WI: Modern year reckoning off by a few years?

Dorozhand

Banned
What if the system of year reckoning that we use today were transposed a few years one way or the other?

After thinking about how we tend to group significant events into decades, and look back on each decade as having a specific character as a generation, I wonder how our perception of events would be different.

For example, what if the dates of WWII were 1935 to 1941?
What if the counter-culture movement dominated the 50s?
Or what if the new Millennium were dawning right now, or dawned in 1990?
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Why would it matter?

After thinking about how we tend to group significant events into decades, and look back on each decade as having a specific character as a generation, I wonder how our perception of events would be different.

Imagine if Y2K, for example, were ten years ago, or happening right now. A change in the date reckoning would have subtle changes in the way we perceive events.
 
What if the system of year reckoning that we use today were transposed a few years one way or the other?

After thinking about how we tend to group significant events into decades, and look back on each decade as having a specific character as a generation, I wonder how our perception of events would be different.

For example, what if the dates of WWII were 1935 to 1941?
What if the counter-culture movement dominated the 50s?
Or what if the new Millennium were dawning right now, or dawned in 1990?

It's a question that's fascinated me ever since I got into AH.....who knows who much different the world coulda turned out? Maybe FDR would've lived to the see the ATL Nazi war crimes trials. Or maybe Elvis would be the penultimate rock n'roll counter-culture idol instead of John Lennon......hell, maybe even Mike Dukakis or Barack Obama ushers in the new millenium.....:D(ok, I know, Bush won in '88 and not Dukakis IOTL. Still, though.....)
 
Imagine if Y2K, for example, were ten years ago, or happening right now. A change in the date reckoning would have subtle changes in the way we perceive events.

I'm not sure that it would end up meaning very much. I mean, let's take the counter-culture movement.

It being a "sixties" thing is deemed because the calender we uses puts it in that point.

But I don't think that if it was in the "fifties" it would impact our view of things - assuming that is that we had been used to the calender we're talking about all along. Obviously having to suddenly adjust to the idea of it being in a different decade would matter, but that's a matter of adjustments and not some numerological importance to what decade.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
I'm not sure that it would end up meaning very much. I mean, let's take the counter-culture movement.

It being a "sixties" thing is deemed because the calender we uses puts it in that point.

But I don't think that if it was in the "fifties" it would impact our view of things - assuming that is that we had been used to the calender we're talking about all along. Obviously having to suddenly adjust to the idea of it being in a different decade would matter, but that's a matter of adjustments and not some numerological importance to what decade.

It does start to matter when you get into more significant numerical landmarks, like the beginning of a century or millennium. People associate these things with certain ideas of change and character. Think of how our perception might be subtly different if WWI is said to have occurred in the late nineteenth century rather than the early twentieth.
 
It does start to matter when you get into more significant numerical landmarks, like the beginning of a century or millennium. People associate these things with certain ideas of change and character. Think of how our perception might be subtly different if WWI is said to have occurred in the late nineteenth century rather than the early twentieth.

Okay, let's say WWI happens in (by the new calender) 1895-1899 (as late in the 19th century as we can get).

Is this where I mention that it would begin in the year 1313 A.H.?
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Okay, let's say WWI happens in (by the new calender) 1895-1899 (as late in the 19th century as we can get).

Is this where I mention that it would begin in the year 1313 A.H.?

We would have different associations about the character of the war. In such a world, the Napoleonic Wars would be at the end of the 18th rather than the beginning of the 19th century, and thus would be looked back on as the last "18th century war" rather than the first "19th century war".

The First World War would be looked back on as the last "19th century war" rather than the first "20th century war". Our associations of the turn of the 20th century as the beginning of "modern war" wouldn't be quite the same. Also, think about the hype surrounding the turn of the millennium. All the nostalgia, the naive dreams of peace and flying cars. Imagine if it were occurring right now rather than 10 years ago, or 10 years before?

As for the Islamic Calender, I realize that it wouldn't apply. But most of the world uses the CE reckoning.
 

Flubber

Banned
We would have different associations about the character of the war.


No we wouldn't.

History doesn't fit neatly into 10 or 100 year chunks. The "Sixties" didn't begin in 1960 nor end in 1969, Halberstam and others point out that the "Fifties" really began in 1949, and Hobsbawm's claim that the "18th Century" spanned 1789 to 1914 is generally agreed with.

A WW1 that began in the 1890s would still be viewed as "modern", "industrial", "horrific", "catastrophic", and a harbinger of our world. It will still be viewed as the end of one era and the beginning of another no matter it's position on the calendar or a few peoples' simplistic assumptions of what that position allegedly means.
 
