What Would You Like to See in an IF/Game?
QP Bauer
would love to see created. Is there a genre, or specific elements
within a genre, that you would like to see implemented as a game? I
ask this because oftentimes in the design process I find myself
remaking what has already come before. For instance, it would be
pretty challenging to put together a Lovecraft game without it being
compared to Anchorhead, and the medieval magic setting, ala Dungeons
and Dragons, has surely been exhausted. I really have little interest
in crafting something that has already been done well. If there are
types of interactive fiction "games" that you would like to see
developed, please share and include details.
Andrew Plotkin
> I really have little interest
> in crafting something that has already been done well.
Everything has been done really well. Do what you care about. It will
show through.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Jacek Lenkiewicz
find little sense in asking the receivers of art (any kind of it,
including Interactive Fiction) what kind of work would they like to
admire. I think that the whole process of creating art is about
expressing yourself and sharing your ideas with other people, instead
of trying to guess what will suit their expectations; or adjusting
your visions to average man's taste. The fact that all genres have
been already pretty well exploited does not mean that nothing new and
original can not be created in each of them. It's like with
literature: no matter that milions of poems about love have been
written during last 2500 years (starting from the Bible), thousands of
poets have still a lot to say about it, and not so rarely what thay
have to say proves to be interesting and new. Of course, it's a pretty
demanding task to create something that won't be just another copy of
old schemes, but hey, who said that making art is easy?
Another question is what types of text games do players like, e.i. the
one's with complicated puzzles or rather with a lot of NPCs to
interact with, and so on. A lot can be said about this topic (and I
believe a LOT have been said already), but I think that's not a
subject of this thread and my posting is already growing pretty
longish. What my point is: if you feel like writng a Lovecraftian IF
or a AD&D one, just do it, and we will all be happy to see and judge
the result, even - what I can promise only for myself - without
comparing it with Ancorhead or anything else.
Having said all this, still I would hate to leave you without an
answer to your original question. As far as I am concerned (being a
person pretty much keen on history) there is quite a lot left to be
done in the genre of historical IF, that is - games focusing on a
specific period of the timeline, depicting interesting people, events,
or simply ways of life in some place in a specific era. There are no
bad or uninteresting subjects - from early Chinese empires to
political affairs of Central American city-states before the Spanish
conquest, or everyday life in twentieth-century Europe under the
German occupation, everything can be used as a base of a fascinating
text game (fascinating to a fan of history, of course). So, if you
happen someday to write a piece of good historical IF, you can be sure
to have at least one fan, that being me.
Best regards,
Jacek Lenkiewicz
Jan Thorsby
"QP Bauer" <kaliesk...@yahoo.com> skrev i melding
news:3283486a.04030...@posting.google.com...
> I wanted to know if anyone would care to share what type of game they
> would love to see created.
I've said some of this stuff before, but since you asked:
The hero has been accidentally handcuffed to this woman who he keeps arguing
with as government agents are trying to kill them, and they have to hang off
a tall building, and jump from car to car on a freeway while being shot at,
and steel a police car and drive it, with lots of cars in pursuit, through a
mall and then drive it full speed up one of them bridges that is opening up
and just barely make the jump to the other side as all the bad guys cars
fall in the water. As far as I know there are no IF games like that. There
are in fact very little action games or even action sequences in IF.
There are all sorts of reasons why an action game would be difficult to do,
but I think the most important one is that players (at least me) tend to not
be particularly concerned if the player character dies. They just want to
explore the whole game and win eventually. So if in a game I get attacked
by, say, a furious giant sloth (There where giants sloths. And they were
huge.) I would probably think something like: "Gee, wonder if I can fight
it. Hmmmm, apparently not. Undo. So, maybe I can talk with it. Nope, dead
again. Undo. Maybe I can give it some food then. Nah. Undo. Ah well, better
run away then.". And it would sort of ruin the flow and excitement of an
action game if the player keeps dieing all the time. So what I think people
should do, if they make a game like this, is they should stick some message
in at the start of the game saying that the point of the game is not to win
it eventually, but to try to win it at the first attempt. (Or at least in as
few attempts as possible). So if I meat the sloth, my fist thought would be
something like "Aaaaaaaaargh! Run!".
Other stuff that might help in an action game or a game where the goal is to
win on the first attempt:
1. Give the impression that the player is in much greater danger than he
actually is.
2. Don't have any difficult puzzles in an action sequence; cause then the
player is going to get killed a lot.
3. Try to implement as many solutions to the problems as possible; so,
ideally, if the player does something smart he should not be killed.
4. The player never has to do something stupid to win the game. Like explore
a burning building instead of running out.
There are many comedy IF games, but not all that many with comedy plots. It
tends to be more like a fantasy plot or a science fiction plot or
an-excuse-to-put-in-a-bunch-of-puzzles plot with jokes added. By comedy plot
I mean something like "Gourmet" or "Dinner with Andre". So I would like to
see a game that is kind of like those games. I mean, the story should be
about something else entirely, but it should just be basically funny.
I think I would like to see a game that is set in the real world present
time, and where there is a community of magical creatures, like magicians
and monsters, living among us, in secret. With lots of different types of
creatures. And maybe different sub-cultures. And secret wars. And stuff. I
don't know if there are any games like that. I guess some of the horror
games sort of fit my description without being quite what I have in mind.
Finally I would like to see a game (actually lots and lots of games) without
"examine" and "search", cause I think those commands very often make games
slow, boring and needlessly difficult.
Paul Drallos
> Having said all this, still I would hate to leave you without an
> answer to your original question. As far as I am concerned (being a
> person pretty much keen on history) there is quite a lot left to be
> done in the genre of historical IF, that is - games focusing on a
> specific period of the timeline, depicting interesting people, events,
> or simply ways of life in some place in a specific era. There are no
> bad or uninteresting subjects - from early Chinese empires to
> political affairs of Central American city-states before the Spanish
> conquest, or everyday life in twentieth-century Europe under the
> German occupation, everything can be used as a base of a fascinating
> text game (fascinating to a fan of history, of course). So, if you
> happen someday to write a piece of good historical IF, you can be sure
> to have at least one fan, that being me.
>
I just wanted to add something to Jacek's comments about historical fiction. It is also quite fun to do historical fiction based not on actual history, but on the events and settings in some other well know work of fiction. For instance, other events that were going on behind the scenes in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or Back to the Future, or Rebbeca of Sunnybrook Farm. A new slant on some old fiction, but entirely consistent with the original story. I consider that historical fiction of a fictional world and can be quite entertaining.
Paul
Joao Mendes
"QP Bauer" <kaliesk...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3283486a.04030...@posting.google.com...
> I wanted to know if anyone would care to share what type of game they
> would love to see created. Is there a genre, or specific elements
> within a genre, that you would like to see implemented as a game?
I pretty much love everything with a good story in it. Especially if the
puzzles are particularly easy, or even non-existant.
Cheers,
J.
David Thornley
QP Bauer <kaliesk...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>remaking what has already come before. For instance, it would be
>pretty challenging to put together a Lovecraft game without it being
>compared to Anchorhead, and the medieval magic setting, ala Dungeons
>and Dragons, has surely been exhausted.
You're not going to write anything that isn't going to be compared
to something, provided it deserves attention at all, and nothing
has been exhausted.
The only way to exhaust settings is for them to degenerate into formulas.
Once they've become formulas, and exhausted at that, there's still no
problem with an author coming along and doing something new in that
setting, as long as the author has some sort of fresh view. Maybe a
different viewpoint, maybe thinking about what the setting would really
be like.
I really have little interest
>in crafting something that has already been done well.
Most things have, on a reasonable level of granularity. That doesn't
stop people from writing new and interesting things.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Knight37
news:3283486a.04030...@posting.google.com:
I would love to see more Lovecraft games personally. Or any type of
horror for that matter. I also like science fiction genre a lot.
Knight37
Carl D Cravens
> fall in the water. As far as I know there are no IF games like that. There
> are in fact very little action games or even action sequences in IF.
I think this is harder to pull off in IF because action (and tension) rely
on pacing... and the pacing is difficult to control because the player has
so much control.
I've been away from IF for a few years, but getting back into it, I
recently played Shade. For a moment, I was really immersed in it and it
started to spook me... and then I hit a series of ineffective actions that
completely dropped me out of the mood of the story and into pure
puzzle-solving mode. The flow of the action was broken and the mood lost.
> And it would sort of ruin the flow and excitement of an action game if
> the player keeps dieing all the time.
Exactly. The die-undo cycle creates a pacing problem (and maybe other
things, but I think pacing is the key issue).
Because the player has so much control over the pacing, you either have to
take away some of that control, or, as you suggest, try to convince the
player to conduct his pacing in the manner you desire.
The problem I see with the latter is, if you just _ask_ the player to pick
up the pace, he's likely to keep playing the way he always has. If you
take away 'undo', he'll save the game before trying something risky. And
no matter how much punishment or reward you given for playing in a
contradictory manner, save/restore can always circumvent it. (Hrm.
Unless you punish the player for saving the game in the first place.
Which is annoying when you want to save because you have to go to work and
not backing up the current state so you can experiment with the game.)
> 1. Give the impression that the player is in much greater danger than he
> actually is.
>
> 2. Don't have any difficult puzzles in an action sequence; cause then
> the player is going to get killed a lot.
>
> 3. Try to implement as many solutions to the problems as possible; so,
> ideally, if the player does something smart he should not be killed.
This sounds like "make the game really easy so the player can't screw up."
I don't think that this is your intention, but I think that's what such a
game would be like. I think the whole problem is the idea of "puzzle"
doesn't fit well into "action." "Puzzle" tends to imply, "slow down and
think" which is exactly what you _don't_ want to happen.
I think it would be difficult to make chasing the villain across six lanes
of motor traffic on foot _exciting_ in IF and still leave the player any
control.
> 4. The player never has to do something stupid to win the game. Like
> explore a burning building instead of running out.
Is this the same as making the solutions obvious? Seems to me that
running into a burning building would make for a great action scene, so I
don't know that "stupid" actions are all that clearly "stupid."
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
REALITY.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot universe? (Y/N/Q)
Adam Cadre
> milions of poems about love have been written during last 2500
> years (starting from the Bible)
Er, love poetry most emphatically did *not* start with the Bible.
There was enough of it in ancient Greece alone that they had a
whole muse devoted exclusively to it, and the Greeks were relative
latecomers to the genre.
-----
Adam Cadre, Holyoke, MA
http://adamcadre.ac
Mike Roberts
> I think this is harder to pull off [an action-movie type of plot] in IF
> because action (and tension) rely on pacing... and the pacing is
> difficult to control because the player has so much control.
>
> things, but I think pacing is the key issue).
I think you're right that pacing is a key part of what's lost in the
save-die-restore pattern (not to mention the
wandering-around-wondering-what-to-do-next pattern).
> I've been away from IF for a few years, but getting back into it [...]
Then you might have missed, and you might be interested in, a lengthy raif
thread a while back on the general topic of dramatic tension in IF - look
for "Failure, death, and dramatic tension" on groups.google.com.
