Why is it that Americans refer to 24 hour time as military time? I understand that the military uses the 24hr format but I don’t understand why the general public would refer to it like that?

It makes it seem like it’s a foreign concept where as in a lot of countries it’s the norm.

  • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    There is a cultural phenomenon called schismogenesis - the tendency for one culture to define itself by how it differs from other cultures around it. Even in cases where the culture Y approach is “better” by whatever metric, culture X people will reject it because it’s a Y thing and not an X thing. I see the US rejection of the metric system under Reagan being the most glaringly obvious example of this, but the time thing is probably part of it, too.

    I just really wish we hadn’t gone with the whole base 60 system in the first place.

    • japps13A
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      8 months ago

      I think I once read that when the metric system was first defined during the French Revolution, they also tried to use a decimal system for time, but that was quickly abandoned.

    • Derrio@reddthat.com
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      8 months ago

      Why the hate for base 60? It has its roots in Babylon and also forms the basis for angles in geometry.