For most of human history there were no global time standards. In Europe, many city states had their own distinctive times--Nuremberg Time, Italian Time, Bohemian Time . . .
The first wave of global standards were implemented by colonialism and empire. Implementing global standards without the power of empire is unprecedented in human history. Trying to devise a standard that satisfies the diversity of human behaviors is particularly difficult, particularly when there is nobody on the planet who knows the diversity of human behaviors--even among those of us who specialize in the study of such diversity. Cheers, Kevin Kevin K. Birth, Professor Department of Anthropology Queens College, City University of New York 65-30 Kissena Boulevard Flushing, NY 11367 telephone: 718/997-5518 "We may live longer but we may be subject to peculiar contagion and spiritual torpor or illiteracies of the imagination" --Wilson Harris "Tempus est mundi instabilis motus, rerumque labentium cursus." --Hrabanus Maurus On 10/1/14 8:02 AM, "Greg Hennessy" <greg.henne...@cox.net> wrote: >> But the basic point still remains: If you have to sugar coat the actual >>standard >> with a fake standard to paper-over peopleĀ¹s inability to deal with the >>actual >> standard, this suggests that you have the wrong actual standard. > >I would agree that we have the wrong actual standard. We've had leap >seconds since 1972, but POSIX still mandates we ignore the leap seconds >in places. It would be nice if the standards and the practices match. >Some people want to change the standards, and others want to change >the practices. > > >_______________________________________________ >LEAPSECS mailing list >LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com >https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com https://pairlist6.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs