What if time = blocktime? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

1990 sats \ 16 comments \ @davidw 18 Nov 2023 bitcoin

Imagine a world where the world revolves around blocktime...

We are now using BT (BlockTime) and BB (Before Bitcoin). It's seen as far more efficient than insanely intricate and ever-changing time zones worldwide.

Questions

What type of knock-on effects would we see?
Would we need an intermediary unit of time, between block-counts?
Would our time preference change (to the nearest 10 minutes)?
In an inter-planetary future, what is required?
If Bitcoin really is as transformational as we envisage, what would you rate the chances of us adopting this new measure of time? *Now we have our unit of account working for us, is our unit of time even working for us anymore?

Note: Currently, BC (Before Christ), AD (Anno Domini) are predominant usages for years, with CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era) as alternatives. Add to the mix 12 hour clocks, 24 hour variations, time zones, computer time stamps, leap years, clocks going backwards, clocks going forwards, 'bank holidays', border changes etc. This led me to wishing to explore the concept of time deeper with you all.

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488 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 18 Nov 2023

This is a fun thought experiment, but it's hard to accept the premise, since it seems less important that we agree to coordinate around one single time value, vs having the semantics of time be broadly equivalent, e.g., 5am means nearly the same thing to someone in Tokyo as it does to someone in Omaha.

It would impose significantly more cognitive burden on me to try to imagine the perspective of any random person speaking about time than it does to have to correct for multiple time zones, which I have tools to help me do whenever needed; and I expect I have a more challenging multi-time-zone coordination problem than most.

To make this even more explicit, imagine the same issues in play, except for seasons. Right now, in North America, we're moving into winter; but in Uruguay, you're moving into summer. We could just agree to take Uruguay as a reference, but now "summer" means vastly different things to you and I, even if the term is literally describing the same universal time. The seasonal affordances of the world predominate in human affairs over the absolute time in which those affordances unfold. Blocktime loses all those distinctions.

228 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw OP 18 Nov 2023

Good point. Seasons are location dependent but I’not sure I would say they depend on a particular time zone. Although I don’t think you are making that assertion.

I can’t tell you the amount of seconds (and therefore hours) I have lost trying to cognitively process what time it is on the other side of the world for colleagues. Or what time to setup a meeting for.

The current system doesn’t work for a global interconnected system. Perhaps block time doesn’t either. I wonder therefore what becomes the standard.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 18 Nov 2023

I can’t tell you the amount of seconds (and therefore hours) I have lost trying to cognitively process what time it is on the other side of the world for colleagues. Or what time to setup a meeting for.

Oh yes, it's a pain, for sure. But Outlook lets you set up so you can at least see them, so I'm regularly scheduling across 4 time zones and three continents. It's not simple for sure, but I think the complexity is irreducible unless you can make everyone agree to keep the same hours, regardless of where it falls across night and day distinctions.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinosphere 19 Nov 2023

BC & AD are overwhelmingly popular despite most of the world not being Christian.

Pretty much all of the religions support it, and we will therefore see a lot of resistance to this change because it will feel like an attack on religion to them.

Of course one day, perhaps a century or two from now, everyone on earth will use bitcoin every day and think in blocktimes. At that point it'll just happen on it's own, no organization needed.

You're just too early to be giving this much thought. Much like I was when I posted this exact topic on the BitcoinTalk forums in 2012. ;)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw OP 19 Nov 2023

Awesome. You got a link to that post? Imagine people thought the idea was bonkers back then.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @02fa90fd41 18 Nov 2023

Firstly I’d like to point out that AD,BC etc… are references to specific eras and are not not the same as the units of time used for daily occurrences

Technically we already have BB and I have seen talks where people start with “before blockchain”.

Knock-on effects would be huge. In America around 33 people die every year due to time zone changes and that’s nothing compared to animals like deer who don’t know we’re starting traffic one hour earlier… I think I read it’s over 33 thousand.

It’s an interesting concept to have the whole world on the same time. Would we become a race that at X time half go to sleep and another time the other half. Opposed to 9-5 standard life. I wonder how that would work… urgh thanks for the rabbit whole ok about to go on…

We definitely would need something that can be measured much finer than waiting for the next block. Our whole science counts on the very small and precise measurement system we have today.

As for interplanetary - a standard time would smooth operations but again different planets and rotations would drastically alter the way we need to record and measure time.

We would need a drastic scientific discovery to alter time we have now in my opinion.

Don’t forget, time has always existed it’s the measurement of time we created and we did so over hundreds of years of study and observation. It’s aligned to our interplanetary observations and scientific methods.

In conclusion: I don’t think block time will be a good substitute for daily time but I have the best use case for it: a measurement of time between validated blocks added to a chain. 😂

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw OP 18 Nov 2023

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Do agree we need something more accurate, not just consistent.

Even if we had a broadly-close representation of when we were close to the next block being mined - it would be pretty useful. Based on hashes, difficulty, mempool count, mining participants, randomisation. I'm sure it's a losing battle, but there's probably someone crazy out there wishing to have a stab at it.

90 sats \ 1 reply \ @quark 18 Nov 2023

It wouldn't be precise. Blocks can happen in 1 second, 10 minutes or 20 minutes or any. You never know.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw OP 18 Nov 2023

100%. That’s where time preference comes into consideration.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullama 19 Nov 2023

It will be used alongside the other independent measurements of time we use.

For example, a day and a year are completely independent as a day is tied to how fast the Earth spins around its own axis and a year is tied to how fast the Earth makes a loop around the sun.

A year is not 365 days, that's just an approximation, in the same way that a block is 10 minutes, approximately.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @rijndael 18 Nov 2023

Absolute nightmare. Blocks arent produced on a deterministic interval. You wouldn’t be able to plan it coordinate things.

Also, bitcoin doesnt work past mars.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @senf 19 Nov 2023

You can't mine off-Earth, but Bitcoin will work just fine.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinosphere 19 Nov 2023

You absolutely would be able to plan it to coordinate certain things... Just not things that are better coordinated by your wristwatch. -Meanwhile your wristwatch has no idea when a contract will expire on the blockchain. They are simply two different ways of telling time and both are useful.

And yes, bitcoin can work on any planet you can travel to. Simply put some sats on a thumb drive and go there, launching a sidechain like Liquid with those sats once you arrive. The chain's won't be in perfect sync, but the value can be shared to other planets.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rijndael 19 Nov 2023

“The train will arrive in 20 blocks”

420 sats \ 0 replies \ @southside263 18 Nov 2023

@tip_nz - timechain.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @davidw OP 18 Nov 2023

For those who have never dealt with programming timezones, this video is worth a watch...