• dogsoahC@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Not according to those who think that the new century only began in 2001 because the Christian calendar has no year 0 or smth.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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      3 months ago

      Yep. That’s because there can’t be a “0th year after that one geezer was born”. It’s -1 BC (the last year before) and then immediately 1 AD (the first year after).

      (I know they did the calculations wrong and it should actually be somewhere around -6 to -4. That doesn’t change the fact that there is no year 0.)

      • dogsoahC@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        How 'bout we don’t give a fuck and use a sensible system instead?

        • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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          3 months ago

          What did I do to you…? I was just explaining what the reasoning for “there’s no year 0” is. I don’t agree or disagree with it. What would be a more sensible system exactly? One based on anything other than the birth of a mythological figure? Sure. Got any suggestions that are implementable without exorbitant effort?

          • dogsoahC@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Just adding a year 0 would be enough. Other than that, the human era.

            • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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              3 months ago

              You know that would shift every year after 0 one down, yes? We’d be in 2024 now. That doesn’t seem easily implemented.

              • dogsoahC@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                That’s… not the only option. We could also shift down everything below 1. Sure, that would shift some historical dates, but would not really affect any part of modern life. And we already have situations where we need to account for different calendar systems (e.g. the October Revolution actually happened in November, according to our current calendar), so we know the world doesn’t end. And when Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar, which was more complicated than adding a 0 somewhere, the world didtend either.

                • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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                  3 months ago

                  So you’d want the year leading up to Jesus’ (supposed) birth to be 0. Okay. Why though? Never mind that it doesn’t make sense to start counting at 0 (calling the first instance of something the “0th” instance), I’m still puzzled over what the benefit would be. I’m not saying the world would end, I’m just not seeing why.

                  Russia switching to the Gregorian calendar was aligning itself with its neighbours, the world has changed significantly since then, having the “correct” date, i.e. the same as everybody else, has become A LOT more important.

                  • dogsoahC@lemm.ee
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                    3 months ago

                    Because we can make it better, even if it’s just a tiny amount. To me, that’s enough. It’s the same with daylight savings time, the imperial system (in the few places that still use it), ISO 8601 date format, and so on. Sure, every individual patch doesn’t do a whole lot, and even together the effect may not be world-altering, but I simply refuse to believe in a future where we keep these small bugs around just because we were stupid once and then were too lazy to fix them.

                    It also wouldn’t be starting the count at 0. But to have a coherent system with both positive and negative numbers, there needs to be a 0. Plus, you can still call the year 0 the first year. When somebody is 0 years old, they’re in their first year of their life as well.

                    The Russia comparison was more for feasibility, not for importance.