I think we should have 365 months of 2 days each (the days are half as long)
Also all of the nighttime days should be named after me because you can look up at the sky and it's all pretty n stuff
im surprised you don't want 1 month with 2 days (the days are extremely long)
1 day with day and night half-year each (basically like it is beyond polar circles).
We need to revturn to the pre-Republic Roman system of ten 28 day months and a liminal, unaccountable 90ish day period during the winter where dates don't exist. We need to have a high priest pulling apart bird guts to tell us when in March we can start counting days again. We need a system so subjective and variable that you occasionally need a 500 day year to reset everything either becuase of compounding error or because the priest in charge got murdered and no one replaced him for two months.
And we should implement yearly counts based on how long the current dynasty keeps power. We could have Bush 1-4, followed by years Clinton 1-8, followed by Bush 5-12, etc.
They were just revolution brainstorming, let them cook
If only the metric system could have failed the way decimal time did.
Preferring the Fr*nch colonial system of measurements to your culture's indigenous ones.person a: describes his ideological and practical disagreements with something
person b: but have you considered that it's really popular!!??
stellar logic bud
Measurement systems, especially time measurement, is the one thing everybody should absolutely agree on for the sake of sanity of everyone. Of course the metric system is arbitrary bullshit but so is every other system, and metric at least tries to be less arbitrary to an extent. Yeah of course the most popular system is going to originate from a cultural hegemon but that's fine as long as everybody agrees on it.
Measurement systems being propagated throughout the world technically would constitute as colonialism I guess but honestly I see no sense in opposing the metric system other than pure spite.
Measurement systems, especially time measurement, is the one thing everybody should absolutely agree on for the sake of sanity of everyone.
I disagree with this premise. I think that standardization is highly valuable, but there's absolutely no reason everyone everywhere should use the same systems.
I think that standardization is highly valuable, but there's absolutely no reason everyone everywhere should use the same systems.
I mean I guess there are exceptions like remote tribes living mostly independently of the global human civilization but other than that I can't see a reason why you wouldn't want a standardized measurement system.
Measurements should be relevant to daily life, and come in increments that are useful to daily tasks. Metric was primarily designed to look good on paper, which isn't surprising when you consider that it was dreamed up by a bunch of fancy lads who never made things with their hands. We're all kind of stuck with it now for a lot of reasons, but I believe that it is suboptimal.
The imperial system isn't based on day to day use either though. A yard is the length of some kings arm, not some universal signifyer. The foot is the length of Henry I's foot. An inch is three grains of barley laid end-to-end.
First time I remember my dad using yards was when I asked how far my family's dog could see. She was going blind. He replied 'about five yards' and I thought it meant back yards, and then thought she could see further than she could.
Having actually tried to teach dimensional analysis and conversion factors to students, the fact that we even have two commonly used systems is too many.
We've already crashed a spaceship because of this. The practical need for any group of people in regular communication to adopt a single unit system far outways any ideological objections to it.
We've already crashed a spaceship because of this
And fucked up a few bridges and tunnels too!
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27509559
Not to mention crushed bridges
https://metricviews.uk/2015/07/03/another-bridge-bashed/And overdosed patients
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25845/quick-6-six-unit-conversion-disasters
the standards set by some inbred monarch a thousand years ago should not be maintained
Lol the other day I learned the measurement for a yard was determined by an English king sticking his arm out and measuring the distance from his nose to his thumb
if you seem to think a 'colonial' standard of measurement is bad because it was imposed by force (metric wasn't in the vast majority of metric countries btw), the 'indigenous' one would need to be meaningfully different. but old measuring standards were arbitrary impositions from old ruling classes
old measuring standards were arbitrary impositions from old ruling classes
As opposed to metric, which was an arbitrary imposition by the French ruling class.
how is that worse? if you're going to argue this is a knock against metric, the 'french ruling class' needs to be worse than whichever royal nonce decided the length of an ell.
