this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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Why isn't this a popular thing?

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[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 97 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

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

[–] growsomethinggood@reddthat.com 53 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

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 40 points 2 weeks 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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[–] zlatiah@lemmy.world 51 points 2 weeks 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

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 39 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

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

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[–] november@lemmy.vg 36 points 2 weeks ago
[–] callyral@pawb.social 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] anonymous@lemm.ee 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

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[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 33 points 2 weeks ago (84 children)

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 9 points 2 weeks ago

I am baffled that needs explanation!

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[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

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?

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Because the vast majority of people aren't terminally online and/or affected by timezones.

[–] stangel@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Milliseconds since the epoch is the only true time

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[–] frank@sopuli.xyz 14 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

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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[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

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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[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 weeks 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?

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Most people don't have to deal with booking a meeting a few timezones away or anything else where it would be an advantage on a regular basis.

It's convenient if the date, and possibly weekday, changes at night.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Because timezones were a result of town specific clocks, which were a result of people liking certain hours happening generally in line with where the sun is, like "noon" which still technically refers to when the sun is at its highest point.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Time zones were the result of railroads getting towns to abandon their town specific clocks because of railroads.

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[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Because who the hell wants to say it's 11 in the morning while it's dark out?

[–] tal@lemmy.today 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

"No one," sourly thought a reader in Longyearbyen, Norway. "No one, dammit."

Longyearbyen experiences midnight sun from between 18 April and 24 August (128 days), polar night from 27 October to 15 February (111 days), and civil polar night from 13 November to 29 January. However, due to shading from mountains, the sun is not visible in Longyearbyen until around 8 March.

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[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 8 points 2 weeks ago

I'm now imagining that playing out.

"France, we're thinking about adopting British time as the global standard. Do you have any thoughts or input on the matter?"

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.
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