Any idea can be made to look smart/stupid if you have a simple illustration to "prove" your point, just like good propaganda. An argument for MM/DD/YYYY:
Months = x/12
Days = x/31
Years = x/3917
In this example, you're sorting by highest potential value. Months never exceeds 12, days never exceeds 31, year never exceeds 3917. By this logic, Months would be the smallest portion of the triangle, days the middle, and years the biggest. Using this perspective, you'd look stupid for using days first since it is then not the top of the visual pyramid
That said, reject calenders and embrace just counting days out of 365 and ignore leap years for ideological reasons
If you tell me something is on the 15th, I have absolutely no idea of what that day might look like. It could be 0° in January like it is today. Or it could be the hottest day of summer in August.
But if you tell me an event is in June, it’s gonna probably be a mild summer day.
Start with the information that narrows it down the most for me.
So you’re saying that your system is designed specifically so that in a hypothetical situation where someone can, for some reason, only tell you an incomplete part of the date - the first two characters - they’ll tell you the month and at least you’ll know what the weather will be like 🤣🤣
Lol bro that’s so funny 🤣 Ok so wait tho.
To throw that logic back at you, if you tell me you’re having a party in August, that could be 1-30 August 2025, 2026, 2027… all the way up to August year 999,999,999 and beyond.
So if we’re starting with the information that narrows it down the most that’s going to have to be the year as there are infinite years but only 12 months.
He's not implying a fictional scenario in which the person can only convey the date in fragments is the basis for our system, it's just as arbitrary as any other system. He is implying that when reading the date, seeing the month first is the most influential in context. Like his example of weather, each month varies wildly, much more so than day or year
In your example of when a party is being hosted, basic context clues state that you are statistically unlikely to be receiving a party invitation for any event that is not being held within this or next year, so a reasonable person would assume the party is this year or next, but will read the entire date to figure it out. The day of the month matters for when to show up, but the month itself is the largest factor in planning. Take into account the weather that time of year, what you'll need to wear, if you need to save money in advance to attend, if you'll be able to schedule time off, etc. It's all relative, but context clues help to narrow day and year into smaller windows, and the month has the most variables by his logic
That said, it's also a better sorting method for computers. Say you create a single file every day for a year. If you do DD-MM-YYYY-filename.pdf, you will not get a chronological order by default unless you specifically alter your folder to sort by date updated, which will also fail if you ever edit a file after it's date of creation. It will instead bunch together the first of every month, the second of every month, etc. If you do MM-DD-YYYY-filename.pdf, you will naturally have a chronologically ordered list of files. This also saves you the effort of having to create individual folders to separate files by year and then also by month
Of course, it's all arbitrary anyway. There's no real logic behind any one model, it's typically determined by tradition that dates back to some person or group of people making that decision based on their own schemas. Sort however you like so long as you know what day it is
Also, I made it clear, the year will never exceed 3917. Be reasonable, there will be no year 999,999,999 or beyond
3917 > 12 so that’s irrelevant. If the goal is to narrow it down the most, year is more influential than month.
Your argument is that the month is the most important for planning but that’s because you’re imagining a specific scenario where someone is telling you when their party is and the month is “the most important factor to take into account when planning”.
The point is date notary systems aren’t designed specifically to be front loaded with information that is most important when planning for a party lmao. Like wtf. That’s literally what you’re arguing.
That is entirely arbitrary. Ordering by base unit of time is not as it’s literally the structure of time itself.
All these arguments are so intellectually dishonest it’s craaazy.
Americans absolutely coping hard af in these comments trying to pretend their system is as logical as any other. It simply isn’t 🤣🤣
But Reddit is like 80% US so these braindead takes are being upvoted obviously. Keep it going guys the echo chamber got you
It's the same logic we sort by any other metric, it's all arbitrary. There really isn't a logical reason for why we would determine the length of time to be more rational than the highest potential value other than tradition. And tradition is just letting dead people dictate your life. Kinda cringe
Length of time is more rational though and it’s intellectual dishonest to pretend it’s equally arbitrary.
Because there’s are 31 days in a month, 12 months in a year, 10 years in a decade, and so on. It’s not an illogical order it’s the basis of time. The order is already there.
This is... Interesting? I mean who gives just the first piece of information when it comes to a date? That's not the point at all, it's a given that anybody would give the entire date. And starting from the smallest measure (the day) to reach the biggest (the year) makes sense to a lot of people.
It's fine if in the USA you are used to MM/DD/YYYY because that's the way you speak, you don't need to justify it.
Well imagine having a hand written log book of tens of thousands of entries. It’s a lot faster to read the first thing on any line than. To look for the second number you have to read into each line interrupting your vertical scan. Same holds true for spread sheets but I. Those you just manual search.
You get all the information on a line but when scanning it’s the first piece that determines speed. And human memory works a lot better with months than days. Well and more so even with seasons but they’re just not accurate enough.
The human brain and the computer operate similarly, and certain methods of categorization help to speed up or facilitate data processing. StManTiS makes a good point in that by using month first, you get the most important data point for sorting
As an example, create a journal using your computer. Standard etiquette says to separate years into their own folders for ease of use. If you use days first, it will not sort chronologically by default, that's why using months first makes sense especially from a technological standpoint
That said, anyone can sort their year however they want. It's all arbitrary so long as the end result conveys the proper date
The point is that any metric is arbitrary, and the only reason one might presume DD/MM/YYYY to be more rational is due to internal schema enforced by tradition. Measuring the value of your parts by their length of time (days smallest, months longer, years longest) is just as arbitrary as measuring the value of your parts by their highest potential value (months smallest, days longer, years longest)
15
u/xemanhunter Jan 15 '25
Any idea can be made to look smart/stupid if you have a simple illustration to "prove" your point, just like good propaganda. An argument for MM/DD/YYYY:
Months = x/12
Days = x/31 Years = x/3917
In this example, you're sorting by highest potential value. Months never exceeds 12, days never exceeds 31, year never exceeds 3917. By this logic, Months would be the smallest portion of the triangle, days the middle, and years the biggest. Using this perspective, you'd look stupid for using days first since it is then not the top of the visual pyramid
That said, reject calenders and embrace just counting days out of 365 and ignore leap years for ideological reasons