--Mike
mjr underscore at hotmail dot com
Mike Roberts
> I ask this because oftentimes in the design process I find myself
> remaking what has already come before. For instance, it would be
> pretty challenging to put together a Lovecraft game without it being
> compared to Anchorhead, and the medieval magic setting, ala
> Dungeons and Dragons, has surely been exhausted.
If you find yourself drawn to what you see as a hackneyed setting like this,
one brainstorming technique you might try is to take one of these genre
settings and combine it with a plot that's usually associated with another
genre setting - do a Lovecraftian swashbuckler, say, or a D&D murder
mystery.
PaulCsouls
wrote:
While not specifically an answer to your question, what I would like
to see in IF games are:
1. Links to "feelies" in the game like PDF files, picture files for
stuff like journals, photographs, newspaper clippings ...
2. They should be done in serial style. Like everyone is waiting for
the next Zork. IF games would have an easier time developing a
following if the individual games were kept short but the settings and
characters were kept alive in multiple games. The War and Peace of IF
games is not the way to go. The episode of a television or comic book
series is.
Paul
QP Bauer
> On 7 Mar 2004 12:37:42 -0800, kaliesk...@yahoo.com (QP Bauer)
> wrote:
>
> 1. Links to "feelies" in the game like PDF files, picture files for
> stuff like journals, photographs, newspaper clippings ...
This approach would have some interesting possibilties; when you say
links to feelies outside the immediate medium of the game, I think off
the top of my head of the way Blair Witch Project made use of the web
for marketing purposes. The site had the tertiary effect of creating a
broader and more lifelike atmosphere for the contents of the movie.
I'm sure feelies could probably be explored further...
> 2. They should be done in serial style. Like everyone is waiting for
> the next Zork. IF games would have an easier time developing a
> following if the individual games were kept short but the settings and
> characters were kept alive in multiple games. The War and Peace of IF
> games is not the way to go. The episode of a television or comic book
> series is.
I find this to be a really fascinating idea, since, as far as I know,
it isn't being done as yet. Another offshoot of this could be a shared
world concept, where the IF writers develop, or are presented with, a
detailed world, and each writer creates an adventure/game that
intersects somehow with the other interactive stories contributing to
the world. Characters and settings that one writer creates could be
employed in another writer's game, adding and enriching the shared
world (like the Thieve's World concept). Also, the technique used
Kurosawa's Rashomon, where different characters live through a similar
incident with completely different shades of experience, could be
interesting as well. If these ideas have already been presented, I
apologize, since I am new to the forum.
Richard Bos
> Jacek Lenkiewicz wrote:
> > milions of poems about love have been written during last 2500
> > years (starting from the Bible)
>
> Er, love poetry most emphatically did *not* start with the Bible.
> There was enough of it in ancient Greece alone that they had a
> whole muse devoted exclusively to it, and the Greeks were relative
> latecomers to the genre.
True, but wasn't the core of the Song of Songs written before most
surviving Greek poetry?
Richard
Adam Cadre
> True, but wasn't the core of the Song of Songs written before most
> surviving Greek poetry?
Sure - in fact, I believe that's another inaccuracy in the initial
post, as my understanding is that the Song of Songs was written in
the tenth century BCE or thenabouts, placing it outside the 2500-year
window specified in that post. But the point is, it wasn't the first
love poem. Great civilizations had been established in Egypt,
Mesopotamia, India, and China long before the tenth century BCE;
all these civilizations had writing, and poetry, and love poetry.
You can pull examples up in your favorite search engine if you
like. (Some of it is, er, unrefined.)
Obviously this is a tangent. I wasn't trying to be pedantic; I just
found the off-hand assertion that love poetry began with the Bible to
be alarmingly ethnocentric. The Judeo-Christian tradition is just
one of many on this planet, and from the perspective of some of the
others, it's one of the new kids on the block.
Daphne Brinkerhoff
> > the next Zork. IF games would have an easier time developing a
> > following if the individual games were kept short but the settings and
> > characters were kept alive in multiple games. The War and Peace of IF
> > games is not the way to go. The episode of a television or comic book
> > series is.
>
> I find this to be a really fascinating idea, since, as far as I know,
> it isn't being done as yet.
Just in case anyone isn't aware: Paul O'Brian is doing this with
_Earth & Sky_ and _Another Earth, Another Sky_ (and whatever #3 ends
up being called: _A Different Earth From the First Two, Ditto Sky_
wouldn't sound all that exciting :).
Also Neil deMause's Frenetic Five trilogy. (_FF vs. Sturm und Drang_,
_FF vs. Mr. Redundancy_, _FF. vs the Seven Deadly Dwarves_.)
Both are superhero games and hence not far from PaulCSouls' "comic
book" analogy. (Can we skip the "comic books and superheroes *don't*
go together like a horse and carriage, they're called 'graphic
novels', and are often about a zillion non-superhero things, and they
always were" rants? Especially since the Earth and Sky games with
their sound effects are comic-book-esque? Thank you.)
Jon Ingold's game _The Mulldoon Murders_ is a sequel to _The Mulldoon
Legacy_, but they aren't short. _Murders_ is shorter than _Legacy_.
_Legacy_ is one of the hugest games on the archive.
Also Robert Camisa wrote _Beat the Devil_ and used the same main
character in _Happy Ever After_ (the first paragraph of _HEA_ tells
what happened to the love interest from _BtD_). I only know this
because I played _Happy Ever After_ last night.
[Unfortunately, I can't recommend it--the author *never* uploaded the
recompiled file to the archive, so the .z5 that is there is supposedly
still buggy. And, I recompiled the .inf file to get a new .z5, but
even then there were still serious bugs (I did manage to win, after
lots of cheating by reading the source code). I have to think he was
only interested in the comp audience, and that makes me sad.
(Authors: if you leave buggy games that you *know* are buggy on the
archive, especially (but not exclusively) when you have a better
version at home, you make Daphne sad. I'm sure none of us want
that.)]
Okay, so, as usual, Baf's Guide is ahead of me:
lists other games which are related to one another.
--
Daphne
James Marshall
>On Mon, 8 Mar 2004, Jan Thorsby wrote:
>The problem I see with the latter is, if you just _ask_ the player to pick
>up the pace, he's likely to keep playing the way he always has. If you
>take away 'undo', he'll save the game before trying something risky. And
>no matter how much punishment or reward you given for playing in a
>contradictory manner, save/restore can always circumvent it.
Well, you could always disable save/restore. As I recall, Failsafe did
that, at least partially in an attempt to set and keep the mood going.
An emergency situation arises -- you can't just save, restore, or undo,
you've got to push ahead! Luckily that game was short enough that not
having save/restore wasn't a huge problem. Disabling it in a longer
game, one that would almost have to be done in multiple sittings, would
be a bad idea though.
>(Hrm. Unless you punish the player for saving the game in the first place.
>Which is annoying when you want to save because you have to go to work and
>not backing up the current state so you can experiment with the game.)
Right. That's the problem. You can save to experiment or save because
you have to go do something else. Trying to stop the first without
stopping the second has to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
>> 1. Give the impression that the player is in much greater danger than he
>> actually is.
To try to force a real impression of danger that must be solved quickly?
>> 2. Don't have any difficult puzzles in an action sequence; cause then
>> the player is going to get killed a lot.
Yeah, dying isn't fun. If you want an action sequence to stay/feel like
that, then you do need to try to leave out anything that's going to make
you really stop and think. Action games typically don't have a lot of
puzzle solving thinking required, you go around shooting, running, jumping,
etc.
>> 3. Try to implement as many solutions to the problems as possible; so,
>> ideally, if the player does something smart he should not be killed.
>This sounds like "make the game really easy so the player can't screw up."
>I don't think that this is your intention,
I didn't think so. It says, "if the player does something smart". I took
that to mean if you did something reasonable that would have a good chance
of working, it should. If you do something stupid like stick a metal fork
into a live outlet or put your hand into a burning fire, there ought to
be consequences. But let's say you try to pry open a container with a
screwdriver when the intended solution is something else, maybe just
unscrewing the lid. Prying it open ought to work, too. There are multiple
ways to reach the same goal. I think that's the kind of thing that was
meant above.
>but I think that's what such a
>game would be like. I think the whole problem is the idea of "puzzle"
>doesn't fit well into "action." "Puzzle" tends to imply, "slow down and
>think" which is exactly what you _don't_ want to happen.
Exactly. Which I think is why the previous poster made note of not
putting any difficult puzzles in the middle of something you're trying to
make an action sequence. Something simple where the correct solution
should leap out at you because it's common sense would probably be OK.
But something complex will obviously break the action feel.
>I think it would be difficult to make chasing the villain across six lanes
>of motor traffic on foot _exciting_ in IF and still leave the player any
>control.
*shrug* I guess it depends on what you consider exciting. Maybe you and/or
the people who are really interested in this could make a short test game.
Try to code some action sequence scene, have people test it out, and see
what happens. Maybe you can come up with something that works well for
most players (since you can't ever please *everyone*).
>> 4. The player never has to do something stupid to win the game. Like
>> explore a burning building instead of running out.
>Is this the same as making the solutions obvious?
IMO, not necessarily.
>Seems to me that
>running into a burning building would make for a great action scene, so I
>don't know that "stupid" actions are all that clearly "stupid."
Well, it seems like a common sense issue to me, at least here. Why would
you stick around inside a burning building? Just because it would make for
an exciting action sequence? Nah. You need a really good reason to put
your life in danger like that. Maybe if your child or spouse were trapped
inside and there was still no professional help (i.e., fire fighters).
To recover some material object? Hard to justify. Material possessions
aren't worth much when compared to your life. I suppose you could put
an object required to win the game in the burning building so that if
the person doesn't stay around to get it, he/she can never win the game.
But then you're asking the player to override common sense. *shrug*
I guess it can work in a game. But usually I don't start trying stupid
solutions until I've exhausted what I think are reasonable solutions.
And that was a point made earlier -- any smart, reasonable solution
should work. It can be annoying to have to come up with the game
author's specific solution when you think you have one that's just as
reasonable and could work just as well. And if you set the building I'm
in on fire, I'm probably not going to think sticking around to continue
exploring is a good idea. I'm going to want to get out before I get
burned, suffocate, or the building comes crashing down on top of me.
Well, there are some of my thoughts, for whatever they're worth.
I haven't been following the whole thread here, but thought I'd comment
about these points here.
--
. . . . -- James Marshall (SAG) .
,. -- )-- , , . -- )-- , mars...@astro.umd.edu ,. . ,
' ' http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall .
"Electrons are just purple hazes with green racing stripes." , .
Dan Shiovitz
Jan Thorsby <no_jthor...@broadpark.no> wrote:
>
[..]
>The hero has been accidentally handcuffed to this woman who he keeps arguing
>with as government agents are trying to kill them, and they have to hang off
>a tall building, and jump from car to car on a freeway while being shot at,
>and steel a police car and drive it, with lots of cars in pursuit, through a
>mall and then drive it full speed up one of them bridges that is opening up
>and just barely make the jump to the other side as all the bad guys cars
>fall in the water. As far as I know there are no IF games like that. There
>are in fact very little action games or even action sequences in IF.
