It's Xmas that highjacked the winter solstice. New year used to be the start of spring (March) then the Romans decided to acknowledge the first 2 months, and then changed the start of the year to January so they could elect some officials to govern Spain instead of waiting an extra 2 months. It's about as arbitrary as it can get.
https://youtu.be/RrGHtl5qJfk About 24 minutes in to skip to ^
Is the fact that the start of spring is 2 months after the solstice arbitrary? Seems a pretty clear cause and effect.
But honestly we should make a new calendar that starts on the spring solstice, is subdivided by solstices, and doesn't have weeks (I just don't like them).
It'd still be a mess anyway. How do you subdivide your two year halves? What do your months look like? If they still exist.
Assuming you use equinoxes too, you can split your year in 4... Except since you've got 365 days to split, it will never be a perfect split.
And turns out the Earth doesn't care about synchronizing rotation and revolution and the year is actually about 365.24 days. so you still have freaking leap days every four years, except not every hundred year, except yes please every 400. Or whatever rule you make to fix the inevitable deviation.
I mean we define year as being from one spring equinoxยน to the next, no matter if it's 365 or 366 days. So if we made next year 1 it would be from 20th of March 2026 14:46 UTC to the next 20th of march 2027 20:25 UTC (The first day of the year could be day 0, the last of the old year but still also in new year, to account for the fact that it's not midnight.). The months would be replaced with quarters(seasons), ending on: June 21, September 23, December 21. Every year the dates would slightly shift because of the way orbits work, but there is no leap year math.
The first quarter, spring, has 93 days, the second, summer, 94 and so on. These will probably be subdivided a multitude of ways. Quickly sketching I found 6 * 4 * 4 - (3 or 4) which seems to work, though I'm naturally draw to base6 due to it being highly composite. This makes 24 days in a quarter-season. A nice analogue to the hours.
I think this calendar works better because it doesn't attempt to add any human control over a completely chaotic system: Earths orbit speed and rotational period. The underlying principle is chaotic and humans should build systems that are build on top of this natural disorder. By attempting to define and control disorder you must create so many convoluted rules (Like the leap day rule). Our calendar is an example of the human desire to "fix" nature to our own way of life instead of leaning to coexist with the natural disorderly processes that govern our lives. It's the same mindset that gives us the blatant disregard for the natural resources or climate.
This is a rather anarchic position but that's because I cannot help but inject anarchic rhetoric into my thought process due to so much of the way we live has been in blatantly build using archic concepts, even the calendar is dripping with it.
ยน: Accidentally called it solstice sense I forgot there's a different word.
One of the more interesting calendar concepts I've heard where every date falls on the same day of the week year after year. https://en.wikipedia.org/...
This was the first thing that made me realise that calendars could be changed. I myself don't like it because it because It doesn't use fixed points. But it is an inspiration for the calendar that I described in the other comment. It's the "don't do this" kind of inspiration but I think it counts.
Ssh! If the northern hemisphere people figure out how awesome summer Christmas and new years is we'll never get rid of them.
The fact that the other hemisphere exists did cross my mind, but I decided to ignore it because clarifying would have reduced the quippy nature of the comment.
The comic is also saying that the entire world lives by the Gregorian calendar but that isn't true as well.
It's distorted by a fuckton of history and stuff, including the invention of yearly calendars and manipulating them over millenia, plus whatever christianity added to the mix, but it's not arbitrary.
I don't see how this is so heavily downvoted...? It makes complete sense that humans (by far most of which live in the northern hemisphere) would celebrate that the darkest days have passed and that we're heading from a dark and harsh winter towards a promise of spring. Coming from the north, I can definitely testify to the fact that you feel in your whole body that the days start getting longer.
The fact that the exact date is slightly off basically amounts to a rounding error, and making a point out of it is just pedantic.
I was going to point out that if it isn't, in fact, the winter solstice, then it is arbitrary.
But I decided to start the new year without the pretentiousness and pedantic proclamations
Shit, if we all do that, it's gonna be real quiet around here.
There's always room for more humble brags
Actually this is a fair point. What counts as arbitrary? For me the slight drift is just due to the way calendars and culture works, and while it is more arbitrary than having it on the solstice. It is less arbitrary than having it on your(anyone who happens to read this) birthday. It's ultimately a matter of where you draw the baseline. Even if new year was on the winter solstice you could still argue that it's arbitrary because there are four others. Arbitrarity is relative.
The UTC is completely 100% arbitrary. The only reason it's there is because an observatory happened to be on a specific hill, and then it drifted a bit (like most human things do), but the UTC/GMT has since it's conception been completely arbitrary measurement. There isn't a way to define a 0 latitude on a rotating sphere without making it an arbitrary point.
Actually, there is no such thing as a 'winter solstice.' The start of the Northern winter is the start of the Southern summer.
So idiots.... ๐ซฃ
It's a fuckton of "history and stuff", including the invention of yearly calendars and manipulating them over millenia, plus whatever christianity added to the mix, but yes, it's not arbitrary.
edit: my apologies for the Northern hemispherism.
Humans just need a reason to party now and then. And that's completely fine.
