Board 8 > My boss says the new decade doesn't start until 2021.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Because there is no 0 AD, the argument is that the millennium started in 2001. Therefore, decades are the same way. I asked him and he says that 2000 is part of the 1990s, 1990 is part of the 1980s, etc.

Agree or disagree? When does the new decade start?

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I am so sick of this argument

His logic doesn't work because he doesn't acknowledge the infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1.

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I actually gave this one a bit of a thought since I saw the argument earlier. Going 2020 here.

It's definitely true for "the 21st century" or the millennium that it starts with 1 IMO, for that reason. If we referred to decades in the same fashion like "the 203rd decade" then I'd say, yeah 2021. But... we don't.

When we're referring to the nth century or the new millennium we're implicitly working from the start of the AD/CE calendar so the lack of a 0 year comes into play. But, models of inconsistency we are, society does not refer to decades in this way. We use the tens digit of the year to define them when we refer to them, so it's 2020. After all, "decade" is simply a period of 10 years regardless of start/end dates. Much like how this being the 100th year of the NFL we would say it's been around a century despite the fact it doesn't match up neatly with the calendar version of one.

tl;dr:

The new millennium began in 2001.
The 20th century began in 1901.
The 200th decade began in 1991 and ran through 2000.
The 90s began in 1990 and ran through 1999.

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Hes technically right but also shut up nerd.

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Okay so here is my take on this

"What decade is it" can mean different things depending on how you ask

If you ask me is 2020 a part of the 10's or the 20's, I would say it's a part of the 20's, because, no shit

If you ask me "when does the 203rd decade AD begin", however, I would say it begins on 2021

The latter question is almost always irrelevant in colloquial usage though - it only really matters if you require mathematical precision, which is rare

In most cases, in informal, colloquial usage, which is 99% of all contexts, I am thinking about the 10's, the 20's, etc. If I'm making a "best game of the decade" list I am going by the 10's, aka 2010-2019, because that's in modern usage what we think of as a decade.

Nobody cares that this creates a weird gap from the years 1 AD to 9 AD (there is no year 0 in the Gregorian calendar) where there is only 9 years in a decade, because that happens over 2000 years ago and it bears no real relevance or effect on how we decide to partition 10 years today, which mind you, is already an arbitrary concept, made up by humans who like to divide things into 10's. How we choose to divide them by 10's is entirely up to us, and quite frankly, I have doubts that anyone who makes the "decade starts at 2021" argument actually thinks of the decade like that, kind of like how I don't think most people internally interpret Sunday as the beginning of the week (unless your work week really does start that day). It's just needless pedantry in an area of life that really doesn't need it.

For most meaningful intents and purposes, as meaningful as describing a decade can even be in the first place when it's a fully arbitrary measure of time, a decade starts at the year ending in 0 and ends in the year ending in 9, because that's how nearly everyone perceives it. I'm a hardcore, fully-committed linguistic descriptivist, so this is all that matters to me.

Zachnorn posted...

Because there is no 0 AD, the argument is that the millennium started in 2001. Therefore, decades are the same way. I asked him and he says that 2000 is part of the 1990s, 1990 is part of the 1980s, etc.

Agree or disagree? When does the new decade start?

No one used the A.D. system in 1-9 A.D.anyway so who cares

since we refer to the decades as "the 90's" and such it makes more sense to include the numbers 0-9

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MZero11 posted...

No one used the A.D. system in 1-9 A.D.anyway so who cares

This is also true

Nobody living in 3 AD knew they were living in 3 AD

Paratroopa1 posted...

If you ask me is 2020 a part of the 10's or the 20's, I would say it's a part of the 20's, because, no s***

If you ask me "when does the 203rd decade AD begin", however, I would say it begins on 2021

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i think this is a case where the appropriate answer is

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

shut up nerd.

