this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024

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Why don't we have one timezone covering the whole earth? (feddit.nu)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

161 comments fedilink hide all child comments

And instead changing the time work and other things happens depending on where you are. Would be easier to arrange meetings across the globe. Same thing applies to summertime. You may start work earlier if you want, but dont change the clocks!

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm a proponent of this myself. I think the big barrier to just using UTC everywhere is with the clock as a symbol: right now if you're watching a movie or a TV show and see someone's alarm going off at 6:00, you know "oh, they're a pretty early riser." If everyone used UTC, that time could be local noon, or the person could be late for work, out any number of other things.

That also applies to when people move to a new place; if I'm used to having lunch at 20:00 UTC and then move across the country, suddenly lunch is at 17:00 UTC. Symbols are really important to people, so I think these are both problematic. Meetings would be easier, but offline life would be harder.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Exactly, because right now knowing the time also tells you the time of day which is super important information. Getting rid of timezones is prioritising the wrong thing when we think about time: rarely do we care what the clock shows in a different place, we care about what it means.

Removing that meaning is a step backwards. There's no point having all of our clocks show the same number if that doesn't mean anything anymore.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

You have 244 timezones.

Let's have one timezone for the whole world!

You have 245 timezones.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

As much as time is a constant thorn in my side, both time and timezones are a necessary evil.

Others have outlined some of the issues regarding time zones and the abolishment of them so I won't get into that. What I will say is that time keeping systems generally don't track time in your local timezone. Technology has long since given up on local time as a measurement. Almost all system clocks for computers, phones, pretty much anything electronic, is almost always stored in UTC, or a time code based on UTC.

And I can hear it now, someone saying " but the time on my $thing is $correctlocaltime, which is not UTC"

Yep, and that's where the magic happens. While the time is stored as UTC, it's displayed as local based on your device's time zone settings. In some cases, like with cellphones, the local timezone is set by GPS. The device gets a very very general idea of where you are from GPS, and sets your timezone appropriately. Windows will do this too based on location awareness, by default. I'm sure os x also does something similar.

When the time is displayed it takes the UTC system time and filters it through the UTC offset based on your timezone, and displays local time, factoring in daylight savings, if applicable.

We've silently converted to a single unified time globally, and nobody realizes it has happened because the user interface shows you what you want to see.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Precisely, timezones were the answer to OP's question. Before timezones every town set their clocks to their local noon as the time when the sun was at the highest point in the sky, which is actually quite a lot of difference even for really close towns. With timezones, everyone in the same time zone has the same clock regardless of where the sun is. We all have the exact same minutes on the clock and the hour is always kept relative to and according to UTC.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do you really wanna live in the part of the world where sunrise happens at 2pm?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Grateful for this thread. Never thought about how its actually useful to have different zones to know whether to call or other things. Kinda makes a lot of sense

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

I use UTC for all of my logs. Keeps it less confusing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

That would make 9 to 5 jobs quite a challenge outside Europe and Africa...

[–] HobbitFoot 2 points 9 months ago

You could address Daylight Savings Time by just having people set their own schedule, but it was generally seen as easier for the government to change the clocks.

As others have mentioned, there are typically schedules that are assumed based on time. It is easier from a social setting to keep time universal and adjust based on time zones. The context informed by local time is fast more useful than a standard time.

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