I'm slowly coming around to the theory that people on Lemmy are less happy than much of the rest of the internet because a disproportionate number have been aggrieved by mod actions on reddit subreddits. Many of them probably have a point, but I wonder how many of them were actually banned for being wet blankets nobody wanted around anymore.
This is actually, factually incorrect. We used to celebrate winter solstice and this is directly caused by and deterministically occuring on a certain (albeit slightly blurry) point of our orbit.
This should be higher. The days have become longer which means the humans will not die in a dark cold forever winter. The warmth will return, the crops will have another season and the lengthening of daylight hours is the harbinger of future good tidings.
The creator of the meme is in fact the idiot who doesn't realize his entire physical sustenance is dependent on this cycle.
Edit: I'm an idiot who didn't realize I'm using some weird sorting algo and apparently winter solstice was already highly upvoted.
We need to make sure that the days have started getting longer
Because we all remember what happened when we tried the honor system. "Trust, but verify."
Mostly because ancient calendars sucked and they constantly drifted out of alignment.
That issue originated in the ancient Roman Calendar, which is so old that we really don't know who invented it or when, but it's been likely some time around 700 BC.
So all in all, a 10 day error over 2700 years isn't all that bad.
Aldiss is a New Wave author, I like a lot of his stuff (eg Supertoys Last All Summer Long), although not all his stuff is New Wave (eg Non Stop).
IMO Helliconia is enjoyable but very long. There's not a whole lot that happens however, it's memorable.
Quite. "... completely arbitrary" is wrong.
X days after winter solstice where X is completely arbitrary.
Thanks, Neil Degrasse Tyson.
Wow, you're right Niel deGrasse Tyson! Nobody did ask!
Quick question while I have your attention though: If I were to kiss myself in the mirror, could I kiss myself anywhere, or only in one place in particular? And where would that be?
Hereโs like 20% of them
He gets a lot of shit for this and I do think he's a pretty annoying guy, but I just now developed a head canon for this where he does it on purpose whenever someone he personally knows is being a narcissist. And so it's like a super petty passive aggressive way to piss them off. I could get behind that tbh. Can you imagine? Every time your annoying brother calls and asks to borrow more money, you post some quote about greed to your huge social media following. Lol.
Well, it has an actual meaning. The date is arbitrary but the event isn't.
The same way that our life's depend on the cycle of day and night, they also revolve around the stations. Cycles of abundance and scarcity, of heat and cold.
Years are points of reference for historical reasons.
To be clear, we are mostly idiots but some non-idiots calculated the days in a cycle.
The date is arbitrary but the event isnโt.
It's a bit off the mark of the Winter Solstice, which is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
So I wouldn't even call it arbitrary. It's highly relevant to a person on Earth, waiting for the day when nights start growing shorter and we can look forward to a spring harvest season.
I might argue that the problem with the New Year is that we don't also celebrate the Summer Solstice (longest day of the year) and the two Equinoxes.
I celebrate all the solar holidays. What's stopping you?
Restriction on sale and use of fireworks, mostly
Then why don't we light a sparkler everyday at midnight?
Woosh.
I watch videos about the planets with my kids and they say it YOUR-uh-nus, which to me goes against the conventions of the English (Americanized) language, although it's chaos to begin with. But why now are we walking back the name of this planet? It's been your anus for ages.
Total gasbag if you ask me
We are the part of the universe with consciousness so if we decide it isn't arbitrary then it isn't.
Besides I like new years eve, it's a good time for reflection, resetting my motivation and optimism and an excuse to party all night
Life must be miserable for this person.
That's mercury!
|The sun is not conscious and so not capable of giving a fuckโฆ so what?
We actually do not know that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
Is Our Sun Conscious? A theory of stellar consciousness
Fringe Theory Claims the Sun May Be Conscious
Could The Sun Be Conscious? Enter The Unorthodox World Of Panpsychism
Could a planet really develop a brain?
Earth Itself May Be an Intelligent Being, Suggests New Theory
New Year's is literally the only holiday I have never disliked
Round numbers and fireworks? Countdown me in!
C'mon man. Thanksgiving has pie! And Turkey! And a celebration of a meal between two warring peoples.......who we eventually genocided.........hey look! Cranberry Sauce!
Hey that guy is having fun! Get him!
You see Mercury, this is why no one invites you to anything.
people just want to have a reason to celebrate
Ngl, it might be fun to watch all time zones' fireworks. Not cool enough to develop a new kind of space telescope though.
Celebrate solstice, y'all. Fuck the hegemonic "holidays".
Baha'i New Year is March 21
Funnyโฆ but Seasonsโฆ soโฆ kind dumb.
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@lemmy.world
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
*๏ฟฝ Be Nice!
*๏ฟฝ๏ธ Community Standards
*๏ฟฝ Keep it Real
*๏ฟฝ๏ธ Credit Where Credit is Due
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Sรญ, por favor [Spanish/Espaรฑol]*๏ฟฝ Moderation
The following artists are banned from the community.
It should be noted that when you make reports, it is your responsibility to provide rational reasoning why something should be removed. Saying it simply breaks community rules is not always good enough.
Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
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The point isn't arbitrary. It's the winter solstice. It just drifted a bit due to history and stuff.
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