America needs to have just two time zones and the world should follow suit
qz.com
qz.com
I'm glad Vladimir Putin is, in fact, mentioned, although the amount of outcry depicted in the media for the time-zone changes in Russia is not adequately represented in the article. Especially if you look into the western media coverage of the time zone changes in Russia, which don't even seem to bother to point out the benefits of not having to change the time twice per year, merely taking another opportunity at bashing the leader of the country.
But, most importantly, it also omits the lessons learned in Russia with the elimination of the time-zones -- they ended up having to reverse some of the changes of eliminating several time zones, and reinstating them back.
However, it still appears to be a unanimous decision to not have winter/summer time distinction. But having a one-hour difference between Pacific and Eastern makes no sense.
"And I've run into something that complicates business on Earth to an incredible extent. I knew about it, but hadn't realized its full implications. It's the problem of Time Zones.
"There are some advantages in belonging to a corridor culture. We're not slaves of the sun, and can set all our clocks to the same time, all over Titan. But on Earth!
"There are four time zones -- America, Africa, Asia, Oceania -- six hours apart. So when you want to speak to anyone, or make an appointment, you have to know what zone he's in. And when you move from one zone to another, you have to put your watch ahead -- or back -- six hours.
"It's very awkward and confusing, but it was even worse a couple of centuries ago; then there were twenty-four zones, one for every hour of the day! The development of global telecommunications made that situation impossible -- not that it's very satisfactory even now. There's talk of going over to a single World Time -- probably Absolute Ephemeris Time -- and ignoring the day-night cycle, just as we do. But the arguments on both sides are nicely balance, and no one expects a decision in a hurry. After all, it took several hundred years to get the World Calendar adopted, and that was because the Martian and Lunar administrations simply wouldn't put up with Earth's ridiculous months any longer ..."
I hadn't remember the "slaves of the sun" part. Upon rereading that, it looks like Clarke is suggesting that it is better to slaves of international business instead of the sun. This essay, which says "And so starts weeks of international business chaos", also emphasizes the needs of international business over local solar conditions.
Also, America is a continent and not a country.
The author of the piece treated "America" as short-hand for "continental United States", so the title is doubly-wrong in that case, as it doesn't propose that American should have just two time zones.
Your objection seems pointlessly argumentative. The author explains what "world" means:
> My original plan was just for the United States, but there is no reason we can’t take this global, and have only 10 to 12 time zones worldwide.
The OP's response is compatible with this use, which seems to be "all of the people on the world", including those living in the countries you mentioned.
The OP also is obviously incapable of knowing what "the world" gives a shit about.
I guess he's bitter because he can't get a job doing remote RoR work, but obviously nobody in the US would hire him with that attitude.
In reviewing the OP's history now, as it appears that you did, the OP comes from Brazil. Citizens of Brazil, in common with the rest of South America, consider "America" to be both North America and South America.
This is as I suspected earlier.
The result is a pretty standard response for people from South America, enough that guide books for South America will warn "Americans" about the testy response they might get from using that term as a demonym; http://www.usaisnotamerica.com/ chastises people for using that word that way, and going the other way, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/a_fine_whine... defends the use.
As the Slate article points out, many South Americans consider the term "American", when used as a synonym for people from the US, is "unfair, imperialistic, and U.S.-centric".
Viewed with that in mind, a proposal by a US citizen for the rest of the world to switch to use fewer time zones, well, that's just rubbing the cultural imperialism right in.
This is a pretty standard culture conflict, where the OP is commenting on a US-centric site, and where you have little knowledge of the broader situation. It doesn't have to have anything to do with remote Ruby on Rails work.
Just like the OP is incapable of knowing what "the world" cares about, you are incapable of knowing that no one in the US is willing to accept that attitude. At the very least, Brazilian ex-pats living in the US likely won't have a problem.