The Calendar Thread

[Mwulf]

Okay... to keep from going off-topic in the OO thread....

I'm a history-major. I spend a LOT of time mucking through various dates. I also, however, HATE mathematics. Not because of lack of innate ability, but mainly interest and skill.

Thus I devised a simple new calendar that ignores the bizzare negative numbers of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian calendars, as well as the insanity of the reign-based calendars.

Calling it the "Historic Record" I set the starting year at 6600 b.c.e., which is the estimated date of the earliest known writing that was excavated in Jiahu--called, unimaginatively--the "Jiahu Script".

In response to this:

Aside from the fact this is going off topic, your calendar theory is good but not valid. As you might know, history work with exact facts and not as estimatives and also respects cultural singularities (including calendars) and as we (or at least most of us) live in western christian society, we use AD callendar, just as muslim use their own, jews use their own, chinese also have their own and japanese change calendar from time to time after a new dinasty/historic period. Each with their own culture.

CE calendar is only begin used by a minority of US academics and Jeowah Witness, and the majority of the world still use AD (for buisness and etc) and hardly our society will acept the new calendar (since most people never heard about Common Era).

To which I shall respond:

Academes are the ones writing the history, so within a generation or two Anno Domini will be gone. Even in highschool, NO ONE knew what A.D. meant--if anything, they said "after death". o__O

And it's not like CE is all that different--it's exactly the same, only it's an english abbreviation instead of a latin one.

As for estimates... yes, I'm very well aware of that. That's why I gave SOOO much extra room in there. The Jiahu Script is the oldest writing, but the start of actual recorded history is much, much later. Since dealing with dates doesn't really matter outside of recorded history, all that is required is an arbitrary date set BEFORE the start of recorded history.

It makes EVERYTHING a lot easier. Try it out... (well, if you do a lot of history-work) and you'll see.

[EFF Test Pilot]

Well, it seems I'll work with the same subject as you, since I'm going to History course on college next year

Academes record history and study it, but don't write it, they check the facts to see if it's correct. I know CE is the same but it took important things to change calendars (The creation of the world, the coming of the son of God, the last prophet, the death of a deity-monarch).

It's not likely that people will change six for half-dozen just for the sake of convenience unless it brings a huge benefit like the use of SI (ie - avoiding accidents - such as before the stabilishment of SI, an a american aircraft nearly crashed in france because the airplane had the fuel capacity writed in gallons and the ground crew refuelled it in litters, forcing the plane to make an a emergency landing)

[Neo-Era]

The reference to it in the other thread as "atheistic bullcrap" is disheartening as secular and atheist aren't the same thing.

[Mwulf]

To the aggressively ignorant, they're one and the same.

In my mind a Historian is obligated to do more than study history and fact-check. We're not making lists... we're writing stories to illustrate the truth of mankind. It is the goal of historians to write the true story of humankind, and to write it truthfully there can be no subjective elements, there can be no political or religious agenda. To me, this is a most sacred duty.

The idea is to learn from the past--while looking to the future. Each direction is meaningless on its own.

And if you look at the Abrahammic calendar, it is just as arbitrary as mine. I think we ALL know that the Earth is more than 4,000 years old. The calendar I propose using would NOT be something encountered in everyday life... no, that would be too drastic a change and for too little reason. But in the field of history--which, indeed, is the field of knowledge itself--it is very, very applicable.

Were we to have a single "measure" of calendar, that is a base from which we can compare all others, it would only be a good thing. Having a calendar with negative years is absurd--no matter how you look at it.

[Ryujin]

The reference to it in the other thread as "atheistic bullcrap" is disheartening as secular and atheist aren't the same thing.

To the aggressively ignorant, they're one and the same......The calendar I propose using would NOT be something encountered in everyday life... no, that would be too drastic a change and for too little reason. But in the field of history--which, indeed, is the field of knowledge itself--it is very, very applicable.

My bad, and I'm sure that anyone, even you, can be 'aggressively ignorant,' as you term it, given the right subject. I presume the message being conveyed got lost somewhere due to high blood alcohol levels. The manner in the other thread in which Anno Domini is referred to as an 'AU' seemed quite disrespectful, with the implications that it is nothing but a fictitious convention of no relevance in history. It also smacked of a PC agenda being shoved down the craw, so to speak.


With regards to an absolute, 'baseline' calendar, how would you propose individual dates be handled, given the difference in length of months among the different calendars in use, existence of leap years, etc? Or do you intend to just stick to present-day conventions?

