It’s not that far off the solstice.
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…What?
The year ending in December predates Jesus.
Anyone who celebrates anything that isn’t relevant to me personally is an idiot.
Earth is celebrating another year closer to the death of the Sun.
Funny… but Seasons… so… kind dumb.
Problem with inviting Mercury is they don’t create any atmosphere
Uranus always steals the show, anyways.
Total gasbag if you ask me
I watch videos about the planets with my kids and they say it YOUR-uh-nus, which to me goes against the conventions of the English (Americanized) language, although it’s chaos to begin with. But why now are we walking back the name of this planet? It’s been your anus for ages.
people just want to have a reason to celebrate
New Year’s is literally the only holiday I have never disliked
Round numbers and fireworks? Countdown me in!
C’mon man. Thanksgiving has pie! And Turkey! And a celebration of a meal between two warring peoples…who we eventually genocided…hey look! Cranberry Sauce!
Explain what you mean by “round numbers”…
Sure, let’s shame everyone for grasping at a somewhat political neutral occasion to spark a little joy in their lives!
We are the part of the universe with consciousness so if we decide it isn’t arbitrary then it isn’t.
Besides I like new years eve, it’s a good time for reflection, resetting my motivation and optimism and an excuse to party all night
The point isn’t arbitrary. It’s the winter solstice. It just drifted a bit due to history and stuff.
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I was going to point out that if it isn’t, in fact, the winter solstice, then it is arbitrary.
But I decided to start the new year without the pretentiousness and pedantic proclamations
if it isn’t, in fact, the winter solstice, then it is arbitrary.
That’s not true though. The date is significant and not arbitrary, it’s just not the winter solstice (anymore).
Actually, there is no such thing as a ‘winter solstice.’ The start of the Northern winter is the start of the Southern summer.
Sure. But none of that makes New Years Day arbitrary by virtue of it not being, in fact, the winter solstice.
If you use the equinoxes or the solstices you’re still being arbitrary because there are two of each.
January 4 is the day of the year that the Earth is closest to the Sun [perihelion] That would be a good date, but there will be those who argue for stating the year when Earth is furthest away.
Okay, but why would that mean that New Years Day not being the winter solstice makes it arbitrary to celebrate on Jan 1?
It’s arbitrary because there’s no moment that is the obvious beginning of the cycle.
That’s the very definition of ‘arbitrary’
Actually this is a fair point. What counts as arbitrary? For me the slight drift is just due to the way calendars and culture works, and while it is more arbitrary than having it on the solstice. It is less arbitrary than having it on your(anyone who happens to read this) birthday. It’s ultimately a matter of where you draw the baseline. Even if new year was on the winter solstice you could still argue that it’s arbitrary because there are four others. Arbitrarity is relative.
The UTC is completely 100% arbitrary. The only reason it’s there is because an observatory happened to be on a specific hill, and then it drifted a bit (like most human things do), but the UTC/GMT has since it’s conception been completely arbitrary measurement. There isn’t a way to define a 0 latitude on a rotating sphere without making it an arbitrary point.
Shit, if we all do that, it’s gonna be real quiet around here.
We’ll just enjoy the silence.
♪All I ever wanted. All I ever needed. Is Here. In my arms. Words are very unnecessary, They can only do harm.
There’s always room for more humble brags
It’s Xmas that highjacked the winter solstice. New year used to be the start of spring (March) then the Romans decided to acknowledge the first 2 months, and then changed the start of the year to January so they could elect some officials to govern Spain instead of waiting an extra 2 months. It’s about as arbitrary as it can get.
https://youtu.be/RrGHtl5qJfk About 24 minutes in to skip to ^
Is the fact that the start of spring is 2 months after the solstice arbitrary? Seems a pretty clear cause and effect.
But honestly we should make a new calendar that starts on the spring solstice, is subdivided by solstices, and doesn’t have weeks (I just don’t like them).
One of the more interesting calendar concepts I’ve heard where every date falls on the same day of the week year after year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanke–Henry_Permanent_Calendar
This was the first thing that made me realise that calendars could be changed. I myself don’t like it because it because It doesn’t use fixed points. But it is an inspiration for the calendar that I described in the other comment. It’s the “don’t do this” kind of inspiration but I think it counts.
So idiots… 🫣
But it’s the middle of summer!
Ssh! If the northern hemisphere people figure out how awesome summer Christmas and new years is we’ll never get rid of them.
The fact that the other hemisphere exists did cross my mind, but I decided to ignore it because clarifying would have reduced the quippy nature of the comment.
The comic is also saying that the entire world lives by the Gregorian calendar but that isn’t true as well.
It’s all good, you’re still technically correct. The Gregorian calendar is based off of Europeans, so it would still be originated from their winter solstice.
I don’t see how this is so heavily downvoted…? It makes complete sense that humans (by far most of which live in the northern hemisphere) would celebrate that the darkest days have passed and that we’re heading from a dark and harsh winter towards a promise of spring. Coming from the north, I can definitely testify to the fact that you feel in your whole body that the days start getting longer.
The fact that the exact date is slightly off basically amounts to a rounding error, and making a point out of it is just pedantic.
But it isn’t. Winter solstice already happened before Christmas. New Year, in our current culture, is 100% arbitrary.
Consider for a moment that at any point in that “circuit” this ball of dirt has a ‘non-zero’ chance to be vaporized into dust, making it all the way around actually is a momentous ocassion
But that non zero is extremely close to zero. But it’s making more fun about the fact that January 1st is very arbitrary cosmically. Even the solstice would make more sense
do we really need a justification to get together and have fun?; or to have a day off and do fuck all? for those that rather do that instead?; or anything in between?
You see Mercury, this is why no one invites you to anything.
Humans just need a reason to party now and then. And that’s completely fine.
Yeah, all this unnecessary pessimism gets really tiring…
I’m slowly coming around to the theory that people on Lemmy are less happy than much of the rest of the internet because a disproportionate number have been aggrieved by mod actions on reddit subreddits. Many of them probably have a point, but I wonder how many of them were actually banned for being wet blankets nobody wanted around anymore.