A WW1 that began in the 1890s would still be viewed as "modern", "industrial", "horrific", "catastrophic", and a harbinger of our world. It will still be viewed as the end of one era and the beginning of another no matter it's position on the calendar or a few peoples' simplistic assumptions of what that position allegedly means.

This.

That's why I bring up the Islamic calender - so far as the judgments of how WWI marks a divergence from what came before goes, what dating system we use really isn't relevant.

Same with other major events. Now if you had X happen so many years sooner or later - that might matter. But arbitrarily adjusting the calender so it looks that way - we would grow up with the idea that "the 19th century ended with hell and brimstone" but not with a fundamentally different understanding of WWI.
 
The Y2K problem might not exist given a twenty-year timeshift. If COBOL and Fortran are developed in the 1975-1980 period and first used extensively in industry beginning in the late 80s-early 90s, no programmer will assume that their work will be obsolete long before the century ends, and four-digit years will likely become the standard right from the beginning. On the other hand, if development is in the 1935-1940 period and industry use begins around 1950, there'll be more time to recognize the issue and replace old code. (On the other hand, all the old Fortran hands will be long dead.)
 

Dorozhand

Banned
No we wouldn't.

History doesn't fit neatly into 10 or 100 year chunks. The "Sixties" didn't begin in 1960 nor end in 1969, Halberstam and others point out that the "Fifties" really began in 1949, and Hobsbawm's claim that the "18th Century" spanned 1789 to 1914 is generally agreed with.

A WW1 that began in the 1890s would still be viewed as "modern", "industrial", "horrific", "catastrophic", and a harbinger of our world. It will still be viewed as the end of one era and the beginning of another no matter it's position on the calendar or a few peoples' simplistic assumptions of what that position allegedly means.

I'm not saying that events actually fit into those timescales, I'm saying that people often look back on decades and centuries as having specific themes to them. They retroactively paste "the sixties" with specific ideas, and "the fifties" with others. Regardless of how things actually were, societies remember decades with collective connotations.

Also, you needn't be so belligerent in your tone.
 

Flubber

Banned
I'm not saying that events actually fit into those timescales, I'm saying that people often look back on decades and centuries as having specific themes to them.


And I'm saying that's little more simplistic labeling, a convenient shorthand meant for cocktail parties and little else.

They retroactively paste "the sixties" with specific ideas, and "the fifties" with others.

Again, you're confusing labels and conversational shorthand with actuality. Those people saying "The Sixties" know they're not referring to 1960-1969 but instead to era running roughly from 1963 to 1975.

When people say "The Sixties" or "The Fifties" or whatever other calendar based label you care to name, they're referring to a certain era connected with certain sociopolitical conditions. Shift those conditions in time a few years in either direction and all that changes is the label.

There's no real difference if, the sociopolitical conditions we label "The Sixties", are referred to by people in an ATL as "The Fifties" or "The Seventies" or "Tweens" or anything else.
 
The Y2K problem might not exist given a twenty-year timeshift. If COBOL and Fortran are developed in the 1975-1980 period and first used extensively in industry beginning in the late 80s-early 90s, no programmer will assume that their work will be obsolete long before the century ends, and four-digit years will likely become the standard right from the beginning. On the other hand, if development is in the 1935-1940 period and industry use begins around 1950, there'll be more time to recognize the issue and replace old code. (On the other hand, all the old Fortran hands will be long dead.)

Well, let's take the first thing.

If COBOL and Fortran are developed at the same time relative to the present as they were in OTL, that's different than if they happen twenty years earlier or later than they did.

But I'm not sure that - assuming three digit years are standard for whatever reason it was done that way to begin with - it would meaningfully impact things for them to be at the same point relative to the present year but for that year to be different.
 
I am so confused now.

It sounds like he's asking "What if event X happened xxx years earlier/later?" but instead of...I dunno butterfly effects that can cause it to happen that way, he's altering the Calender itself.
 
I am so confused now.

It sounds like he's asking "What if event X happened xxx years earlier/later?" but instead of...I dunno butterfly effects that can cause it to happen that way, he's altering the Calender itself.

I think that's it - the idea is what would change if we had the calender read 2003 now instead of 2013, say.

Events still take place at the same time relative to any given date or event for the same reasons.
 

Flubber

Banned
It sounds like he's asking "What if event X happened xxx years earlier/later?" but instead of...I dunno butterfly effects that can cause it to happen that way, he's altering the Calender itself.

He's only altering the calendar. Everything still happens in the same order it did and in the same relation to everything else, it's just the dates that get changed.

So, for example, WW2 begins on 1 September 1932, Pearl is 7 December 1934, D-Day is 6 June 1937, etc., etc.

He's wondering if the "Sixties" won't be the "Sixties", not because they events during them were in anyway different, but because they happened during different years.
 
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