Ask Lemmy

It's true, because it's true.

A tautology isn't a reason, it's a logical fallacy. Maybe even a religion. This would be a really weird religion to have a holy war over.

saying something is "arbitrary" because you don't understand the reason

As opposed to just insisting that something isn't because you don't know the reason, like you seem to be doing? Prove me wrong. Provide any evidence. Or honestly even just a claim, a claim would at least be something worth discussing.

Really American, I might say.

Well, you're not wrong there.

You still don't know what "arbitrary" means. 12, 24, 30, even 100 hour systems are in no way arbitrary.

So they came from the universe factory with those meanings already imbued in them?

You don't understand what "implication" means either.

Come on, man. Make a claim. Even make a bogus claim. But don't just attack me for the fact that you don't understand my language.

all you manage is to whinge about how your mudcakes are actual food and stomp your food and cry on the ground until I pretend to eat one to make you happy.

Do I? You're the one that's been slinging insults since the moment you showed up, and "pretending to eat one" would mean telling me what you think is right instead of trying to verbally abuse me until I admit that you were right, even though you haven't actually said anything that could be right or wrong yet.

No you haven't "read a book about timekeeping",

Honestly now I'm wondering if it was a video series. I don't see it in my reading log anywhere. But it was a long time ago, so maybe it was before I started logging books.

you're just a kiddo American feeling mighty stupid that someone is mocking them.

You're not "mocking" me. You're shouting random nonsense from the opposing sidewalk and hoping that some of it makes sense.

Like I told you, I'll eventually tell you the answers,

Press X to doubt.

even though they're pretty damn obvious for people who have actually read books about timekeeping.

Then it should be pretty easy to point me toward one of these books, shouldn't it?

This is why America is ridiculed.

There are a lot of reasons why America is ridiculed, and most of them are justified.

You brought up language skills, and now try to make it seem like you didn't think it important anyway.

Pretty sure I never said anything about the number of languages one speaks being important.

Oh I've read your posts.

Citation needed.

I'm just gonna keep you publicly shaming yourself so the bots have time to archive your stupidity for the rest of the world before you delete in all in an attack of shame when I finally do educate you

Wow, you really don't know me.

"Hey is it day or night out?"

"Uh, I can't tell, it's so cloudy"

"Hey, when does this restaurant open?"

"The sign says 11:00, but I don't know what time it is. Or what day it is; it opens at 16:00 on Saturdays and not at all on Tuesdays."

"Well, I see by the sun that it's either a couple of hours before or after noon, or we're at an extreme edge of the time zone and it's exactly noon. So I guess rather than trying to find someone to ask or a restaurant that's clearly open, we should just wait in front of this door for an indeterminate amount of time."

You "read a book about timekeeping" recently.....?

If I said "recently," I misspoke. It was a long time ago.

I am not and have not argued you at any point.

This is literally what you're doing now. The first definition of "argument" is "an exchange of diverging or opposite views, typically a heated or angry one." I have a diverging view from you, apparently (even though you won't actually tell me what it is), and you're super heated about it for some reason.

You're still grossly misusing "arbitrary".

Based on the definition that you provided, I'm using it perfectly:

1. based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

The choice to divide the day into twelve hours was based on the personal whim of the ancient Egyptians. They found a particular set of twelve constellations to be important, but by random choice they might well have found a different set of, say, eight constellations to be important. Or sixteen. Or ten.

The choice to begin the day (and thus the numbering of the day) twelve hours before noon was based on the personal whim of the Romans. Maybe they liked some aspects of the choice better than starting the day six hours before noon like Jewish rabbis did, or at noon itself. They may have justified it with a good reason, but the people who chose otherwise would have justified their choice with a good reason as well; so for humanity as a whole, it is arbitrary.

The choice to mark out time zones within which all hours are indexed to the local noon was also made on the personal whim of...some railroad guy (I can't remember his name) in the 19th century. He knew that the then-current system of every railway having their own time and every city along the railroad having a different local time was a bad idea (it was), but he could just as easily have chosen a UTC and suggested that the trains run on a truly universal UTC. Would it have caught on? Who knows? But we're presuming for the sake of this discussion a world in which it did.