Andy Phillips has written a number of games of this general mold. They
generally have some gameplay problems but they also have some nice
action scenes that are probably what you're looking for.
--
Dan Shiovitz :: d...@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW
Default User
>
> Richard Bos wrote:
> > True, but wasn't the core of the Song of Songs written before most
> > surviving Greek poetry?
>
> Sure - in fact, I believe that's another inaccuracy in the initial
> post, as my understanding is that the Song of Songs was written in
> the tenth century BCE or thenabouts, placing it outside the 2500-year
> window specified in that post. But the point is, it wasn't the first
> love poem. Great civilizations had been established in Egypt,
> Mesopotamia, India, and China long before the tenth century BCE;
> all these civilizations had writing, and poetry, and love poetry.
> You can pull examples up in your favorite search engine if you
> like. (Some of it is, er, unrefined.)
I don't think so. First Dynasty Chinese and Egyptian civilization dates
from around 3000 BCE. The only mention of anything nearly that old is
the supposed lost "high civilization" that isn't believed by most
archeologists.
Brian Rodenborn
Dott. Piergiorgio
> I just
> found the off-hand assertion that love poetry began with the Bible to
> be alarmingly ethnocentric. The Judeo-Christian tradition is just
> one of many on this planet, and from the perspective of some of the
> others, it's one of the new kids on the block.
I fully agree.
Best regard from Italy.
Dott. Piergiorgio, Adventurer and Yamatologian.
Andrew Plotkin
> Adam Cadre wrote:
> >
> > Richard Bos wrote:
> > > True, but wasn't the core of the Song of Songs written before most
> > > surviving Greek poetry?
> >
> > Sure - in fact, I believe that's another inaccuracy in the initial
> > post, as my understanding is that the Song of Songs was written in
> > the tenth century BCE or thenabouts, placing it outside the 2500-year
> > window specified in that post. But the point is, it wasn't the first
> > love poem. Great civilizations had been established in Egypt,
> > Mesopotamia, India, and China long before the tenth century BCE;
> > all these civilizations had writing, and poetry, and love poetry.
> > You can pull examples up in your favorite search engine if you
> > like. (Some of it is, er, unrefined.)
>
>
> I don't think so. First Dynasty Chinese and Egyptian civilization dates
> from around 3000 BCE.
Which is long before the tenth century BCE... what are you disagreeing
with?
Or did you read that as "tenth millennium"?
Default User
>
> Here, Default User <first...@boeing.com.invalid> wrote:
> Which is long before the tenth century BCE... what are you disagreeing
> with?
>
> Or did you read that as "tenth millennium"?
Doh. Yes, I did.
Brian Rodenborn
Joao Mendes
"James Marshall" <mars...@astro.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:c2krdq$sij$1...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
> Right. That's the problem. You can save to experiment or save because
> you have to go do something else. Trying to stop the first without
> stopping the second has to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Starflight attmpted to do something like this. You could only save when
quitting. It was easily circumvented by having multiple copies of the game
disks, but you really had to go to a lot of trouble copying those two 5.25
inch floppies...
Presumably, you could create a hidden save point (somewhere in the registry,
for example, for you windows users) and only allow save on exit and restore
on startup.
Personally, I tend to find this sort of thing mildly annoying...
Cheers,
J.
Richard Bos
> "James Marshall" <mars...@astro.umd.edu> wrote in message
> news:c2krdq$sij$1...@grapevine.wam.umd.edu...
>
> > Right. That's the problem. You can save to experiment or save because
> > you have to go do something else. Trying to stop the first without
> > stopping the second has to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
>
> Starflight attmpted to do something like this. You could only save when
> quitting. It was easily circumvented by having multiple copies of the game
> disks, but you really had to go to a lot of trouble copying those two 5.25
> inch floppies...
Many roguelikes still do it like this - NetHack certainly does. Of
course, people who find the game "too haa-aard" do copy the save files
and copy them back when they get stuck. Oddly enough, that kind of
player never seems to get much better...
> Personally, I tend to find this sort of thing mildly annoying...
Well, it works very well for rogue-likes, where it teaches you to think
before you act. It wouldn't work as well for IF.
Richard
Paul Drallos
> Sure - in fact, I believe that's another inaccuracy in the initial
> post, as my understanding is that the Song of Songs was written in
> the tenth century BCE or thenabouts, placing it outside the 2500-year
> window specified in that post. But the point is, it wasn't the first
> love poem. Great civilizations had been established in Egypt,
> Mesopotamia, India, and China long before the tenth century BCE;
> all these civilizations had writing, and poetry, and love poetry.
> You can pull examples up in your favorite search engine if you
> like. (Some of it is, er, unrefined.)
>
No offence, but although CE and BCE are the politically correct forms
of AD and BC, they are meaningless in the sense that 'Common Era' is
a meaningless phrase which doesn't really convey any particular point
in time. Unless one regards CE to mean Christian Era. Then it sort
of defeats the politically correct purpose of taking Christ out of the
date.
Adam Cadre
> No offence, but although CE and BCE are the politically correct forms
> of AD and BC, they are meaningless in the sense that 'Common Era' is
> a meaningless phrase which doesn't really convey any particular point
> in time.
"Common Era" is manifestly not a meaningless phrase, as when I mention
a date using CE or BCE, people know which years I am referring to. It
has therefore successfully conveyed my meaning.
Nor is "Common Era" meaningless on a semantic level. It is a phrase
that acknowledges that particular numbers are commonly used worldwide
to refer to certain years, even in many non-Christian cultures. Indeed,
one could argue that CE and BCE are far more meaningful that "BC" and
"AD," which are now widely acknowledged to be inaccurate and lead to
such absurdities as "The current consensus is that Christ was born in
the year 4 Before Christ."
> Then it sort of defeats the politically correct purpose of taking
> Christ out of the date.
Throwing the phrase "politically correct" around is a popular way to
chide people for showing some sensitivity to the fact that we live in
a pluralistic society.
I use "Common Era" because it is a good thing for people to have
numbers in *common* to use for enumerating the years. I am certainly
not going to use "Anno Domini," because I do not have a lord and I am
not going to declare that any particular year belongs to one.
Paul Drallos
> "Common Era" is manifestly not a meaningless phrase, as when I mention
> a date using CE or BCE, people know which years I am referring to. It
> has therefore successfully conveyed my meaning.
>
> Nor is "Common Era" meaningless on a semantic level. It is a phrase
> that acknowledges that particular numbers are commonly used worldwide
> to refer to certain years, even in many non-Christian cultures. Indeed,
> one could argue that CE and BCE are far more meaningful that "BC" and
> "AD," which are now widely acknowledged to be inaccurate and lead to
> such absurdities as "The current consensus is that Christ was born in
> the year 4 Before Christ."
>
I'm sorry I don't agree with you. Please explain to me what is
uniqely 'common' about the Common Era so that it unambiguously
refers to a particular moment in time without invoking the
definitions of B.C. and A.D. At least, the birth of Christ I can
get within a year or two. Common Era could mean anything, literally.
This is the sense in which I mean the phrase is meaningless.
The A.D. and B.C. designations have been 'commonly' used for
much longer than any living memory. Whether or not some scholars
believe Christ was born in 4 B.C. is irrelevant. 1 AD is a
firmly established point in time. BE is defined in terms of it.
We commonly use many words and phrases based in Latin. But should
we stop using them since we're not all Latin? Or, what about
words based on Pagan religions or ancient rulers? Do you propose
that we should we change what we call the days of the week? The
months? The seasons?
I'm just saying that these things have been established for millenia.
But leave it to these politically correct times to find a reference
to Christ as offensive and replace it with a term that is much less
precise.
Ok. I realize this discussion doesn't really belong on this group.
I'm sorry. I wasn't hoping to get into a debate, but at the same
time, I knew it was inevitable.
Adam Cadre
> Please explain to me what is uniqely 'common' about the Common Era
> so that it unambiguously refers to a particular moment in time
> without invoking the definitions of B.C. and A.D.
It's uniquely common because it's the most commonly used set of
numbers in the world for enumerating years.
> Common Era could mean anything, literally.
Anything *could* mean anything if people started pairing that
word and that meaning. "Cool" used to mean "not warm." Now
it also means "good," because people started using it to mean
that. "Diss" used to mean nothing at all. Now it means "to
show disrespect for," because people started using it to mean
that. A century ago, "Common Era" could have come to mean all
sorts of things. Now it's come to mean "the years that are
numbered 1 and above in the most commonly used system for
enumerating years."
> Whether or not some scholars believe Christ was born in 4 B.C.
> is irrelevant.
It's relevant if you believe that "BC" means "Before Christ"
and that "Before Christ" should be taken literally. Christ
could not have been born Before Christ. Therefore it is a
bad name.
(I also think it is a bad name because I don't think that
Jesus of Nazareth was a christ, but that's another argument.)
If, on the other hand, you believe that "Before Christ" is an
arbitrary signifier, then you shouldn't object to the use of
"Common Era"'s supposed lack of meaning, because, hey, it's
an arbitrary signifier.
> 1 AD is a firmly established point in time.
So's 1 CE. People have been using it for decades.
> We commonly use many words and phrases based in Latin. But should
> we stop using them since we're not all Latin?
This is not a parallel argument.
> Or, what about words based on Pagan religions or ancient rulers?
> Do you propose that we should we change what we call the days of
> the week? The months?
This, on the other hand, is a parallel argument, and an interesting
question. Hmmm. I'd have to say that I don't personally have any
objection to, for instance, the word "Thursday." This is probably
because I don't live in a society where people tell me that if I
don't turn my life over to Thor I will go to hell, or where a big
chunk of the population wants to base our laws on the Eddas.
> But leave it to these politically correct times to find a reference
> to Christ as offensive
Back to "these politically correct times," eh? I guess all I can
say is that if these times are full of people who are stopped from
being insensitive to others solely by a feeling that it would be
impolitic to do so, thank goodness for political correctness.
And as noted, yes, I'm offended by having someone else's religion
forced on me, so given the choice I'm going to use the secular
nomenclature.
J. W. McCall
> Adam Cadre wrote:
>
>
>> "Common Era" is manifestly not a meaningless phrase, as when I mention
>> a date using CE or BCE, people know which years I am referring to. It
>> has therefore successfully conveyed my meaning.
>>
>> Nor is "Common Era" meaningless on a semantic level. It is a phrase
>> that acknowledges that particular numbers are commonly used worldwide
>> to refer to certain years, even in many non-Christian cultures. Indeed,
>> one could argue that CE and BCE are far more meaningful that "BC" and
>> "AD," which are now widely acknowledged to be inaccurate and lead to
>> such absurdities as "The current consensus is that Christ was born in
>> the year 4 Before Christ."
>>
>
> I'm sorry I don't agree with you. Please explain to me what is uniqely
> 'common' about the Common Era so that it unambiguously
> refers to a particular moment in time without invoking the
> definitions of B.C. and A.D. At least, the birth of Christ I can
> get within a year or two. Common Era could mean anything, literally.
