Fun read on the tyranny of “enlightenment”
(twitter.com)
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I mean there kind of is. It's just the coin flip happened thousands of years ago. That's why there's a random mix of base 10 and base 12. Ever notice that there's two roman vanity months in the middle of the year and now the Sept- Oct- Nov- and Dec- months have prefixes for 7,8,9,10 but are the 9th,10th,11th, and 12th months? Everything is a clusterfuck of random traditions and royal decrees. What's one more?
But they're not random, that's the point. Each one had goals and motivations behind it, each one had consequences, and some of them were better than others. If you want to say "the coin flip happened thousands of years ago," how far back do you want to take that? Is it a "coin flip" that we happen to be on a planet with 12 lunar cycles in a typical year, which gave us natural preferences towards 12 unit cycles for keeping time? Is it a coin flip that we have ten fingers and ten toes and that's why we use base ten for our numbers? Sure, maybe (although it's worth noting that the religious perspective, which this system was deliberately made in opposition to is that that isn't random), but at that level we can say that about literally everything in every aspect of human society. That doesn't mean its not worth looking at some of the more immediate causes.
Yep, close enough at least.
Nope. The number of hours in a day has no natural basis. I guess you could argue 12 is a "timey" number due to the lunar cycles, but then why 2x12? Why not 4x12 or 365? And then why 60 minutes and seconds? The Sumerians invented that shit purely for mathematical convenience. And if they can do it, why can't someone else?
Some cultures count by moving the thumb between the sections of each finger, which is base 12. You only think base 10 is good for counting and 2x12 is good for dividing the day because you were raised that way through some quirk of history far beyond your control. You could easily find yourself living in a world of base 10 timekeeping and base 12 counting had history gone differently (and not really that significantly). Colloquially, I would call this a coin flip.
Look, we can argue about whether specific examples are good or bad, but you're not addressing the larger point: what in human history can't be called a coin flip under your standard? And what is the value of ignoring the motivations behind something in recent history that is relevant to modern issues just because somewhere thousands of years ago it could have gone a different way?
The tweet thread opens with simple ridicule, implying that we should all dismiss base 10 time as preposterous on its face. This is not the case. That is all.
Everyone has noticed that. December was the 10th month, hence the 'decem'. January and February were the 11th and 12th months, followed by the new year which was in March until the Gregorian reform.
It is not random that there are 12 months. It's 12 because in an average year, there are 12 lunar cycles, which unfortunately do not add up to 365.25 days.