• Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Can we all use base 12?

    It will be a shower of shit for like 50 years but then it will be marginally better for pretty much everyone.

    • ted@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      42* years. Centuries are now 84 years. We are living in the 19th century! I rate this idea 12/12.

    • lowleveldata@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      50 years? I bet we couldn’t even agree on how to write “11” & “12” on such short notice. (See: date format, encoding, etc)

    • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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      5 months ago

      Some people argue that it would be harder to count on your fingers but we could just surgically give everyone more?

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        There are 12 sections on your fingers (excluding your thumb) you then use your thumb to count to 12 on one hand.

        Two hands can allow you to count to 24. Which is way higher than 10. Base 12 is better!

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        Binary is very good for counting with your fingers. With both hands you can count to 1023. One hand is 31, which is still usually more than you typically need to count. It’s also trivial to do once you know how binary works. It takes very little thought, though potentially the decoding could take a bit depending on your proficiency.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        Billions of years ago, our collective great-great-great-[several million more]-grandparent evolved a fin with a five bone structure. That idiot didn’t know anything about common denominators, and now we’re stuck with this numeric system that can’t divide things into thirds without causing issues.

    • Nafeon@pawb.social
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      5 months ago

      This would be great. I was researching why we don’t have 10 based clocks and then I saw a video about why a 12 and 60 based system is actually much more convenient and now I would love a ‘dozen based metric system’

    • FreeFacts
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      5 months ago

      Why base 12 though? Base 16 is even better. And base 60 is even better than that!

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        Common denominators. You can divide base 12 into half, thirds, fourths, and sixths and still use integers. I find thirds to be particularly useful, so base 16 is out. Base 60 can do it, but that’s getting unweildly.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          There are no common denominators in base 12 that you can’t use in base 84, and the latter also has 7 as a common denominator.

          I, for one, vote for changing our base to 84.

          • reiseno_@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 months ago

            You can do base 12 on fingers! You count each of the 3 segments on each finger and ignore the thumb (you can use it to keep your place), so you can count up to 12 on just one hand! :)

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              5 months ago

              This is why I’m not totally sold on the idea that we use base 10 because we have 10 fingers. There are a lot of ways to count with your fingers. Plus, there are many cultures throughout human history that use something else. Base 10 in modern times might just be a historical quirk.

              • teft@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Some societies used base 27 from counting body parts. Sumeria famously used base 60. It’s why minutes and hours are divided by 60

                • dukatos@lemm.ee
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                  5 months ago

                  I can count to 1023 using both hands but only to 31 using one.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Just add left arm, right arm to it or, if you’re a guy nose and dick.

            Certainly, especially the male version, it would make the visual act of counting far more funny to watch.

            I think I’m starting to warm up to the whole base 12 idea…

    • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      That’s Acadian, right? It was originally based on the number of easy to count bones in your fingers (12-24)