It's simply the era that is commonly used. Rather than starting
numbering years from some other event or non-event in history, people
decided to keep years the same way, since many non-christians and
non-religious people (such as myself) use the same year numbers, but
remove the obviously Christian-o-centric "Anno Domini" and "Before Christ".
Not to mention the fact that this Jesus person was apparently born
before he was traditionally thought to have been. So really, BC and AD
are meaningless due to inaccuracy.
J. W. McCall
L. Ross Raszewski
>The A.D. and B.C. designations have been 'commonly' used for
>much longer than any living memory. Whether or not some scholars
>believe Christ was born in 4 B.C. is irrelevant. 1 AD is a
>firmly established point in time. BE is defined in terms of it.
>
Of all the sloppy logic in this argument, the thing that really
cheeses me off is that you present yourself as having some good
understanding of these things, and then you go and write '1 AD'.
The mistake is common enough that even people who really ought to know
better do it, but it's just in poor taste to enter a discussion of the
relative merits of the naming systems when you appear not even to know
that *AD comes before the year*.
Paul Drallos
Richard Bos
> Paul Drallos wrote:
> > Then it sort of defeats the politically correct purpose of taking
> > Christ out of the date.
>
> Throwing the phrase "politically correct" around is a popular way to
> chide people for showing some sensitivity to the fact that we live in
> a pluralistic society.
Perhaps; it's also often a way to mock sensitivity that goes skin-deep.
Not that I'm saying yours does; but using CE and BCE is, after all,
nothing but a gloss over the fact that the era so called is, whether its
users want to acknowledge this or not, based on an inaccurate estimate
of the birth of Jesus. By using CE, you _are_ still using a Christian
era; you merely try to appear as if you aren't.
Richard
Carl D Cravens
> I use "Common Era" because it is a good thing for people to have
> numbers in *common* to use for enumerating the years. I am certainly
> not going to use "Anno Domini," because I do not have a lord and I am
> not going to declare that any particular year belongs to one.
Somewhat ironically, most modern Christian scholarly works use CE/BCE.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Bad Command! Bad, Bad Command! Sit! Staaaaay...
Paul Drallos
J.W. McCall wrote:
L.Ross Raszewski wrote:
Several points in defense of CE, BCE (or offence
of BC AD, depending how one looks at it.).
I respect and admire the IF related work that you guys do,
so I feel unfortable arguing about this with you. I hope
no hard-feelings result. It is with regret that I have to
make a few more comments.
Adam wrote:
>It's uniquely common because it's the most commonly
> used set of numbers in the world for enumerating years.
That strikes me very much as a tautology (hope I spelled
that right) A circular argument defining something in terms
of it self.
I'm sure you understand the point I'm trying to make. The
terms BC and AD give a sense of meaning and historical
context to the date. CE obscures this.
Someone from the future, unfamiliar with our dating system could
reasonably deduce this date to a good approximation simply
from the name. CE contains less information and a future
investigator would have to realize, 'Ah, they mean AD or BC!'.
As for absurdities, one could find all kinds of entertaining
absurdities by taking the phrase 'Common Era' literally.
You discriminately argue that 'Common Era' has
> come to mean "the years that are numbered 1 and above in
> the most commonly used system for enumerating years."
But ignore that this is equally applicable to BC and AD because
they are the commonly used dating systems on which CE is based.
If we start debating the 4 B.C. birthdate of Jesus then we will
really get off on a tangent. Let's just say it is debatable and
that A.D. 1 has a commonly understood meaning.
>I'm offended by having someone else's religion forced on me,
> so given the choice I'm going to use the secular nomenclature.
Using and Ancient Latin phrase to refer to an ancient Roman-time
event is hardly having someone else's religion forced on you.
Trying to rid the world of traditional reference because they have
a historically signifcant, but relegious connection sounds an awful
like someone forcing their secular religion on me.
J. W. wrote:
>...since many non-christians and non-religious people (such as myself)
>use the same year numbers, but remove the obviously Christian-o-centric
>"Anno Domini" and "Before Christ".
One does not have to be a believer in Christ to acknowledge the events
and the significant impact that Christianity had on Western Civilization.
It may also interest you to know that long before CE was called 'Common
Era', it was called Christian Era. This is important for several
reasons:
1. Non-Christians can refer to it without invoking "Anno Domini" or
"Before Christ".
2. The question of the actual birth of Jesus is moot.
3. The date is defined to be consistent with the commonly recognized
system of numbering our years.
4. The phrase still gives historical context to the meaning of
the date.
To me, it seems foolish and somewhat dishonest to try and ignore or
coverup the fact that Christianity does indeed exist, that it had a
significant impact on Western and World culture, and that the
commonly used numbering system of dating is rooted in a Christian
event. One does not have to be a Christian to acknowledge these
things. They simply are. 'Common Era' is a quite recent corruption
of 'Christian Era'. And I still maintain that 'Common Era' obscures
the meaning.
Finally, Ross wrote:
>the thing that really cheeses me off is that you present
>yourself as having some good understanding of these things,
>and then you go and write '1 AD'.
Now this really hurt because I have a lot of admiration for
L.Ross, and it is a really cheap shot.
It is the same as if a word in my argument was mispelled.
But as long as the word or meaning is understood (which it
was) it has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the
argument. You are throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Also, you should have at least given me some credit for not
writing 0 AD (or AD 0).
David Thornley
Richard Bos <r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote:
>Adam Cadre <see-website...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
>
>> Throwing the phrase "politically correct" around is a popular way to
>> chide people for showing some sensitivity to the fact that we live in
>> a pluralistic society.
>
>Perhaps; it's also often a way to mock sensitivity that goes skin-deep.
>Not that I'm saying yours does; but using CE and BCE is, after all,
>nothing but a gloss over the fact that the era so called is, whether its
>users want to acknowledge this or not, based on an inaccurate estimate
>of the birth of Jesus. By using CE, you _are_ still using a Christian
>era; you merely try to appear as if you aren't.
>
2004 years after somebody's mistaken guess about when a guy named
Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem. It means that it is
ninety years from the start of WWI, fifty-nine years after the
first nuclear explosion, election year for US presidents, things
like that. Almost all written records in this culture are based
on that, and a heck of a lot of written records in other cultures.
Based on that, it doesn't matter how the dates got set. It matters
that they got set a long, long time ago, and that a whole lot of
people have been using them more or less consistently ever since.
This means that we have a massive amount of year information in common,
measured from an arbitrary point.
It's kind of like degrees Fahrenheit, in which zero is the coldest
that Herr Fahrenheit could get with a mixture of salt and ice.
No significance in itself, but there's a lot of records out there
with degrees Fahrenheit, and they are directly comparable. (Yes,
I know that Celcius is more widely used now. So what?)
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Adam Thornton
Feudalism cries!
Adam
Michael Coyne
"I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns
to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the
decisions of that offier have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly
meeting, by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,
but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--"
"Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!"
Michael
OR
> I know that Celcius is more widely used now. So what?)
Well, obviously, you should use Celsius too.
Magnus Olsson
Rybread, are you listening? :-)
--
Magnus Olsson (m...@df.lth.se)
PGP Public Key available at http://www.df.lth.se/~mol
Adam Cadre
> That strikes me very much as a tautology (hope I spelled
> that right) A circular argument defining something in terms
> of it self.
Well, you asked what was "uniquely common" about the Common Era;
what other answer could there be? It's like asking what's so black
about a blackbird.
> The terms BC and AD give a sense of meaning and historical context
> to the date. CE obscures this.
Which is why CE is good. The "sense of meaning" provided by AD is
that the number that follows is a "year of the lord." I don't go
along with that. At the same time, if I started using the French
Revolutionary calendar or some such, not many people would understand
what I meant. So I'll use the 2004 but not the AD.
> Someone from the future, unfamiliar with our dating system could
> reasonably deduce this date to a good approximation simply
> from the name.
I suspect that anyone from the future who has any clue who this
Jesus guy was and when he was alive is going to be familiar with
our dating system. It's not like our descendants are going to be
saying, "Hmm, says here that Julius Caesar was assassinated in
44 BCE. What could that possibly mean?" "Oh, THIS text says that
the assassination was in 44 BC, which is Before Christ, and of
course Christ was born on Stardate -2.33x10^6, so Caesar must
have been assassinated in -2.37x10^6! Thank Our Lord and Savior
for that helpful hint!"
-----
Adam Cadre, Holyoke, MA
http://adamcadre.ac
20 Ventose CCXII
James Glover
Pah! Real people use Kelvin. (Infact even Kelvin can't be determined to be
fully non-arbitary, although zero is set at a point with real universal
meaning the actualy divisions themselves stil depend, arbitarily, on
water.) Perhapse someone could tell me what the most non-arbitary
measurement of temperature is? Something based on hydrogen I imagine.
--
James Glover
E-mail: ja...@jaspsplace.co.uk
Web: http://www.jaspsplace.co.uk
MSN: ja...@jaspsplace.co.uk
ICQ: 75440795
John W. Kennedy
> Pah! Real people use Kelvin. (Infact even Kelvin can't be determined to
> be fully non-arbitary, although zero is set at a point with real
> universal meaning the actualy divisions themselves stil depend,
> arbitarily, on water.) Perhapse someone could tell me what the most
> non-arbitary measurement of temperature is? Something based on hydrogen
> I imagine.
Back in the 60's, an article in Analog proposed a system based on:
Mechanical:
The electron rest mass.
Planck's constant.
The speed of light in a vacuum.
Electromagnetic:
The electron charge.
Thermal:
Boltzman's constant.
Angular:
The radian.
(Note that there are no inverse-square constants -- they lead to icky
fractional dimensions.)
--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"
Rybread
> In article <10evo16b1x7km.jke4havm9brl$.d...@40tude.net>,
> OR <fa...@fake.org> wrote:
> >On 11 Mar 2004 15:00:38 GMT, David Thornley wrote:
> >
> >> I know that Celcius is more widely used now. So what?)
> >
> >Well, obviously, you should use Celsius too.
>
> Rybread, are you listening? :-)
Yes. Always.
Andrew Plotkin
Wow, really? I think we all thought you'd vanished.
What's up?
Adam Thornton
>Yes. Always.
Hallelujah!
Adam
Boluc Papuccuoglu
wrote:
>Adam Cadre wrote:
>J.W. McCall wrote:
>L.Ross Raszewski wrote:
>
[snip]
>
>>I'm offended by having someone else's religion forced on me,
>> so given the choice I'm going to use the secular nomenclature.
>
>Using and Ancient Latin phrase to refer to an ancient Roman-time
>event is hardly having someone else's religion forced on you.
>
>Trying to rid the world of traditional reference because they have
>a historically signifcant, but relegious connection sounds an awful
>like someone forcing their secular religion on me.
>
>
[snip]
In all fairness I think Mr. Cadre could only be accused of 'forcing
his secularity on others' if he was chiding another person for using
AD and BC. However, he is not doing that, he is only using a certain
nomenclature that fits in with his belief system.
