geological, or astronomical dates, but it would cover human history.
Perhaps it's a deficit in my googling skills, but I can't find a good alternative system.
I suggested 130,000 yrs because that's the oldest dated homo sapiens fossil. Obviously that's a rough estimate, but it just sounds cool.
Of course, you wouldn't get rid of the before/after system for paleontological, geological, or astronomical dates, but it would cover human history.
Comments
Ooookay.
Further, the years when our ancestors weren't advanced enough to think in terms of counting things and recording happenings in some manner, shouldn't count IMO because the idea of a year -- at that point in time -- had no meaning to anybody. Or something like that....
Originally posted by Moogs
I think they should simply go back to the furthest point in recorded human history (clearly in the BC territory) and start counting upward from there. I doubt Christ will mind; his birthday will still be celebrated on December 25 each year and all the principles for which he stood shall remain unchanged no matter what year we decide to call it.
Further, the years when our ancestors weren't advanced enough to think in terms of counting things and recording happenings in some manner, shouldn't count IMO because the idea of a year -- at that point in time -- had no meaning to anybody. Or something like that....
and all the principles for which he stood shall remain IGNORED by the very people who pimp him the most no matter what year we decide to call it
100 days in a year
100 units (like hours) per day
100 ....
But then with the whole we-can't-change-how-the-earth-rotates-or-travels-around-the-sun thing, I'm not so sure that could ever work well.
I'll just go to bed now.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
I've always found the BC/AD calander system to be unnecessarily confusing (counting backwards then fowards), culturally biased, and misleading in that it hides the extent of human history.
Perhaps it's a deficit in my googling skills, but I can't find a good alternative system.
I suggested 130,000 yrs because that's the oldest dated homo sapiens fossil. Obviously that's a rough estimate, but it just sounds cool.
Of course, you wouldn't get rid of the before/after system for paleontological, geological, or astronomical dates, but it would cover human history.
I like it. You don't mention it, but of course, it would turn from a religious-based system to a very ahem non-religious system. Especially in the US, where for religious reasons about half of us believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
I've always wondered if it would be more beneficial to make our calendars like the metric system:
100 days in a year
100 units (like hours) per day
100 ....
I've seen proposals to change the time scale for a day to a more metric scale, but of course you can't change the days in a year. Also, I think they scrap the time zones crap and simply tell people to deal with it.
So we could all be living in the year 130,004 in the month of alpha, waking up at sunrise at 2:74 (central daylight work start time at 4:00).
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
I've seen proposals to change the time scale for a day to a more metric scale, but of course you can't change the days in a year. Also, I think they scrap the time zones crap and simply tell people to deal with it.
So we could all be living in the year 130,004 in the month of alpha, waking up at sunrise at 2:74 (central daylight work start time at 4:00).
Yeah, I'd really love to have the world run on 24hr GMT. And I hate daylight savings too. If you don't want it to be dark when the kids are walking to school, make school start an hour later.
Originally posted by BR
and all the principles for which he stood shall remain IGNORED by the very people who pimp him the most no matter what year we decide to call it
Well yeah. That's partly what I was getting at. It just wouldn't matter... and those who might make the argument that it does (for Christian reasons) would be confronted by the argument you're making.
While I don't think it's 130,004, I could go for 5004.
5,600,002,004
Then, there'd be lots of arguaments about how precise that is - and as we scientists get it more and more accurate, we'd loose years, go backward in the calendar, and everyone would just get confused... OK, so that's an exaggeration, but still it's best just to stick with an arbitrary point and count from there. It makes it easier on the hands at least...
As for changing the calendar to metric - no way would that work... It took people ages to get it to how it is, considering that the year is one Earth orbit around the sun, a month based on the lunar cycle - two pretty random numbers that don't have much in common. The big reason not to change, though, would be that it'd take people ages to get used to it. We're still getting used to metric distances - remember how the Mars probe people got confused between metres and feet, and made a dint in Mars instead of landing? Not good... But then, it would help if us English switched from using miles on our roads...
Note to self: expand vocabulary of starting phrases. "But then" should only be used once in a message...
I figure that will ultimately be easier to say but probably not until 2020.