[Dark Duel]

The manner in the other thread in which Anno Domini is referred to as an 'AU' seemed quite disrespectful, with the implications that it is nothing but a fictitious convention of no relevance in history. It also smacked of a PC agenda being shoved down the craw, so to speak.

I have to disagree. The bottom line of the post in question was that, insofar as the Gundam franchise is concerned, Gundam 00's use of the A.D. Calendar would mean that it is classified as an Alternate Universe(A.U.) series. His tone was arrogant, true, but so was yours.

Frankly, I don't concern myself overmuch with the whole "A.D or C.E." issue. It's the same calendar system, only academics are calling it CE and others are calling it AD. Most people I know don't give two s***s one way or the other.

[Ryujin]

I have to disagree. The bottom line of the post in question was that, insofar as the Gundam franchise is concerned, Gundam 00's use of the A.D. Calendar would mean that it is classified as an Alternate Universe(A.U.) series.

Yep, no arguments here. Next time I'd better go to bed first and look at threads after I'm lucid.

[Mwulf]

If anyone thinks I sound arrogant with anything... you're probably reading the text with the wrong voice. tired & lazy is the tone I... always have, unfortunately.

My bad, and I'm sure that anyone, even you, can be 'aggressively ignorant,' as you term it, given the right subject.

Even me, eh? It's not a matter of question, everyone WILL be aggressively ignorant, it's human nature. A great many of us don't act any other way.

With regards to an absolute, 'baseline' calendar, how would you propose individual dates be handled, given the difference in length of months among the different calendars in use, existence of leap years, etc? Or do you intend to just stick to present-day conventions?

It would mainly be a simple measure to excise the negative years. I guess "Calendar" is the wrong term since the calendar would stay the same--but pretty much everyone has adopted the Roman calendar these days--and leap year would still, unfortunately, exist. Setting the "start" date would be mostly arbitrary since dates that old are anything but concrete.

Rather saying the calendar starts when X happened, it'd be better/easier/whatever to say the calendar starts "8600 years before today" and then simply carrying over the the last 2 digits so that it works. E.g. 2007 becomes 8607, so the abbreviated dates are the exact same--'07.

[Kishiria]

I propose we return to AUC--Ad Urbe Condita, from the Founding of the City of Rome.

Otherwise, I use BCE/CE. It's not just "a few academics" and "Jehovah's Witnesses" who use it. Why would a Jew or a Muslim writing about the year 130 CE want to call it AD? Of course it's arbitrary, but it's been in use a long time, so if it's not broke, why fix it? For purely secular use, it's what everyone knows, and is thus called Common Era for a reason.

[Wingnut]

I propose we return to AUC--Ad Urbe Condita, from the Founding of the City of Rome.

Otherwise, I use BCE/CE. It's not just "a few academics" and "Jehovah's Witnesses" who use it. Why would a Jew or a Muslim writing about the year 130 CE want to call it AD? Of course it's arbitrary, but it's been in use a long time, so if it's not broke, why fix it? For purely secular use, it's what everyone knows, and is thus called Common Era for a reason.

Not as common as you might think. I had never even heard of it until we started talking about it here.

[Chris]

Not as common as you might think. I had never even heard of it until we started talking about it here.

Just because you haven't heard about it doesn't mean it's not common. I learned about it in my freshman year at a Catholic high school (of all places) and that was a good 13 years ago. It's probably more common than you think it is, as it's been in use for centuries.

[ShadowCell]

Either way, Before Common Era becomes the Common Era with the birth of Jesus, just as Before Christ becomes Anno Domini with the birth of Jesus. So if Muslims and Jews don't really care about Jesus's birth in terms of basing a calendar around it, I don't see why they'd feel compelled to choose either.

[Mwulf]

IIRC the Jewish Calendar starts with the creation of the world in the Bible, some 4 or 5000 years ago I think. The Christian calendar starts at the death of Christ, or shortly thereafter, and the Muslim calendar starts either with the Death of Mohammed, his birth, when he spoke to the angle, OR when he first gathered his armies and invaded that one city. I'm not too sure.

This "common era" thing IS bullcrap. It's identical to the christian calendar, and by doing that it STILL has several decades that don't fit into either ce or bce.