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practical english is the only thing that matters so no, x1-to-x0 decades serve nothing and aren't used by people

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by the way, the corollary to this is

the "new millennium" to me started in 2000, the new millennium WAS celebrated in 2001 as well, but I think that the first digit on the calendar year flipping over to a 2 was the more exciting part for just about everyone. The year being 2000 is EXCITING. By the time we hit 2001 the novelty had already begun wearing off.

the "3rd millennium AD" begins in 2001.

Paratroopa1 posted...

by the way, the corollary to this is

the "new millennium" to me started in 2000, the new millennium WAS celebrated in 2001 as well, but I think that the first digit on the calendar year flipping over to a 2 was the more exciting part for just about everyone. The year being 2000 is EXCITING. By the time we hit 2001 the novelty had already begun wearing off.

the "3rd millennium AD" begins in 2001.

well now those are fighting words

j/k

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MZero11 posted...

since we refer to the decades as "the 90's" and such it makes more sense to include the numbers 0-9

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my actual hot take is that I think we should phase BC/AD out of common usage and go with BCE/CE

even if basing the calendar off of Jesus's birth wasn't of questionable religious motivation, we also have no actual fucking idea if it's correct (assuming he existed of course), we have no idea how some monk in the 500's arrived at that conclusion and it's been a huge debate of various Christian canons ever since. I mean hell, we don't even celebrate Jesus's birthday on January 1st so what the fuck is even going on here

but we're REALLY entrenched on the year numbers we use so let's just base the first year on the calendar on the year that people commonly believe to be the first year of the calendar and remove Jesus out of the equation. Yay! (Even if you're religious and really hung up on the idea that the calendar should be based on Jesus, I think this would free you up to more thoroughly investigate the question of when Jesus was born without having to worry about screwing up the calendar, which is kind of a problem)

sorry, just unrelated calendar ramblings

The real hot take is that we should just start over now

Forget 2020. Make it Year 0 on the Unified Calendar
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I wonder if there are people out there who want to reform the calendar and base the first year off of some other date that they prefer, like when the US was formed or something

have dictators in other countries ever established new calendars where their birthday is year one or something like that

metaIslug posted...

People already accept that AD should be replaced with CE. So I don't see the problem with saying that actually yes, there is a year zero

Well, the problem with establishing a year zero is that we have to shift all of the BCE dates up a year which is a bit confusing

metaIslug posted...

People already accept that AD should be replaced with CE. So I don't see the problem with saying that actually yes, there is a year zero

So what is year zero then? 1 BC? That would require every BC date to be adjusted

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Jakyl25 posted...

The real hot take is that we should just start over now

Forget 2020. Make it Year 0 on the Unified Calendar

i think you mean universal century

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By the way, establishing a 'year zero' doesn't even fix this problem for the years before zero, 10-1 BCE is still a decade, but obviously we don't really care about that because those years are in the past

Paratroopa1 posted...

I wonder if there are people out there who want to reform the calendar and base the first year off of some other date that they prefer, like when the US was formed or something

have dictators in other countries ever established new calendars where their birthday is year one or something like that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiwa

Do you count that?
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiwa

Do you count that?

I've actually always wondered in which parts of the world do people commonly use the numbering system that we use and which parts of the world do they use something totally different

I have no actual idea what year numbers the average Japanese person uses in daily life

Paratroopa1 posted...

have dictators in other countries ever established new calendars where their birthday is year one or something like that

I wouldn't be surprised if the moron in Turkmenistan tried that.

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digging through my old archive of stuff from Japan....

my bank statement booklet thing has my transactions dated in Heisei (28--9-9 to 29--7-31)

concert tickets are gregorian dates

I have museum tickets stamped with heisei dates, yet printed with gregorian... still digging around what else I can find

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Didn't Napoleon try to invent a new calendar with like a 10 day week or something? Not sure if he tried a different year system though.

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xp1337 posted...

The new millennium began in 2001.
The 20th century began in 1901.
The 200th decade began in 1991 and ran through 2000.
The 90s began in 1990 and ran through 1999.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Hes technically right but also shut up nerd.

this is pretty much verbatim what I was going to say. This is Neil DeGrasse Tyson type pedantry that just doesnt matter at all.
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See, but I'd argue he's not technically right! He's trying to seem like he is but he just isn't!

