72.Chs

March 13

Day Time

Back in the old days, the world was on many conflicting systems of keeping time. While three-quarters time might prevail in one area, elsewhere it was spare time or springtime or due time or ragtime.

So on 72 Chaos, YOLD 3050, a bunch of pundits from all over the world met in Washington, DC, and decided everyone should employ Standard Time (used by Standard Oil of New Jersey), based on Greenwich Mean Time (the time I was using in the meantime in Greenwich Village).

Far from perfect, this solution allows it to be one time in London at the exact moment it is some other time entirely in New York or San Francisco or Moscow.

So, on 72 Chaos, we Discordians protest this confusing state of affairs by telling anyone who asks, any time, that it is 5 o’clock—because, somewhere, it is. If they check with another source or, say, note that the sun is directly overhead, we explain we only said that it was 5 o’clock because it is Daytime.

Discordian Eternal Time solves the whole problem of confusion about time by making it, in fact, 5 o’clock everywhere, always. But, unfortunately, most societies would rather do things the complicated way.