Going back to Ad Urbe Condita would also be good, though we would still have negative years, we would no longer have the "missing" years, though I'm not sure we have a solid date for the founding of Rome. I don't think even the Romans had that. From what I remember the early days of Rome are pretty much unknown--aside from the Legend of Romulus and Remus, of course--but somehow I doubt the validity of that tale. But I do see how the founding of Rome could be seen as the true "start" of Western Civilization, which pretty much equates to world civilization (yes, I know some of you may disagree with that, but I can back it up so think about it for a while before condemning me ).

The real thing we need is a calendar for objectively recording the course of human history that is NOT determined by a particular religion, culture, individual or nation-state.

Getting rid of these bizarre negative numbers and missing years would merely be a great benefit from the transfer.

[toysdream]

If you want to get rid of negative dates, then you should probably count from the very beginning, i.e. the Big Bang. Otherwise, what are you going to do about prehistorical events like the reign of the dinosaurs or the formation of the sun? With this in mind, I hereby propose a new After Big Bang (ABB) calendar, according to which we are presently in the year... well, let's say 13,700,002,007 in order to minimize the amount of math involved. This system enables us to avoid favoring any one civilization, species, or planet, as well as eliminating all negative years since any BBB date is impossible by definition.

It's true that observant Mayans and others may prefer a different start date for the universe. Perhaps we could distribute handy conversion charts to translate between different systems. Alternatively, since the Mayan calendar indicates that the world is scheduled to end in 2012, maybe we should set that as Year Zero and count all our dates backwards.

-- Mark

[Mwulf]

All those dates are estimated, and are therefore abstract.

The only history that really matters in the context of history is recorded history. Starting with the big bang, or even the formation of life on Earth or the development of Homo Sapiens would be too much. Hence the initial idea of starting the calendar in/around the same time as the first recorded example of human writing.

[toysdream]

All those dates are estimated, and are therefore abstract.

And "about 6600 BCE" isn't an estimate?

-- Mark

[Mwulf]

It is an abstraction, but it's also as close as we can get to a legitimate date. That's kind of the whole point.

[razgriz]

maybe the calendar system can and would change should *farfetched dream incoming* humanity begins to colonize outside earth's orbit onto other planets and who knows beyond. i would personally call it the EE, expansion era, or PE progressive era. or feel free to latinize it if it sounds more palatable.

[Newtype87]

Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who really doesn't know anything, I'd go with sticking with the BCE/CE calendar, UNTIL something more important comes along. Like, as razgriz suggested, we start colonizing other worlds or we build space colonies. Then, I'd suggest a switch to something like Wing's After Colony calendar or something.

Now, speaking from the viewpoint of someone who was crazy enough to try and write a Science Fiction novel (which I abandoned when I started to question my sanity), I had three different calendar systems set up, all of which replaced one another within the span of about a thousand years. The first calendar was the BF/FE, or Before Fusion/Fusion Era - calibrated to the first fully operational and viable nuclear fusion reactor. The second calendar, which came into operation at about 324 FE, was the BA/PA or Before Apocalypse/Post Apocalypse calender - calibrated to an apocalypse-scaled war that left a good deal of Earth and the Lunar cities devastated. Finally, at about 100 +/- 10 PA, the AE/NE or Apocalypse Era/New Era calendar was enacted - which was calibrated to the first peace treaty between the various sovereign nations that had set themselves up in the aftermath of the conflict. All of this kind of gives you an idea for what I feel are events important enough to warrant a calendar change.

So, my opinion is that our current BCE/CE system isn't perfect and should at some point be replaced by a better and more neutral one, but we don't have enough solid information on our species early civilizations to set up a calendar locked onto a particular year. So, I feel we should wait for something important - like fusion or armaggedon (since humans are survivors, I'm sure some of us will survive whatever attrocities we can unleash upon ourselves) - to establish our new calendar. Because no matter how important the event is, we are going to cause no end of confusion in the world when we make the switch: I mean, the logistics of a new calendar and changing all of the associated dates are probably beyond our capacity as a people to handle. I mean, imagine trying to teach a generation or two who had grown up knowing that the US Declaration of Independence was signed in the year 1776 of the Common Era that it was really signed in something like in the year 315 Before the Fusion Era.

Well, there's my two cents, anyway.

[razgriz]

hmm changing the calendar system after world war ii and the start of the atomic age wouldve made some sense, the world was definitely changed after that. maybe they couldve done a progressive countdown til the worlds end sorta like bc except much darker. oh well thats what the doomsday clock is for i guess.