btw when did the french conquer south america? it's so weird they're all using metric but i can't remember the date when Napoleon came round and forced them all to switch
I didn't say it was worse. You implied that it was different, I pointed out that it was the same.
gold reading comprehension star for you ⭐ you've successfully arrived at my point but you seem to think its yours.
i'm equivocating between the imposition of measurement systems through coercive force and arguing it is not a valid complaint against metric---so you agree?
okay I've found the impasse here. from your first post:
but old measuring standards were arbitrary impositions from old ruling classes
I disagree with this premise. Certainly some of them may have been, but the majority of measurements that people used were used for thousands of years, and were honed over that period by actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork.
The oft-cited examples of English kings defining feet using their own feet and stuff like that wasn't the ruling class arbitrarily imposing measurements on the lower class, it was the ruling class taking measurements that already existed and choosing an arbitrary reference point to standardize to. As I said elsewhere, I think standardization is fine and good, it's the taking measurements away from what people came up with because it was useful and replacing it with something a bunch of aristocrats invented because it made math slightly easier that I don't like.
bunch of aristocrats
even right after clarifying this shouldn't matter (and doing apologetics for the medieval equivalent) you return to this false standard and it isn't even true! SI is tied to universal constants so anybody in any condition can work with it, without even having to procure a copy of the standard. it's literally not arbitrary, or developed by out of touch aristocrats who never worked with their hands.
"actual craftsmen doing actual craftswork" because everyone has the same size of hands and feet? have you heard of sexual dimorphism? this is so childish, absolutely none of your arguments hold water (if you even stick to them) and are colored by a completely falsified version of history. instead of crafting unbelievable appeals to working people and cultural heritage, perhaps ponder why you're in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity and socialist thinkers. wonder about the billions of workers and craftsmen who get on just fine without your units
There is no need to be upset, though perhaps it is your reading comprehension that needs work.
I asserted that pre-metric systems of measurements weren't ordained top-down, and that they were in fact developed bottom-up. An aristocrat got involved at some point, but they took measurements that were already in the culture and standardized them, which is a different action from inventing all new measurements and imposing them.
Furthermore, "the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second" is equally as arbitrary as "about three feet placed front to back". Yes, people's feet have different lengths, which is why someone eventually said "lets all agree to use the King's foot as the standard". See the previous paragraph.
perhaps ponder why you're in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity and socialist thinkers
This is a terrible argument to make. Socialist thinkers are themselves in disagreement with the vast mass of humanity - if they weren't we wouldn't be on this niche ass website, would we?
the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second
it's also 1/1000000th of the distance from the pole to the equator, you can do this math yourself with basic tools to "everyday" acccuracy, just like a kilogram being a litre of water (with a much fancier process to get it physicist-calibrated). not equally arbitrary. a hand or a foot is a distance that has never existed in a replicable form beyond a single body, the dimensions and physical characteristics of observable, stable natural phenomena are the same for everybody, everywhere.
but lets get back to your absurd sequence of events "someone eventually said "lets all agree to use the King's foot as the standard" that someone being the King, the "agreement" was the coercive power of the state to enforce that ruling. what if the king's foot was unusually short/long? you had to use it all the same. this fantasy you've constructed about the humble ole' conventional units doesn't agree with the basics of how states work, no matter how euphemistically you present "the guy who draws and quarters people for not bowing low enough decided his foot was a standard of measurement" there was absolutely nothing democratic or 'bottom-up' about it. you want to hear about democratic processes? how about the hundred republics that have gone metric without the threat of force? the peoples republics, the soviet union, the dozens of countries that became independent from britain and adopted it?
also when you say "a month from now" that would be a defined amount of time
I've always assumed that meant you incremented the month (i.e next month on this date) but it turns out some people use an arbitrary day increase and you only find out when it fails.
