Lie about the Earth's position, that'll fix everything

[ZoWie]

A parable.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, people were not happy. They had over-consumed, and run out of everything. They couldn't stop crime and violence. They gave into prejudice and racism, and divided themselves against their own fellows. Most had no bread, while a few fat nobles hoarded it all for themselves.

The king grew uneasy. He gathered his wise men, and asked, "Oh, wise and learned ones, how can I restore good feeling to my kingdom?"

One of them said that people needed to respect diversity and racial equality more than was the tradition of the land. The king thought about that one. "Wise words, these are," said the king, "but I fear my subjects will not listen."

Another one said that the kingdom was running out of essentials. Its people were using everything up faster than it could be replaced. The king was inclined to agree, but knew that if he tried to get his noble knights to share their plenty, they would merely slay him and take the throne for themselves.

Finally, a voice came from the far end of the table. "It's the clocks, you know."

"The clocks? Surely you jest. How can measuring time have anything to do with this?"

"I speak for my people," came the reply. "They are uneasy because we change our clocks twice a year. They don't want to do that any more. They have been told that it's the source of all their bad feelings. They are angry, and want another king who will never change the clocks at all."

"So it shall be done," said the king. A royal proclamation went out. "From this day forth, the clock shall stay one hour ahead of the sun forever and ever! We have triumphed over dark and light itself. Praise be to God."

There were cheers. Jubilation was great throughout the land. Everyone was happy until winter came. Then unrest began again.

"Mighty king," said the wise ones, "We cannot get the sun to rise before we begin our days. Our children are waylaid in the dark as they try to find their school. Our workers have to bend to their tasks with no light until morning comes far too late. We are all uneasy. You must command the sun to rise an hour earlier."

And so the king issued a royal command that the sun rise an hour sooner in winter.

Nothing happened.

People remained unhappy. The king died, and was replaced by a tripartite government elected by those favored by the nobles. Every winter, it was dark in the morning, and no one did anything about it. Had they not commanded the days to be longer? Why would the sun not comply with their wishes? They were confused.

They lived unhappily ever after.

----

The End

[ProfX]

I thought maybe this was the solution to what cosmologists (and novelist Cixin Liu) call "The Dark Forest" problem.

[ZoWie]

No, it's a retelling of the Year Round Daylight Savings Problem, where every generation or so they decide to do it in the winter, then bitch when it's pitch dark until 8-9 AM in some places, then put it back the way it was, then start bitching about that again. Meanwhile they don't bitch about what's really wrong, like racism, ageism, and maldistribution of wealth.

I'm a bit of a curmudgeon on this stuff. Don't mind me.

[Motor City]

Its a good one I had to let it brew for a while, cant please everyone and sometimes cant please anyone and things are complex and complicated and simple all at the same time. Thinking back to the Rolling Stones who said "You cant always get what you want but if you try sometimes you get what you need".

[ProfX]

I'm a bit of a curmudgeon on this stuff. Don't mind me.

I'm not minding you, but I am pointing out a big theme of Cixin Liu's novels (esp. the 2nd) is that SETI is a bad idea. Essentially, he argues the main reason we can't find any advanced civilization out there aka the Fermi Paradox is that the smartest ones are all hiding. Cosmologically, some exobiology folks call this "The Dark Forest problem".

i.e., we should not have put a plate on Voyager, telling anybody who finds it, where to find Earth. We should have hidden Earth's position.

That said, it's not like an advanced civilization couldn't find us anyway, though my guess is after they figure out WTH is "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" the Trisolarans and others will find other targets. "this planet can't be worth conquering."

As they discuss in National Treasure, BTW, one of the first people to propose Daylight Savings Time was Benjamin Franklin.

[ZoWie]

I have no problems with DST in the months between the equinoxes when there is actually daylight to save. I have a problem with this being the third go-round that I can think of for the year round DST thing, and the first two were changed back. People forget the mistakes of the past, and then we repeat them, forever apparently.

The Wheel of History..............

Yes I said somewhere else that contact between entirely separately evolved civilizations rarely ends well. It's a nice romantic idea that another culture that survived the discovery of nuclear energy might come and enlighten us on how to do that, but just as likely they'd decide that Earth would make a nice slave farm or that it's dinner time. (To Serve Man... "It's a cookbook! (dies) FADE OUT. )

[ProfX]

I have no problems with DST in the months between the equinoxes when there is actually daylight to save. I have a problem with this being the third go-round that I can think of for the year round DST thing, and the first two were changed back.

Huh. Did not know that, but interesting. Do now.

The US Tried Permanent Daylight Saving Time in the ’70s. People Hated It
https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/03/1 ... -hated-it/

Congress had voted on December 14, 1973, to put the US on daylight saving time for two years. President Nixon signed the bill the next day. The US had gone to permanent daylight saving time before, during World War II. Then, too, the measure was enacted to save fuel. Permanent DST wasn’t close to the wackiest idea about time floating around—Paul Mullinax, a geographer who worked at the Pentagon, came up with the idea of putting the continental US on a single time zone. “USA Time” would apply from Bangor to Barstow, eliminate jet lag, and standardize TV schedules. His idea even got traction in Congress, via a bill from US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii. “The human being is a very adaptive animal,” he said. “There is no reason we have to be a slave to the sun.”

[snip]

By August, though, as the Watergate scandal caused the Nixon administration to crumble, the country was ready to move on from its clock experiments. While 79 percent of Americans approved of the change in December 1973, approval had dropped to 42 percent three months later, the New York Times reported. Seven days after President Nixon resigned, US Senator Bob Dole of Kansas introduced an amendment in August that would end the DST experiment. It passed. A similar bill passed the House. In late September, the full Congress passed a bill that would restore standard time on October 27. President Ford signed it on October 5. Energy savings, a House panel noted, “must be balanced against a majority of the public’s distaste for the observance of Daylight Saving Time.”

[snip][end]

The human animal really doesn't learn from history.

Sigh.