Boluc Papuccuoglu
Magnus Olsson
James Glover <jaspS...@jaspsplace.co.uk> wrote:
>On Thu, 11 Mar 2004 20:04:00 +0300, OR <fa...@fake.org> wrote:
>
>> On 11 Mar 2004 15:00:38 GMT, David Thornley wrote:
>>
>>> I know that Celcius is more widely used now. So what?)
>>
>> Well, obviously, you should use Celsius too.
>
>Pah! Real people use Kelvin. (Infact even Kelvin can't be determined to be
>fully non-arbitary, although zero is set at a point with real universal
>meaning the actualy divisions themselves stil depend, arbitarily, on
>water.) Perhapse someone could tell me what the most non-arbitary
>measurement of temperature is? Something based on hydrogen I imagine.
Well, temperature is really a measure of the mean kinetic energy of
the molecules in ideal gas, by the formula E = 1.5 kT, where k is
Boltzmann's constant and T is absolute temperature. So the arbitrariness
of the Kelvin scale is reflected in k; setting k = 1 gives you a
temeperature scale where temperature is measured in energy units.
Of course, the energy unit is also somewhat arbitrary - a joule is
defined as 1 J = 1 kg m^2 / s^2 so it depends on the definitions of
the kilogram, the metre and the second, all of which are arbitrary.
To get a less arbitrary scale, one should use some constant of nature
as the energy unit. A popular choice is the Planck energy, which
is definied in terms of the gravitational constant (the fundamental
parameter of gravity), the speed of light and Planck's constant. This
is about as non-arbitrary as we can get today (lacking a theory that
predicts the values of those constants).
So I'd say that the least arbitrary temperature scale would be one
where the temperature unit is the Planck energy and Boltzmann's constant
is 1.
Magnus Olsson
John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>Back in the 60's, an article in Analog proposed a system based on:
>
>Mechanical:
> The electron rest mass.
> Planck's constant.
> The speed of light in a vacuum.
>Electromagnetic:
> The electron charge.
>Thermal:
> Boltzman's constant.
>Angular:
> The radian.
But both Boltzmann's constant and the electron rest mass are
considered non-fundamental (though in the Boltzmann case that's a
matter of definition). Better to use the Planck mass (or Planck
energy) for mass/energy and to set Boltzmann's constant to 1.
Branko Collin
00:42:24 -0000:
>Perhapse someone could tell me what the most non-arbitary
>measurement of temperature is?
That so depends on your application.
I, for one, am comfortable most of the time with the scale:
-hey, I cannot even get in the water
-hm, nice warm bath
-I am boiling!
(and some in between values)
And no, that's not an arbitrary scale, because it's correct every time
I use it.
--
"Rotterdam: /Kielschieters/, omdat zij een bootje, dat met de kiel
naar boven in de Maas dreef, voor een walvisch hielden, waarop zij
hun geweren afvuurden." uit: Nederlandsche volkskunde, JKFH Schrijnen
Help dit en andere PD-boeken te corrigeren op http://www.pgdp.net
Richard Bos
> In article <405060ae....@news.individual.net>,
> Richard Bos <r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote:
> >Perhaps; it's also often a way to mock sensitivity that goes skin-deep.
> >Not that I'm saying yours does; but using CE and BCE is, after all,
> >nothing but a gloss over the fact that the era so called is, whether its
> >users want to acknowledge this or not, based on an inaccurate estimate
> >of the birth of Jesus. By using CE, you _are_ still using a Christian
> >era; you merely try to appear as if you aren't.
> >
> However, the fact that this is 2004 doesn't just mean that this is
> 2004 years after somebody's mistaken guess about when a guy named
> Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem.
Well, yes, it does.
> It means that it is ninety years from the start of WWI,
No. The _two_ facts that it is now 2004, and that WWI started in 1914,
mean that it is ninety years from WWI. The single fact that it is now AD
2004 only means that it is 2004 years since that single event which was
important to the person who invented this reckoning. Which, like it or
not, is an event closely related to the Christian faith.
Richard
David Thornley
Paul Drallos <pdra...@tir.com> wrote:
>
>I respect and admire the IF related work that you guys do,
>so I feel unfortable arguing about this with you. I hope
>no hard-feelings result. It is with regret that I have to
>make a few more comments.
>
with no hard feelings. I don't have any, but I really can't
speak for anybody else.
>Adam wrote:
>>It's uniquely common because it's the most commonly
>> used set of numbers in the world for enumerating years.
>
>That strikes me very much as a tautology (hope I spelled
>that right) A circular argument defining something in terms
>of it self.
>
Nope. If we were introducing a set of numbers, it would be
tautological. However, since we have a generally used set of
numbers to represent years, they're commonly used, and can be
described as "common" without tautology.
>I'm sure you understand the point I'm trying to make. The
>terms BC and AD give a sense of meaning and historical
>context to the date. CE obscures this.
>
Except that there's a whole lot of people who really don't
care how old Jesus would be if he'd been born in 1 AD and
was still alive and kicking. AD is even less so: it means
"Year of Our Lord", not making any statement about who this
particular Lord happens to be. From the meaning, it could be
some local ruler; some cultures have dated things from the year
of the current reigning king or emperor or whoever.
As far as historical context, this is the context of one event
which is of great significance to roughly one-third of the
population of the world, and to the rest of the world it's a
convenient, widely-used, arbitrary system.
It is true that somebody raised on "AD" and "BC" might find
"CE" and "BCE" to be a bit flavorless, but that's no big deal.
>Someone from the future, unfamiliar with our dating system could
>reasonably deduce this date to a good approximation simply
>from the name. CE contains less information and a future
>investigator would have to realize, 'Ah, they mean AD or BC!'.
>As for absurdities, one could find all kinds of entertaining
>absurdities by taking the phrase 'Common Era' literally.
>
Um, you seem to be thinking that the meanings of "AD" and "BC"
will be common in the future, presumably including the mistake in
Jesus' birthdate. If "CE" and "BCE" come into play, future
generations will have to figure out "AD" and "BC".
As far as absurdities go, one can similarly find absurdities by
taking "Before Christ" and "Year of Our Lord" literally.
>If we start debating the 4 B.C. birthdate of Jesus then we will
>really get off on a tangent. Let's just say it is debatable and
>that A.D. 1 has a commonly understood meaning.
>
Why is this off on a tangent? You're the one talking about literal
meanings above; why is discussing the literal meaning of "Before
Christ" any different? As for the "commonly understood meaning",
the whole virtue of having such a system of associating years with
numbers is to create that, and it doesn't matter what it's based
on. We'd find AUC (years from the nominal founding of Rome) just
as convenient; indeed, some historians would find it much more
convenient.
>>I'm offended by having someone else's religion forced on me,
>> so given the choice I'm going to use the secular nomenclature.
>
>Using and Ancient Latin phrase to refer to an ancient Roman-time
>event is hardly having someone else's religion forced on you.
>
Some of us have picked up enough Latin over the years to understand
these things, so I don't think the language makes any difference.
While "BC" refers to an ancient Roman-time event, "AD" does not.
It refers to a claimed existing relationship, that a guy who was
born maybe 2008 years ago is "Our Lord", yours and mine.
>Trying to rid the world of traditional reference because they have
>a historically signifcant, but relegious connection sounds an awful
>like someone forcing their secular religion on me.
>
But we're talking about "an ancient Roman-time event". If that's
the case, what's the religious significance? Who cares about it?
Christians can write that Jesus was born sometime around 6 BCE to
4 BCE (or whatever the generally accepted dates are).
>J. W. wrote:
>>...since many non-christians and non-religious people (such as myself)
>>use the same year numbers, but remove the obviously Christian-o-centric
>>"Anno Domini" and "Before Christ".
>
>One does not have to be a believer in Christ to acknowledge the events
>and the significant impact that Christianity had on Western Civilization.
>
In other words, would it be equally reasonable to use AUC as a standard
dating scheme, considering the significant impact Rome had on
Western Civilization? Moreover, if one is not a member of Western
Civilization, isn't that reference a bit insignificant?
>It may also interest you to know that long before CE was called 'Common
>Era', it was called Christian Era. This is important for several
>reasons:
>
>1. Non-Christians can refer to it without invoking "Anno Domini" or
>"Before Christ".
>2. The question of the actual birth of Jesus is moot.
>3. The date is defined to be consistent with the commonly recognized
>system of numbering our years.
All of this is true of "Common Era", and is why "Christian Era" is
better than "AD".
>4. The phrase still gives historical context to the meaning of
>the date.
>
If you're a Christian, yes. If you're not, then it looks like
the Christians are trying to grab at least a millenium in which
their religion was the dominant one in a somewhat small and
backward corner of the Eurasian land mass and call it theirs.
The planet itself hasn't had any sort of "Christian Era" until
the last few centuries.
>To me, it seems foolish and somewhat dishonest to try and ignore or
>coverup the fact that Christianity does indeed exist, that it had a
>significant impact on Western and World culture, and that the
>commonly used numbering system of dating is rooted in a Christian
>event.
I take it you're opposed to Christmas trees and the accepted date
of Christmas then, since they try to ignore and cover up the
preexisting religions that used those, which also had a significant
impact on Western culture, and did exist?
One does not have to be a Christian to acknowledge these
>things. They simply are. 'Common Era' is a quite recent corruption
>of 'Christian Era'. And I still maintain that 'Common Era' obscures
>the meaning.
>
Christian Era seems to me to signify the time measurement used by
one-third of the population of the Earth. One would think that
there would be a similar Muslim Era and Hindu Era, and possibly
a Folk Religion Era and Secular Era. Since a lot more people think
it's 2004 this year than think that Jesus Christ is their Lord,
I think "Common Era" sounds more reasonable.
David Thornley
John W. Kennedy <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>> Pah! Real people use Kelvin. (Infact even Kelvin can't be determined to
>> be fully non-arbitary, although zero is set at a point with real
>
>
what I remember is:
>Mechanical:
> The electron rest mass.
Substitute the gravitational constant.
> Planck's constant.
> The speed of light in a vacuum.
>Electromagnetic:
> The electron charge.
>Thermal:
> Boltzman's constant.
>Angular:
> The radian.
>
>(Note that there are no inverse-square constants -- they lead to icky
>fractional dimensions.)
>
Not really. They don't lead to convenient units (neither does any
other system of this kind I'm familiar with), but the arithmetic
is still straightforward.
FWIW, I started reading Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction about
1965 or so, so if you're referring to an article in the early 1960s
I'm almost certainly remembering something else.
David Thornley
Richard Bos <r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl> wrote:
>thor...@visi.com (David Thornley) wrote:
>
>> However, the fact that this is 2004 doesn't just mean that this is
>> 2004 years after somebody's mistaken guess about when a guy named
>> Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem.
>
>Well, yes, it does.
>
>> It means that it is ninety years from the start of WWI,
>
>No. The _two_ facts that it is now 2004, and that WWI started in 1914,
>mean that it is ninety years from WWI.
