Or we’ll realize that the specific numbers are arbitrary and use UTC everywhere.
It’s almost 22 UTC
Which is 5pm EST
8am EST is when most work starts
That’s 15 hours from now
So work would start at 13 UTC
Yes, these are arbitrary numbers. Doesn’t matter if we go to work at 8am EST or 13 UTC.
However, this has nothing to do with daylight savings time or with what daylight savings time is trying to accomplish.
China does a variant of this where the whole country is on Beijing time. 99% Invisible did an episode that covered it here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/matters-of-time/
Basically the local Uyghur population in Xinjiang code switch and maintain an unofficial local time which aligns more closely with the movement of the sun.
You are right, but do you really want to deal with the confusion of having to wake up at some random number like 4pm UTC? And then if you finally get used to that you travel abroad and now you have to wake up at 1am? Timezones are a mess but if done correctly, they make sense because the numbers won’t be arbitrary.
I don’t see how dealing with that is any worse than dealing with time zones.
Downside of UTC everywhere: you might have to set your alarm for a different time when you travel.
Upsides: Never need to account for timezones in communication. Never need to change a clock, ever.
They make sense because the numbers won’t be arbitrary.
But they are. There’s no changing that. They’re arbitrary now. They’d be arbitrary if we had UTC everywhere. We’re not out here using sundials to set our clocks, 12:00 is not solar noon more often than it is.
12:00 is not solar noon more often than it is.
if timezones were done correctly it would be and the numbers wouldn’t be that arbitrary
I’m with you. Another perk is a sense of where you are on the planet. If I get up with the sunrise at 22:00 somewhere, then travel somewhere the sun rises around 18:00, it’s obvious the sun is hitting this part of the planet sooner.
If UTC were widely adopted, it’d be interesting to see what employers near time zones would do. EG start work at 19:00 or 20:00? 19:30? Flex-time with mandatory core hours from 22:00 to 02:00? Maybe I’m over optimistic, but it seems like it would encourage more flexible work hours.