It's jarring seeing reddit style inane debatelording/condescending smug posting like the above here since federation. The evolution of Hexbear post severance from the reddit liberal hivemind has made these kind of people stand out more than any instance tag ever could.
I know, I really hate to see it here. Hexbear has always been such a warm, welcoming place, and some newcomers from other corners of the Internet have no understanding or respect for that & it hurts me. I don't want this place to turn into just anywhere else, I'll stop bearing if it just turns into another place where people argue
(That said it is kinda funny from time to time to see a smug lib get absolutely bandsawed, which admittedly was a large appeal of the original subreddit for me)
lol I agree and I still like federation because it does bring us new comrades and very very funny site taglines. I think it's worth the occasional headache.
I follow up compulsively when there is ambiguity, it was just a general observation from past experience.
Just make it into a big holiday that doesn’t take place on any official day of the week, it’s just its own thing existing outside the normal structures of modern life.
Or, we could ignore it and enjoy the confusion as the seasons slowly drift into different months as an effort to hide the increasingly obvious signs of climate change.
If we're gonna do that let's just make it a five day holiday and a 360 day year. 360 is a much more convenient number than 364, you can make it ten 36 day months of four nine day weeks or twelve 30 day months of three ten day weeks.
Make it five 6-day weeks and twelve 30-day months, you got yourself a deal. If we want to fit the moon thing like in OP a month needs to be ~29.5 days and 30 would be closest. Twelve months also allows us to keep lining months up with seasons and use quarters for stuff.
Sure, five six day weeks or even six five day weeks. There are a lot more options when your prime factors don't include ugly numbers like 13 and 7.
I think they tried that around the French revolution and the paris commune used it. It didn't stick around because we're not allowed to have nice things
The glib, history-as-storybook reason I heard was that they didn't bother or think to to rework the almanacs, so all the very necessary work of food production was still using old calendar. Kinda hard to stick to a new calendar when your cheese and bread is still marked by the old one.
I always assumed it had to do with the difficulty of using a different calendar than all your neighboring countries, but I don't really know
Nah, they're the reason we have the metric system. Well, them and Napoleon. If they had been able to prove the new calendar as useful, it would have spread with him.
They clearly didn’t do enough public executions to make these changes stick.
Or 12 months with 30 days in the month and the week is five days + holiday week which doesn't fall within a month.
You decide when that is yourself. If you're having a rough day and you can't be arsed? You take the 365th. It's like a yearly "grandparents funeral".
I independently came up with the 13 x 28 idea to align monthly things like bills to weekly things like paychecks.
My solution was to make that odd day a holiday and celebrate the really awesome, cool, and good-looking dude that came up with this new calendar. (Me)
That is no worse than leap day. Far better than 73 five day months.
A great point. I had thought we would want to make a bunch. However, even the Caesars ran out of steam renaming months.
What if we also made all of those months October, so that we can have Halloween 5 times a year instead of once?
To make this work, you'd have to add the detail of having a leap week every 6 years or so, sometimes every 5 years.
Remember, a solar year is about 365.24 Earth days.
Every year has 1-2 intercalary days that aren't part of any month.
The problem is then that your months slowly drift out of alignment with the moon.
Or every year, put it between two different months. To be decided by the winner of a contest held on that day. The winner also gets to decide what the next contest will be. In a surprise twist in the year 27 in the new calendar, when the contest day is held after the thirteenth month (Redteaber?), the winner of the contest decides the next year's contest day will be the first day of the next year – tomorrow! Mayhem breaks out and the people wish they'd listened to WithoutFurtherRelay when they had the chance.
Yes please I would like to spend my entire life having every birthday be on a fucking Wednesday thank you
Apparently Tolkien based that on Saint Bede's and Anglo-Saxon calendars (ofc he would)
This is why we need to bring Gaddafi back from the dead and put his brain inside a giant robot. If anyone had the will and means to get this implemented, it would be Mega Mecha Gadaffi.
intimidated by superior measurements