Which makes them marks on an interval scale. Such a scale is perfectly
usable without worrying about the base point.
The single fact that it is now AD
>2004 only means that it is 2004 years since that single event which was
>important to the person who invented this reckoning. Which, like it or
>not, is an event closely related to the Christian faith.
>
Jesus' fourth birthday?
However, if you don't care when Jesus was born, 2004 is still completely
useful as an arbitrary assignment, and in conjunction with other
arbitrary assignments it is extremely useful. There are more people
in this world that find this useful than people who find this
religiously significant.
Eric Eve
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:4051cd3c$0$41296$a186...@newsreader.visi.com...
Using CE and BCE rather than AD and BC doesn't alter that fact that,
historically speaking the system was adopted because someone thought
they were dating years from the birth of Christ (note, I'm neither
asserting nor denying the appropriateness of the title 'Christ' for
Jesus of Nazareth, merely noting what I assume some monk thought).
But, it seems to me, the obvious consequence of this is that it
really doesn't matter which set of initials one uses. If using AD
and BC gives offence, then perhaps one should refrain from using
them in circumstances where offence might be given, but to me it
seems quite unnecessary for anyone to take offence either at AD/BC
or at CE/BCE.
Pragmatically, AD & BC have the advantage that they're slightly more
easily to distinguish on the page (and less prone to confusion by
typo) and more familiar to many people. To my mind, it might have
been less disruptive if people who objected to the confessional
implications of Anno Domini had decided to reinterpret it as After
Datum or Anno Designato (in the sense 'defined year') or something
equally colourless. But this isn't what has happened and CE/BCE have
become the accepted norm for many purposes, not least New Testament
scholarship in which it is regarded as de rigeur for published work.
If New Testament scholars (of all shades of religious opinion,
belief and disbelief) are happy to agree in this usage (a rare
consensus in the discipline!), I'm not sure why it should be
particularly problematic for anyone else; the term 'Common Era' is
so colourless that it shouldn't really offend anyone who isn't
determined to be offended.
There is also a certain logic to CE in that it recognizes that,
whatever the origin of the dating system, for most practical
purposes it has become purely conventional. Although, IIRC, the monk
who originally made the calculations on which the AD/BC dating
system was made was later found to have made a calculation error of
6 years (which means that if he had done his sums right, he should
have reckoned Jesus' birthdate at what we now call 6 BCE), it's not
quite true to say that there's now a strong scholarly consensus that
this is the 'correct' date: the range 7-4 BCE is simply accepted by
most scholars as a plausible guess, not really worth the bother of
challenging, that is based mainly on the assumption (suggested but
hardly proved by Matthew's birth narrative) that Jesus of Nazareth
was born late in the reign of Herod the Great (who died in 4BCE). In
reality, the actual date of Jesus' birth is irrecoverable, except as
a pretty broad approximation. For all we know, BC and AD could
actually be reckoned from correct year of birth of Jesus of
Nazareth, it's just that we have no means of knowing that it is. It
could be argued, then, that the colourless CE at least avoids a
claim to a degree of accuracy in dating a particular event that is
impossible to attain.
-- Eric
Knight37
$mM.82668@attbi_s02:
> It's not like our descendants are going to be
> saying, "Hmm, says here that Julius Caesar was assassinated in
> 44 BCE. What could that possibly mean?" "Oh, THIS text says that
> the assassination was in 44 BC, which is Before Christ, and of
> course Christ was born on Stardate -2.33x10^6, so Caesar must
> have been assassinated in -2.37x10^6! Thank Our Lord and Savior
> for that helpful hint!"
ROFL.
Knight37
Rybread
> Here, Rybread <rste...@bennington.edu> wrote:
> > m...@df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) wrote in message news:<c2q6ej$20q01r$1...@ID-178465.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > > In article <10evo16b1x7km.jke4havm9brl$.d...@40tude.net>,
> > > OR <fa...@fake.org> wrote:
> > > >On 11 Mar 2004 15:00:38 GMT, David Thornley wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I know that Celcius is more widely used now. So what?)
> > > >
> > > >Well, obviously, you should use Celsius too.
> > >
> > > Rybread, are you listening? :-)
> >
> > Yes. Always.
>
> Wow, really? I think we all thought you'd vanished.
>
> What's up?
Graduated, moved to LA (god knows why) and am now PAing for g4 that
silly videogame channel. Trying to force people to make an IF
special, but people say it wouldn't be visual enough...
Just got twisty little passages, and contemplating cracking open the
designer's manual and writing a little game. Been doing some dvd
authoring and thinking about going that route as well.
David Adrien Tanguay
Eric Eve wrote:
> consensus in the discipline!), I'm not sure why it should be
> particularly problematic for anyone else; the term 'Common Era' is
> so colourless that it shouldn't really offend anyone who isn't
> determined to be offended.
Of the three (AD/BC, "Common Era", and "Christian Era"), I find "common"
to be the most offensive, reeking of doublespeak. Everybody knows that the
dating scheme refers to Christianity, so calling it "common" is like saying
"my culture won, nyah nyah". It may be true, but it's still bad manners.
AD/BC can be offensive for the reasons already stated.
To me, "Christian" is entirely unoffensive since it refers to a universally
accepted historical fact: the existence of Christians (not Christ or Jesus
or god). The fuzziness of the exact epoch just reflects the fuzziness of
history/mythology. "Christian Era" also has the virtue of never becoming
anachronistic, once the Elvisites take over the world and impose their own
calendar.
--
David Tanguay http://www.sentex.ca/~datanguayh/
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.24N 80.29W]
Cirk R. Bejnar
to signify the time measurement used by
> one-third of the population of the Earth. One would think that
> there would be a similar Muslim Era and Hindu Era, and possibly
> a Folk Religion Era and Secular Era.
There is, in fact, a Moslem Era dating from AD 622 and the French
Revolutionary Calendar Adam mentioned would do nicely, I think for a
Secular Era(unless one wanted to use the Seleucid Era which began in
312 BC). I like diversity in dating systems myself but
standardization also has its advantages and now is awfuly late in the
game to fight it.
As demonstrated above, I use AD and BC because as a Christian of the
evangelical sort which was criticized earlier in this thread the
meaning is important to me. (Though the dates are +/-5 years that is
closer than lots of historical things. :-) ) On the other hand, as
long as people provide a conversion to a dating system I know I don't
care what they use. I reserve the right to oject to an agenda someone
might propogate through dates (say using Mussolini's Fascist Era) but
the objection is to the agenda not their right to use a dating system
consonant with their beliefs.
<Ducks flames from both sides>
Cirk R. Bejnar
Paul Drallos
> Of the three (AD/BC, "Common Era", and "Christian Era"), I find "common"
> to be the most offensive, reeking of doublespeak. Everybody knows that the
> dating scheme refers to Christianity, so calling it "common" is like saying
> "my culture won, nyah nyah". It may be true, but it's still bad manners.
> AD/BC can be offensive for the reasons already stated.
>
> To me, "Christian" is entirely unoffensive since it refers to a universally
> accepted historical fact: the existence of Christians (not Christ or Jesus
> or god). The fuzziness of the exact epoch just reflects the fuzziness of
> history/mythology. "Christian Era" also has the virtue of never becoming
> anachronistic, once the Elvisites take over the world and impose their own
> calendar.
Of course, I totally agree with David's comments here. 'Common Era' is
'offensive' in the sense of offence and defence because it represents an
offense - so to speak - on an established system. Retaining an established
system is passive. To change it, one must go on the offense.
Now, assuming that you all are not anarchists, you would agree that, if
there exists some long-standing traditional procedure, the burden should
fall on the proponents of change to offer compelling reasons to do so.
So far, the proponents of Common Era argue to change a numbering system
to a 'new' system which turns out to be exactly the same as the original
system. Furthermore, they argue that this new system is more accurate
even though it gives exactly the same numbers as the old system. In
addition, the new system obscures the historical significance of either
system altogether.
These are not compelling arguments for change. Let's be frank. The
arguments given are all B.S. (Blatent Sophistry). The one and only
purpose for the Common Era phrase is to eliminate reference to or
significance of Christianity. If this were not the case, then all of
you would have been satisfied with 'Christian Era' which was the original
meaning of the CE designation and which satisfies all of your complaints
about BC and AD. Hence, Common Era is, and only is, an offense on
Christianity. That is why it is offensive.
Matthew Russotto
Cirk R. Bejnar <eluch...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>There is, in fact, a Moslem Era dating from AD 622 and the French
>Revolutionary Calendar Adam mentioned would do nicely, I think for a
>Secular Era(unless one wanted to use the Seleucid Era which began in
>312 BC). I like diversity in dating systems myself but
>standardization also has its advantages and now is awfuly late in the
>game to fight it.
I say we use AUC.
--
Matthew T. Russotto mrus...@speakeasy.net
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue." But extreme restriction of liberty in pursuit of
a modicum of security is a very expensive vice.
Joe Mason
> Of course, I totally agree with David's comments here. 'Common Era' is
> 'offensive' in the sense of offence and defence because it represents an
> offense - so to speak - on an established system. Retaining an established
> system is passive. To change it, one must go on the offense.
Right. I wouldn't bother spending lots of time arguing for the change.
Now that the new system is here, though, I might as well use it, since
it's clearly better.
> So far, the proponents of Common Era argue to change a numbering system
> to a 'new' system which turns out to be exactly the same as the original
> system. Furthermore, they argue that this new system is more accurate
You speak as if this change has not already occurred. What's with that?
Joe
Dott. Piergiorgio
> I say we use AUC.
Whose today is Ante Diem II Idibus Martibus MMDCCLVIII (2758) :))
Salus,
Dott. Piergiorgio (Whose is Born in Rome ;)
David Thornley
Paul Drallos <pdra...@tir.com> wrote:
>David Adrien Tanguay wrote:
>
>> Of the three (AD/BC, "Common Era", and "Christian Era"), I find "common"
>> to be the most offensive, reeking of doublespeak. Everybody knows that the
>> dating scheme refers to Christianity, so calling it "common" is like saying
>> "my culture won, nyah nyah". It may be true, but it's still bad manners.
>> AD/BC can be offensive for the reasons already stated.
>>
since it suggests that it was dominated by Christians or Christianity
or something. The winning of the Christian culture is relatively
recent.
>> To me, "Christian" is entirely unoffensive since it refers to a universally
>> accepted historical fact: the existence of Christians (not Christ or Jesus
>> or god).
There were no Christians until sometime into CE, unless you count
Jesus, in which case there was one Christian in BCE. The year
AD 1 or 1 CE or whatever has no particular significance in that
no really important historical event took place then. However, the
system of matching numbers with years is very commonly used.
The fuzziness of the exact epoch just reflects the fuzziness of
>> history/mythology. "Christian Era" also has the virtue of never becoming
>> anachronistic, once the Elvisites take over the world and impose their own
>> calendar.
>
They can worry about it then. Heck, if we call it "Common Era", it
should discourage them from rebasing the calendar on Elvis' birthday.
"Christian Era" sounds disposable.
