Ask Slashdot: Could We Deal With the End of Time Zones?

First time accepted submitter hairyfish writes "Do we still need time zones? Time zones are a relic of the past, when different parts of the world were isolated, and 12 p.m. was whenever the sun was directly above your specific location. Now, in the Internet age, time is just an arbitrary number, and time zones are just unnecessary complexity. Why can't we scrap time zones altogether, and all just use UTC across the board? So here on the eastern seaboard of Australia, lunchtime will now be at 2 a.m., In New York it will be 4 p.m., and in Moscow it will be 8 a.m. There'll be some pain with the initial changeover, but from then on it's all good. Got a meeting with colleagues on the other side of the world? 4 a.m. means 4 a.m. for everyone. Got a flight landing at 3 p.m.? 3 p.m. now means 3 p.m. for everyone. For DST, you simply change your schedule rather than the clock (i.e. work and school starts an hour earlier during DST months). No confusion ever again. For someone whose work involves travel or communication across time zones, this is the best idea I've ever heard. So why aren't we doing it?"

Comments

Is this even a real question?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Is this the type of crap we can come to expect now that CmdrTaco is gone?

Re:Is this even a real question?

[myurr]

The problem with the unification of time systems is that 4am may be 4am everywhere, but now you'd need to know if that was the middle of the day in New York or the middle of the night. You still need to know all the time differences to have any meaningful interaction with other people, so the problem is no simpler. If you go on holiday you still need to learn to get up at 4pm instead of 6am, and it won't be as simple as just changing your watch and trying to adjust to the normal localised times you'd do those things.

So it's a whole load of pain changing the system for no gain, or even a step backwards. Woo.

Before we ditch timezone...Let's kill DST first!!

[sam0737]

DST is a beast. Worse, the rules change over time!

Dates get confusing

[crow]

Do we really want the date to change in the middle of the day? No, that is not practical. Most of the world still runs based on sleeping when the sun is down, so the time zone system still works.

AM & PM

[Anonymous Coward]

Scrap AM & PM - most people can figure out a 24 hour clock. Time zones, on the other hand, make perfect sense.

So why aren't we doing it?

[Ark42]

So why aren't we doing it? Because it's a stupid idea. We still want noon to be when the sun is overhead, and midnight to be the middle of the night. Internet be damned, it's arbitrarily more convenient for most people, because most people don't travel all that often, and spend most of their time in their local time zone.

We already use UTC!

[FranTaylor]

Our computer clocks are all using UTC already

The displayed time is adjusted to local time for the benefit of us humans

We can say "the best time to feed the animals is at 4 PM" and that applies to everyone on the planet. With your scheme we would have to give a much longer-winded explanation.

Re:"So why aren't we doing it?"

[PopeRatzo]

In the U.S. it is because the Federal Government oversteps its bounds on everything, including telling us what the clock shall say.

Think about this: People this stupid have the right to vote.

The US is doomed.

If you want to get up an hour early in the summer

[msobkow]

If you want to get up an hour early in the summer, get your ass out of bed!

Why should the rest of us screw up our sleep rhythms because you don't want to reset your alarm clock?

Time zones were created to fix local noon

[DragonHawk]

Submitter gets it wrong anyway. From TFS: "Time zones are a relic of the past, when different parts of the world were isolated, and 12 p.m. was whenever the sun was directly above your specific location."

Um, no. Time zones were *created* to deal with the problem of local noon being whenever the sun was directly above your specific location. That's what the world used for thousands of years, until rapid transit and communications made that impractical. With the coming of railroads, for the first time, people were frequently outrunning the sun. Time zones became a necessity. You can't have a rail time table if everybody's clock is different.

Also, I think the proposal is just moving the problem around. Currently we have to think, "Okay, they're 3 hours ahead of me, so 9 AM here is 12 PM there." With this proposal, we'd have to think, "Okay, they're 3 hours ahead of me, so when I'm starting work they're going to lunch".

And nobody's stopping anyone from doing everything on UTC. I know at least one person who sets his schedule that way.

DST -- as others have said -- that we can do without.

Re:"So why aren't we doing it?"

[kbolino]

Actually, the Federal government has every right to regulate its own agencies, which is all the time-keeping regulations do. They have no authority to tell you how to set your own clocks, nor do they even have any such laws. You have CHOSEN to use the same time convention, for reasons of convenience. Go ahead, set your clocks to whatever time you want, hell you can even invent your own clocks. I guarantee you they will not levy any fines, charge you with any crimes, nor make any other attempt to coerce you into adopting their system of keeping time.

Don't be an idiot.