Would you support changing the CE/BCE calendar to something else?

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Also in that 1 day off in 7, they'd have to waste part of that in church and lots of places would be shut - vive la revolution!

We can be herpes (Tom D.), Saturday, 16 June 2018 13:59 (five years ago) link

To be clear, the dating system “we” use is just an overlay at this point. When I started writing this is was 1529157775. Also, the world will end on January 19, 2038.

El Tomboto, Saturday, 16 June 2018 14:04 (five years ago) link

I’ve been on Unix time for several months now. The current time is 1529133043 seconds since Jan 01 1970

obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Saturday, 16 June 2018 14:38 (five years ago) link

1439 Sana Hijriyya

Frederik B, Saturday, 16 June 2018 14:49 (five years ago) link

dammit tomboto, i really f'd that up on multiple levels

obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Saturday, 16 June 2018 15:14 (five years ago) link

can't even use leap seconds as an excuse there

El Tomboto, Saturday, 16 June 2018 15:18 (five years ago) link

no

also i dislike sci-fi/fantasy books that labor too heavily over their made-up calendar systems

― mookieproof, Saturday, 16 June 2018 00:56 (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep this

tired culché (darraghmac), Saturday, 16 June 2018 16:24 (five years ago) link

the main thing that annoys me about the calendar is that the current year, as numbered, doesn't reflect even a little how long humans have been keeping track of the year. it'd be a lot cooler if the year was 5778 or higher

gbx, Saturday, 16 June 2018 16:30 (five years ago) link

it is exactly that year in certain venues, as you know

El Tomboto, Saturday, 16 June 2018 16:40 (five years ago) link

The Romans counted up from the founding of Rome. Except they were totally guessing which year that was and, of course, claimed an antiquity that would be flattering to their sense of importance.

A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 16 June 2018 17:32 (five years ago) link

filling out paperwork here have to remember it's year 30 of heisei and harder to remember i was born in year 60something of the showa.

XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Saturday, 16 June 2018 18:30 (five years ago) link

while we're doing thought experiments: what about a global clock? Same time all over the world. people could be going to work from 2 to 10 in the USA and from 15 to 23 in japan for instance.

StanM, Saturday, 16 June 2018 18:45 (five years ago) link

We already have that; nobody uses it for day to day life because there’s no good reason to.

valorous wokelord (silby), Saturday, 16 June 2018 18:49 (five years ago) link

it is exactly that year in certain venues, as you know

― El Tomboto, Saturday, June 16, 2018 11:40 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

almost as if i chose that number deliberately

gbx, Saturday, 16 June 2018 18:58 (five years ago) link

I just hate the mimsy use of BCE/CE, whereby they keep on using the BC/AD system, but try to pretend there's no Christian connection by making use of an utterly dull and basically meaningless new phrase.

Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 28 June 2018 03:13 (five years ago) link

i do too.

Karl Malone, Thursday, 28 June 2018 04:17 (five years ago) link

It's a Christian connection, but it's also an undeniable cultural connection for Western Civ.

nickn, Thursday, 28 June 2018 06:16 (five years ago) link

i would like the year count to start at around 10000 years ago so we wouldn't have to bother with two systems within recorded history. the hebrew calendar, while having a silly starting date, at least gets this right.

easy solution, just add a 1 before the current ce year. happy 12018 everyone

adam the (abanana), Thursday, 28 June 2018 06:56 (five years ago) link

I just hate the mimsy use of BCE/CE, whereby they keep on using the BC/AD system, but try to pretend there's no Christian connection by making use of an utterly dull and basically meaningless new phrase.

Never used BCE/CE in my life tbh. Never heard it used in conversation either.

Alan Alba (Tom D.), Thursday, 28 June 2018 07:41 (five years ago) link

Whatever system we're changing it to can we make sure it starts at year 0 so we don't have to have the tedious conversation about whether centuries, millennia etc start in xxxx0 or xxxx1?

lana del boy (ledge), Thursday, 28 June 2018 07:43 (five years ago) link

^^^^

Alan Alba (Tom D.), Thursday, 28 June 2018 07:44 (five years ago) link

as a teen my wiccan friend was a stickler for it. I mostly see it used by muslims and in academia

ogmor, Thursday, 28 June 2018 07:47 (five years ago) link

I think, slightly bizarrely, Julian Cope was the first person I ever heard use it!

Alan Alba (Tom D.), Thursday, 28 June 2018 07:54 (five years ago) link

don't care, seems like changing everything would be a massive waste of time.

if it's arbitrary anyways, who's to say that once you change everything people wouldn't think oh let's change it again to something better.

put your energy into something useful.

Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 28 June 2018 10:17 (five years ago) link

what i want to know is when are we going to rename the 'early modern' and 'modern' eras. that was shortsighted.

ogmor, Thursday, 28 June 2018 10:20 (five years ago) link

I love "Modernism" as an ever-receding historical era. Except NP eras are really located on history tbf.

Kroos on first (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 28 June 2018 11:52 (five years ago) link

no eras, fucking autocorrect

Kroos on first (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 28 June 2018 11:53 (five years ago) link

all years should just be given as number of years + or - relative to the present one

I'd Rather Kecak (NickB), Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:05 (five years ago) link

so 2017 would be -1 but next year it would be -2

I'd Rather Kecak (NickB), Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:06 (five years ago) link

just work out when the universe began and count from there. welcome to 13799131678 everyone.

thomasintrouble, Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:10 (five years ago) link

let's not forget about how it would change the way we listen to songs like 1999.

let's just roll it back thirty years or so so we can listen to 1999 with the same kind of anticipation we used to

I just hate the mimsy use of BCE/CE, whereby they keep on using the BC/AD system, but try to pretend there's no Christian connection by making use of an utterly dull and basically meaningless new phrase.

― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison)

I understand this if you take the point of view that they ("they") are trying to maintain a Christocentric calendar but hiding that fact so there's no pushback. However, seeing as the calendar isn't going to change any time soon, isn't it better to change the terminology so you're not forcing non-Christians to talk about years in very overtly Christian terms?

Also it's not that new, Common Era phraseology stems from around the 18th century.

emil.y, Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:24 (five years ago) link

just work out when the universe began and count from there. welcome to 13799131678 everyone.

years are too solar-centric, we should be planning for when we've gone intergalactic.

lana del boy (ledge), Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:24 (five years ago) link

there are some really good ideas in this thread

Karl Malone, Thursday, 28 June 2018 14:53 (five years ago) link


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