>Of course, I totally agree with David's comments here. 'Common Era' is
>'offensive' in the sense of offence and defence because it represents an
>offense - so to speak - on an established system. Retaining an established
>system is passive. To change it, one must go on the offense.
>
Alternatively, some of us could use the names we like, as long as
they aren't confusing, and others can use the names they like, and
we can see what catches on. I think military campaigns are a bad
metaphor for language development.
>Now, assuming that you all are not anarchists, you would agree that, if
>there exists some long-standing traditional procedure, the burden should
>fall on the proponents of change to offer compelling reasons to do so.
>
If we're going to formally vote on it, yes. If somebody just wants
to use a new word, well, that's how language evolves. There are always
sticks in the mud who want to cling to old usage (in some cases, I'm
one of the sticks), but the general rule is that if it catches on,
it catches on. In that case, we can figure that there's enough reason
for it to catch on.
Look, nobody seemed at all confused by what Adam was talking about.
Everybody knew what time periods he was referring to. Now, we see
some people who seem seriously offended at the name he used. I
simply don't understand it.
>So far, the proponents of Common Era argue to change a numbering system
>to a 'new' system which turns out to be exactly the same as the original
>system.
You say that like it never happened before. When I was a kid, there
was a little controversy about changing "cycles per second" to "Hertz".
After all, the numbers were going to be exactly the same. Nowadays,
everybody's using it and having no big deal about it. This despite
the fact that "cycles per second" is descriptive and "Hertz" is
an arbitrary name.
Furthermore, they argue that this new system is more accurate
>even though it gives exactly the same numbers as the old system.
No, some people are arguing that they like their name better.
They are claiming that the name itself is more accurate.
In
>addition, the new system obscures the historical significance of either
>system altogether.
>
OK, can you quickly, without looking it up, give me some idea who this
Hertz guy was and why his name got put on cycles per second?
>These are not compelling arguments for change. Let's be frank. The
>arguments given are all B.S. (Blatent Sophistry).
Um, has somebody hit a nerve?
The one and only
>purpose for the Common Era phrase is to eliminate reference to or
>significance of Christianity.
The purpose is to refer to the commonly accepted scheme for assigning
numbers for years without either claiming that the existence of
Christians has been the dominant historical fact of the last two
millenia or acknowledging Jesus as Our Lord. The fact is that most
of the world understands what these numbers mean, and one-third of
the world is Christian. The non-Christian parts of the world have
their own history, in some cases going back a long, long time, and
often not involving Christianity or Christians.
If this were not the case, then all of
>you would have been satisfied with 'Christian Era' which was the original
>meaning of the CE designation and which satisfies all of your complaints
>about BC and AD.
And brings up new complaints. It is historically misleading and
Eurocentric.
Hence, Common Era is, and only is, an offense on
>Christianity. That is why it is offensive.
>
Good grief.
John W. Kennedy
Except that the Romans almost never used AUC.
PaulCsouls
We need to get rid of Thursday because it refers to Thor. Christianity
should be honored. The seperation of church and state has come to mean
the seperation of the state and 'real' religion. You have to remove
the Ten Commandments but the blind folded pagan goddess gets to stay.
They should replace that statue of the Ten Commandments with a replica
of Hammurabi's Code and see if Ishtar gets the same treatment.
Paul
On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 20:57:16 -0500, Paul Drallos <pdra...@tir.com>
wrote:
>David Adrien Tanguay wrote:
Dott. Piergiorgio
> Except that the Romans almost never used AUC.
Exact, they used the name of the Consuls in charge or, the year of the
Reign of the Emperor.
Esempio fittizio: "...In the year of the Consuls Lucius Verrus and Julius
Anneus..."
best regards from Italy.
Dott. Piergiorgio, prideously Roman of Rome ;)
James Glover
> Of course, I totally agree with David's comments here. 'Common Era' is
> 'offensive' in the sense of offence and defence because it represents an
> offense - so to speak - on an established system. Retaining an
> established
> system is passive. To change it, one must go on the offense.
As far as I can tell from this whole debate is Adam originaly used the CE
nomeculture and then you criticised him for it. He didn't try and say he
felt everyone should use CE/BCE but merely used it himself. I hardly call
this 'offensive.' Although perhapse there is something of this tale that
I've missed.
Personaly I have no real problems with either nomeculture and see them as
identical. I can understand why a Christian may want to maintain the BC/AD
nomeculture themselves, but as for non-christians then the actual meanings
BC and AD actually have no meaning directly applicable to them and thus I
see no reason why, if they feel more comfortable, they shouldn't use the
BCE/CE definition. As it is it's just a conveniant way of maintaining the
same scale, as it is the scale could have been re-dated from any other
point, but that would have been uneccessary confusion.
If Adam had force his useage on you then I would have agreed with you, but
as it is it appears that you attacked Adam for his useage. Yes by ignoring
Jesus the BCE/CE year 1CE (or is that CE1?) is fairly arbitary, but as
pointed out earlier the dates 1066CE, 1945CE, 1966CE and 2004CE aren't.
Yes, undoubtedly the date of Jesus' birth has significance to Christians,
(Although I've always felt dating it from the crucifiction would have made
more sense) but it doesn't to Adam and many other people in this world.
Biases: Non-Christian, Use AD/BC informaly, BC/BCE formaly (In the rare
times I have need) British.
--
James Glover
E-mail: ja...@jaspsplace.co.uk
Web: http://www.jaspsplace.co.uk
MSN: ja...@jaspsplace.co.uk
ICQ: 75440795
Paul Drallos
>
> As far as I can tell from this whole debate is Adam originaly used the
> CE nomeculture and then you criticised him for it. He didn't try and say
> he felt everyone should use CE/BCE but merely used it himself. I hardly
> call this 'offensive.' Although perhapse there is something of this tale
> that I've missed.
>
You're right. My comments could easily be regarded as offensive.
They was *supposed* to be a defense of a long-standing tradition
and not have anything to do with the a person's religious persuasion.
But I failed.
Still, I think a lot of people have been hoodwinked by the phrase
Common Era, because CE was first used to mean Christian Era for quite
some time. I believe it was only very recently, during the Koffi Annan
(spelling?) administration of the UN, that the phrase Christian Era
suddenly became Common Era. This is what I most object to because
it removes the historical context of something that we date almost
all of history relative to. Whether a person is Christian or not,
this seems a travesty.
If CE seems like it has been in use for a long time, that is because
it was used to mean Christian Era not Common Era. Even old Muslum texts
I have read refer to CE as Christian Era.
Richard Bos
> thor...@visi.com (David Thornley) wrote:> Christian Era seems to me
> to signify the time measurement used by
> > one-third of the population of the Earth. One would think that
> > there would be a similar Muslim Era and Hindu Era, and possibly
> > a Folk Religion Era and Secular Era.
>
> There is, in fact, a Moslem Era dating from AD 622 and the French
> Revolutionary Calendar Adam mentioned would do nicely, I think for a
> Secular Era(unless one wanted to use the Seleucid Era which began in
> 312 BC).
Ahem. Anno Lumina. Accept no surrogates. Fnord.
Richard
Richard Bos
> Maybe Richard's point here is simply "A rose by another name..."?
> Using CE and BCE rather than AD and BC doesn't alter that fact that,
> historically speaking the system was adopted because someone thought
> they were dating years from the birth of Christ
Well, yes, that is exactly what I meant.
Whether you acknowledge it by using AD, or cover it up by using CE,
you're still using a Christianity-based era.
Richard
Mark J. Tilford
But there is a difference.
Christian Era, to me, means that there is a group that calls itself
"Christian", and they measure their dates in such a manner. Using it
says nothing as to whether the speaker agrees with Christians.
Using Anno Domini, whether translated as "The Year of Our Lord" or "The
Year of the Lord", implies that the speaker does recognize Jesus as Lord.
--
------------------------
Mark Jeffrey Tilford
til...@ugcs.caltech.edu
David Thornley
calendar on when I was born, or something, it's going to be based
on something that's less relevant to me than it is to other people.
If we were using AUC, well, I'm not Italian and don't speak Latin.
There are other calendars available, and I have no a priori
feelings towards any of them except (1) the lunar ones, which I
think would cause more trouble than they're worth, and (2) the
ones in which the numbers don't agree with what's written in all
my books, because that would be a pain.
In other words, I want to use the same calendar as everybody else,
and I really don't know anybody who uses the French Revolutionary
calendar.
As far as I'm concerned, it's the numbers that are important, and
we can call them whatever is convenient as long as we're clear
about whether we're in the series running forwards or backwards.
BTW, why did you Christians start pretending that Jesus was
born in winter? Don't you realize that you tried to obliterate
the historical significance of the Saturnalia celebration?
Cirk R. Bejnar
> BTW, why did you Christians start pretending that Jesus was
> born in winter?
So we could co-opt the Winter Solstice festival. :-)
> Don't you realize that you tried to obliterate
> the historical significance of the Saturnalia celebration?
And suceeded pretty thuroughly, I would think. At least none of the
things I associate with Saturnalia (commenoration of the Golden Age,
Saturn, role reversal) are modern Christmas traditions except for
having a party in mid-winter. Germanic Yuletide traditions, on the
other hand, such as trees and decorative lights remain in full force.
Many cultures celebrate the soltices and/or equinoxes not just the
Romans and it seems unfair to knock the Christians for wanting one
too. The issue of Christian claims of uniqueness and superiority are,
IMO, rather seperate and certainly impact much more important things
than what to call a holiday the religious aspects of which are not
important to non-believers.
Cordially,
Cirk R. Bejnar
David Thornley
Dott. Piergiorgio <pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>Il Sat, 13 Mar 2004 23:57:39 +0000, John W. Kennedy ha scritto:
>
>> Except that the Romans almost never used AUC.
>
>Exact, they used the name of the Consuls in charge or, the year of the
>Reign of the Emperor.
>
Particularly after the Emperors decided they wanted to be lords,
not merely first speakers.
J. W. McCall
> In article <pan.2004.03.14....@libero.it>,
> Dott. Piergiorgio <pg...@libero.it> wrote:
>
>>Il Sat, 13 Mar 2004 23:57:39 +0000, John W. Kennedy ha scritto:
>>
>>
>>>Except that the Romans almost never used AUC.
>>
>>Exact, they used the name of the Consuls in charge or, the year of the
>>Reign of the Emperor.
>>
>
> In other words, something darn close to "Year of Our Lord".
The primary difference being that a new era would begin after the death
of the previous "lord", whereas AD is still being used about 2000 years
later, and by people who do not acknowledge the historical Jesus as
their lord.
The reason, in my view of CE/BCE is to remove the religious connotations
of BC and AD without having to pick a new year numbering system, which
would cause problems and confusion, and which would probably not be
adopted by all.
Most people in the world, even if they use other year numbers primarily,
are at least familiar with the BC/AD system. It's as close to universal
as any system is. Rather than cause confusion by changing it, calling
it the "common era"--since it is commonly known and accepted--makes
sense to me.
J. W. McCall
J. W. McCall
> there exists some long-standing traditional procedure, the burden should
> fall on the proponents of change to offer compelling reasons to do so.
