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Why isn't this a popular thing?

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[-] zlatiah@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

I believe no one else mentioned this but... China is a case study of why this is a terrible idea

The entire PRC uses the same time zone, even though in any other parts of the world, China should have been split to at least 3 different timezones

It is very disorienting to try and go for breakfast in Tibet at 9 am to find that nothing is open and the sun is just out... So yeah. Imagine if this is extended to 12-hr differences

Wikipedia has a nice summary of this

[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

Because we like midnight to happen at night, and noon to happen during the day

[-] growsomethinggood@reddthat.com 6 points 1 week ago

And you'd still have to adjust to local time anyway! Travel three timezones and now noon is at 9 instead of 12. Your alarm to wake up at 6, now needs to be at 3.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago

Literally sounds a lot worse. Imagine telling your friend in Europe from the USA "ugh, I have to get up at 10 AM for work!" And the european responds with "10am is pretty late!"

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[-] callyral@pawb.social 11 points 1 week ago

That would make time more unrelated to the sun, which is pretty important.

[-] anonymous@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

We could just get used to the fact that in this location 6 PM means noon and in this other location it's 3 PM

It's changing all the time anyway, so time is almost never aligned with the sun.

[-] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Sounds a lot like getting used to time zones. Just get used to it being 3pm there when it's 6pm here

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 4 points 1 week ago

Yeah, the number on the clock is just a number. Does it matter if it says 12 or 6 or 20?

That said, if we were going to a universal time zone, I would definitely get rid of AM/PM and do 24-hour clock.

[-] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Because that would be a nightmare. "I'll meet you for lunch at 2AM", "No, I had a huge breakfast yesterday". You would need to relearn the times every time you went to a different place, "oh, right, the restaurants only serve lunch until 10AM" or "Sorry sir, but there's an extra fee for night time services starting 1PM". Those are much more likely day-to-day phrases than scheduling a meeting with someone from another continent. And you don't gain anything by this, because whenever you're communicating across timezones you can simply use UTC as a standard and everyone knows how to convert that to their own time. So there's no good reason and a lot of drawbacks.

[-] supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I am baffled that needs explanation!

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[-] november@lemmy.vg 8 points 1 week ago
[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 7 points 1 week ago

The cultural relationship with time is more important than its absolute measurement.

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It would make it even harder for people to understand when it was in a different timezone. Right now I know that 11pm is late for anyone on thier own timezone. But with no timezone, I would say, the meeting is at 23:00. Thats mid morning for me, what is that for you... the answer is way less exact, and harder to covert.
So you day is my day minus half a morning?

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 1 week ago

Long discussion here. I feel I'd like to add two things. First: we already do. If you coordinate international video calls or conference live streams, you'll say it starts 14:00 UTC. That is something we can do and regularly do. Some companies will use the timezone of their headquarters, though.

Furthermore: Once you're already in the process of changing how time works, don't do a half-assed job. Go all the way and make it metric. Do away with all the 12/24 and 60s. And make things divisible by 1000.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

We should also all work 9am-5pm of course.

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[-] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago

This is a surprisingly divisive topic every time I see it or suggest it. I reckon the divisor is "people who use and work across timezones a lot" and "people who don't". Fuck I hate timezones.

[-] cooopsspace@infosec.pub 2 points 1 week ago

I work with someone who does 9-5 in the next state, a messily -4 hours away.

They get to work when I have lunch, when I'm waiting on something from them in the afternoon they're just dealing with morning shit. When their system crashes at 4:50 in the afternoon as usual I'm making dinner.

So does this colleague suddenly have to work 9-5 in +0 time. Or do they keep working real 9-5?

Worst of all, he sees a bit of daylight on the sunrise commute home. Yet I as a +10 would never see the sun.

How do you propose any of this work?

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[-] omxxi@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

That would be shifting from timezone to "workzone" or "noonzone". At this moment you need to setup a meeting with people, then you ask which is their timezone. With global UTC timezone, then you need to ask, which are your work hours? (workzone).

[-] m0darn@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

So if I'm in Vancouver BC it would go from Friday to Saturday in the mid afternoon? Is Friday night the first night of the weekend or the last night of the work week?

[-] frank@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

I see this argument all the time. Forget all the tradition, "people like noon near solar noon", all that.

Date changes mid day some places and not others would be a nightmare for so many things.

What're you doing on the Tuesday half of June 15/16th?

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[-] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Almost a century ago, the fascist dictator of Spain wanted to appease Hitler and decided to move the timezone from the UK one to the German one. With daylight savings the situation in summer was a bit ridiculous: dark until 9 am and sun until 10 pm, it was very confusing as a tourist to have all the stores to open so late in morning and go out to eat dinner so late

I can't imagine what kind of mess would be going to Japan as a tourist on UTC+0

[-] Artyom@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

Because "the markets open at 9" is an international standard that everyone can count on. You could stagger it so that one country's market opens at 10, then another at 12, and so on, but then what if one country chooses a different standard? What if a restaurant picks a different convention than businesses in one area? Time zones are great because once you understand them, you'll always know how time works locally, anywhere in the world with a single piece of information, it's a truly successful standard.

[-] olafurp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

It's because a lot of the way humans go about their life is based on traditions. Getting everybody to switch from a system that already works pretty well is just a hassle.

Examples:

  • English spelling is faaar from phonetic and children take longer to learn how to spell than in Spanish for example. (though, cough, enough, plough instead of something like thouğ, koff, enaf and the US plow)
  • Metric system adopted globally would streamline a lot of global industries that have no cater to each system.
  • Driving right side everywhere. Sweden switched but asking India to switch makes way less sense.
  • Date formats. Arguably the best if everyone uses ISO 8601 but nobody does.
[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

I do use ISO 8601

[-] davidgro@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Here are some reasons told through what-if.

TL;DR: People like to sleep in the dark generally, and businesses that close are open when more people are awake.

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[-] stangel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Milliseconds since the epoch is the only true time

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this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
21 points (81.8% liked)

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