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Just tell him the first decade started in 1 BC, then calmly walk away and let him deal with that on his own.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I wonder if there are people out there who want to reform the calendar and base the first year off of some other date that they prefer, like when the US was formed or something

have dictators in other countries ever established new calendars where their birthday is year one or something like that

There was a movement to start the calendar at the beginning of history or something, so 0 would be like 12,000 BCE. It's stupid as hell and just replaces one arbitrary date kind-of-but-not-really based off of a historical event with another and only fixes imaginary problems while creating real ones

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NFUN posted...

There was a movement to start the calendar at the beginning of history or something, so 0 would be like 12,000 BCE. It's stupid as hell and just replaces one arbitrary date kind-of-but-not-really based off of a historical event with another and only fixes imaginary problems while creating real ones

that's silly. that's like the fahrenheit of calendars

wouldn't the start of history be like 13,800,000,000 BCE

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Grimlyn posted...

digging through my old archive of stuff from Japan....

my bank statement booklet thing has my transactions dated in Heisei (28--9-9 to 29--7-31)

concert tickets are gregorian dates

I have museum tickets stamped with heisei dates, yet printed with gregorian... still digging around what else I can find

whoa, that's super interesting

The start of recorded human history as we know it, although it would be an even more arbitrary date than we have now because it's not like we know the precise start date.

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the 21st century (and "new" millenium) started in 2001
the 22nd century won't start until 2101

for decades who cares, it's all relative anyways

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Paratroopa1 posted...

I've actually always wondered in which parts of the world do people commonly use the numbering system that we use and which parts of the world do they use something totally different

I have no actual idea what year numbers the average Japanese person uses in daily life

Both are used interchangeably in Japan. I think registration forms and official documents mostly use the Japanese system, and things foreigners often use will usually be in Gregorian. Everything else is pretty much 50/50 I think.

In my experience two digits usually means Japanese system though. If you see "19" it most likely isn't 2019 but Heisei 19 (2007)

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DeepsPraw posted...

the 22nd century won't start until 2101

IN A.D. 2101 22ND CENTURY WAS BEGINNING

For some reason I always remember poll ID 2101 is Auron vs. Ganondorf

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Leonhart4 posted...

For some reason I always remember poll ID 2101 is Auron vs. Ganondorf

We get signal.

What.

Main page turn on.

GANON: How are you gentleman? All your vote are belong to me.

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Funnily enough the first GameFAQs Decade Contest (holy shit it's been that long...) drilled in my head where the REAL decade starts.

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if the decade really began in 2001 then FFX probably wins that contest

I've changed my mind

MM's GOTD win is now invalidated

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LeonhartFour posted...

if the decade really began in 2001 then FFX probably wins that contest

Hmm I might have to reconsider my vote

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xp1337 posted...

I actually gave this one a bit of a thought since I saw the argument earlier. Going 2020 here.

It's definitely true for "the 21st century" or the millennium that it starts with 1 IMO, for that reason. If we referred to decades in the same fashion like "the 203rd decade" then I'd say, yeah 2021. But... we don't.

When we're referring to the nth century or the new millennium we're implicitly working from the start of the AD/CE calendar so the lack of a 0 year comes into play. But, models of inconsistency we are, society does not refer to decades in this way. We use the tens digit of the year to define them when we refer to them, so it's 2020. After all, "decade" is simply a period of 10 years regardless of start/end dates. Much like how this being the 100th year of the NFL we would say it's been around a century despite the fact it doesn't match up neatly with the calendar version of one.

tl;dr:

The new millennium began in 2001.
The 20th century began in 1901.
The 200th decade began in 1991 and ran through 2000.
The 90s began in 1990 and ran through 1999.

This is spot on and your boss is an idiot

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I hope you voted "yes" in the "are you smarter than your boss" poll a few weeks ago.

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