I'm not an anarchist, but I don't agree. I think traditions should
constantly be questioned and challenged, and if they no longer are
useful, should be abandoned. I think the burden of proof is on the
traditions, in other words. Tradition, in and of itself is not reason
enough for me to do or not do something, unless it's backed up by logic.
Of course, this is my own personal opinion and how I choose to structure
my ideas and beliefs, and is not for everyone.
Ok, enough of this off-off-topic rant.
J. W. McCall
J. W. McCall
> Common Era, because CE was first used to mean Christian Era for quite
> some time. I believe it was only very recently, during the Koffi Annan
> (spelling?) administration of the UN, that the phrase Christian Era
> suddenly became Common Era. This is what I most object to because
> it removes the historical context of something that we date almost all
> of history relative to. Whether a person is Christian or not,
> this seems a travesty.
> If CE seems like it has been in use for a long time, that is because it
> was used to mean Christian Era not Common Era. Even old Muslum texts
> I have read refer to CE as Christian Era.
I did research into this.
The following is from the Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) article on "Anno
Domini":
Begin Quote.
The term "Common Era" has been in use since the late 19th century.
Indeed, in its article on "Chronology", the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia
uses the sentence: "Foremost among these [dating eras] is that which is
now adopted by all civilized peoples and known as the Christian, Vulgar,
or Common Era, in the twentieth century of which we are now living."
This terminology is seen by some Christians, and others, as a move by
nonbelievers to make Christianity less visible. By contrast, many groups
find the A.D. terminology to be objectionable for different reasons. For
example, Jehovah's Witnesses find the terms B.C./A.D. objectionable
because they imply that Christ was born on 1 A.D., whereas their
theology requires a different date that they believe was prophesied in
the book of Daniel. In addition, many Jews, Muslims, and other
non-Christian or pro-secular persons object to the term A.D. because it
implies that Christ is "the Lord."
End quote.
J. W. McCall
J. W. McCall
> we can call them whatever is convenient as long as we're clear
> about whether we're in the series running forwards or backwards.
Another system I have seen used, albeit very rarely, is 2004+ or +1945
for CE/AD, and 1000- or -66 for BCE/BC. This is pretty similiar, but
avoids acronyms altogether, but still uses the same years.
Anyway, the CE/BCE system is still obviously the same as AD/BC in terms
of the numbers, but it would be a massive problem to change the numbers
now that at least half the world (I'm guessing) probably uses this
system. Many many written works use this system. If we changed 0 CE to
almost any other date, it would probably be biased toward a group. 1066
would be British biased. 1776 would be American biased. The year
Muhammed was born (some time in the 7th century if I remember correctly)
would be Islam biased. Even years like 1492, 1918, or 1945 would be
biased toward some group or region. So since most people are already
using a given system, in this case the AD/BC system, I think the best we
can do is accept the numbers as an arbitrary (or important, depending on
your beliefs) system and try to remove the overtly religious
connotations associated with it.
J. W. McCall
Krister Fundin
Why not use an ABB (After Big Bang) system? This should at least be
common to all the people of Earth. Also, it would be very easy to recognize
when such a date is used, since it would usually be somewhere in the ten
billion range. You wouldn't have to convert all the older dates, that is.
-- Krister Fundin
Mike Roberts
> Why not use an ABB (After Big Bang) system? This should at
> least be common to all the people of Earth. Also, it would be very
> easy to recognize when such a date is used, since it would usually
> be somewhere in the ten billion range.
It does have the advantage of no negative dates. Precision might be a
problem - based on current science, we'd have to write dates as something
like 1.3e10 +/- 2e9, which would make it hard to distinguish, say, this
Tuesday from the beginning of the Cretaceous. And it's probably reasonable
to expect the epoch (i.e, the 0 of the calendar) to not only improve in
precision but to change a bit as astronomical instruments improve; an epoch
that varies over time would be a big practical hassle. One could choose an
arbitrary epoch, but that would seem to me to make the system no more
objective than any other.
--Mike
mjr underscore at hotmail dot com
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
>Anyway, the CE/BCE system is still obviously the same as AD/BC in terms
>of the numbers, but it would be a massive problem to change the numbers
>now that at least half the world (I'm guessing) probably uses this
>system. Many many written works use this system. If we changed 0 CE to
>almost any other date, it would probably be biased toward a group. 1066
>would be British biased. 1776 would be American biased. The year
I think the Normans won that one.
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
David Thornley
>> we can call them whatever is convenient as long as we're clear
>> about whether we're in the series running forwards or backwards.
>
>Another system I have seen used, albeit very rarely, is 2004+ or +1945
>for CE/AD, and 1000- or -66 for BCE/BC. This is pretty similiar, but
>avoids acronyms altogether, but still uses the same years.
>
the year zero. As long as we have two series, one going forwards
and one backwards, we can keep them apart. Trying to merge them
into one is misleading.
>using a given system, in this case the AD/BC system, I think the best we
>can do is accept the numbers as an arbitrary (or important, depending on
>your beliefs) system and try to remove the overtly religious
>connotations associated with it.
>
Yup. It's an arbitrary system, and I could wish for a better one
(starting considerably further back would make ancient history
a bit less confusing), but it's far too much work to change for
the very slight benefit. Something like the way manufacturers
are going to continue to put a plus on the end of the battery
the electrons go to, and a minus on the end they come from.
James Glover
All this talk reminds me of a joke I heard arround the time of the
millenium. (The one that happened at the transition from 1999 to 2000, not
from 2000 to 2001 or a hazy millenium from between 1993 and 1996)
"Sigh, everyone is going on about the millenium bug as if it's gonna be a
huge problem! They should try and comprehend the problems that they
[computers] must have experianced switching from BC to AD!"
Michael Coyne
> All this talk reminds me of a joke I heard arround the time of the
> millenium. (The one that happened at the transition from 1999 to 2000,
> not from 2000 to 2001 or a hazy millenium from between 1993 and 1996)
>
> "Sigh, everyone is going on about the millenium bug as if it's gonna be
> a huge problem! They should try and comprehend the problems that they
> [computers] must have experianced switching from BC to AD!"
Don't laugh about it!
Because of all the confusion over switching from BC to AD, a scribe
slipped up and made a two-year error; then Herod had to have all the
male children under 2 years of age killed to erase the mistake!
Michael
PaulCsouls
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 21:03:09 -0000, James Glover
<jasp...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Sigh, everyone is going on about the millenium bug as if it's gonna be a
>huge problem! They should try and comprehend the problems that they
>[computers] must have experianced switching from BC to AD!"
That's why they mark C.E. on the back of so many electronic devices.
They had so much trouble with the B.C.E. ones.
Paul
J. W. McCall
Well, yes, I know that. It's a significat date in British history is
why I mentioned it.
J. W. McCall
Gene Wirchenko
J. W. McCall
> "J. W. McCall" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> I think the Normans won that one.
>>
>>Well, yes, I know that. It's a significat date in British history is
>>why I mentioned it.
>
>
> Not British-biased in the sense I would usually use it. <G>
Well, I'm not British, so I may be (read: probably am) completely
clueless about how this event is percieved there. I know the history of
the event, however, being a historian. I know that it was a bad year
for the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants (which originally came from Viking
lands, if I remember correctly), but the Norman influences made England
what it is today, as I see it...for better or worse.
Is 1066 seen as a black year in British history? I'm just curious.
J. W. McCall
Eric Eve
"J. W. McCall" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:z0J7c.32232$Mm2....@fe1.texas.rr.com...
>> Well, I'm not British, so I may be (read: probably am) completely
> clueless about how this event is percieved there. I know the
history of
> the event, however, being a historian. I know that it was a bad
year
> for the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants (which originally came from Viking
> lands, if I remember correctly), but the Norman influences made
England
> what it is today, as I see it...for better or worse.
>
> Is 1066 seen as a black year in British history? I'm just
curious.
>
Not black particularly (unless you happen to think the Normans had a
particularly baleful influence), but certainly decisive in the sense
of marking the beginning of a major new chapter in British history.
-- Eric
mathew
Paul Drallos <pdra...@tir.com> wrote:
>We commonly use many words and phrases based in Latin. But should
>we stop using them since we're not all Latin?
Latin phrases and abbreviations are widely regarded as poor style.
See Strunk & White, for example.
>I'm just saying that these things have been established for millenia.
As has the spelling of "millennia".
>But leave it to these politically correct times to find a reference
>to Christ as offensive and replace it with a term that is much less
>precise.
Surely by definition it's exactly as precise? CE years are the same
size as AD years, after all.
mathew
Ramkishan Pakkiri Sala'ad
I would like to thank you on behalf of all third world people for your
tolerance and sensitivity. Please accept this obsequious smile as a
token a gratitude.
O, how much we all suffered under the abominable nomenclature of AD,
BC and other most horrific acronyms! But now, thanks to altruistic
well-doers like you, most enlightened White Sahib, we need not suffer
any more!
May Shiva bless your well-doer soul and bathe your self-righteousness
in sweet herbal streams.
Adam Cadre <see-website...@adamcadre.ac> wrote in message news:<YNN3c.307$i76.5897@attbi_s03>...
> Paul Drallos wrote:
> > No offence, but although CE and BCE are the politically correct forms
> > of AD and BC, they are meaningless in the sense that 'Common Era' is
> > a meaningless phrase which doesn't really convey any particular point
> > in time.
>
> "Common Era" is manifestly not a meaningless phrase, as when I mention
> a date using CE or BCE, people know which years I am referring to. It
> has therefore successfully conveyed my meaning.
>
> Nor is "Common Era" meaningless on a semantic level. It is a phrase
> that acknowledges that particular numbers are commonly used worldwide
> to refer to certain years, even in many non-Christian cultures. Indeed,
> one could argue that CE and BCE are far more meaningful that "BC" and
> "AD," which are now widely acknowledged to be inaccurate and lead to
> such absurdities as "The current consensus is that Christ was born in
> the year 4 Before Christ."
>
> > Then it sort of defeats the politically correct purpose of taking
> > Christ out of the date.
>
> Throwing the phrase "politically correct" around is a popular way to
> chide people for showing some sensitivity to the fact that we live in
> a pluralistic society.
>
> I use "Common Era" because it is a good thing for people to have
> numbers in *common* to use for enumerating the years. I am certainly
> not going to use "Anno Domini," because I do not have a lord and I am
> not going to declare that any particular year belongs to one.
>
> -----
> Adam Cadre, Holyoke, MA
> http://adamcadre.ac
Adam Cadre
Dear Jacek,
Try again on someone who's actually white.
PS: You might want to make more of an effort to stay current with
your trollery. Been hanging with Jonadab, have you?
Adam Thornton
Adam Cadre <see-website...@adamcadre.ac> wrote:
> > Dear White Sahib!
>Dear Jacek,
> Try again on someone who's actually white.
Hey! Jacek! I'm actually white! And my first name's Adam, so it
wouldn't take much rewriting! And no one's called me "White Sahib" in
simply *ages*!
Adam