I hope questions are allowed here. I am curios if there is a different sort of scientific calendar which does not use the birth of Jesus as a reference like AD and BC. For example Kurzgesagt’s calendars use the the current year plus 10000 as this represents the human better or something like that.

Would there be a way to do this more accurately? How could we, in a scientific correct way, define a reference from where we are counting years?

Also I have read about the idea of having 13 months instead of 12 would be “nice” because then we could have a even distributed amount of days per month.

Are there already ideas for this? What would you recommend to read?

  • stoneparchment@possumpat.io
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    5 months ago

    Using Jesus as a reference is unfortunate, yeah, but any other world calendars have to pick a nearly equally arbitrary way to contextualize the start and end year.

    Take your pick: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Year_in_various_calendars

    I personally use “2024 CE” for “common era”, with BCE referring to “before common era”. This allows us to communicate relatively clearly with other people who use the Gregorian calendar without explicitly endorsing the birth of Jesus as the important event defining the switch-over between CE and BCE… A bit of a cop out, but

    Anyway have fun, there are lots of options

    Edit: also the one you’re referring to in your post is the Holocene Calendar

    • stardustpathsofglory@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 months ago

      Thank you for your answer and the links! You are right about the Holocene Calendar.

      I also think it is unfortunate we did not figure out a better starting point. Therefore the question.

      Edit: typo

      • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Many things us humans do are “unfortunate” because we don’t know any better. 2000 years from know, humans might say that it was “unfortunate” that humans used fossil fuels, or wore high heels. Instead of regretting the past, be the change you want to be.