2092: Consensus New Year

2019-01-02T15:17:52Z

Scm: /* Time zones */ added examples for UTC 01:00 and 02:00

{{comic
| number = 2092
| date = December 31, 2018
| title = Consensus New Year
| image = consensus_new_year.png
| titletext = The biggest jump is at 11:00am EST (4:00pm UTC) when midnight reaches the UTC+8 time zone. That time zone, which includes China, is home to a quarter of the world's population. India and Sri Lanka (UTC+5:30) put us over the 50% mark soon after.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT. Please complete this explanation once everyone has entered the new year. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

In this [[:Category:New Year|New Year comic]], [[Randall]] is proposing a compromise for when to celebrate, or recognize, {{w|New Year's Day}}. These celebrations traditionally take place at the stroke of midnight between Dec. 31st and Jan. 1st, at the local time of the event's location. With "Consensus New Year", these celebrations would happen at the same time, world over, and would be at exactly 1:30 pm {{w|Eastern Time Zone|EST}} (6:30 pm {{w|Coordinated Universal Time|UTC}}). At this time, about half the world's population would be in 2018 local time and the other half would be in 2019. This is due to the various time zones throughout the world, and the graph is based on the proportion of the population in these zones.

This is based on the assumption that the entire world uses the same calendar system. Randall's graph shows the year starting on the same day for the entire world. While the Gregorian calendar is used as the civil calendar in most countries of the world, the Eastern Orthodox churches uses the Julian calendar, on which the year will begin 13 days later, and the year (as of December 2018-January 2018) is 1440 on the Muslim calendar and 5779 on the Hebrew calendar.

Randall abused the word "consensus" in this comic, reflecting the common misuse of the term {{Wikipedia|consensus}} for the common practice of {{Wikipedia|majority vote}}.

In scenarios involving group decision-making, consensus means that all or almost all members of the group will accept the decision. Depending on how it is done, this generally results in a slower decision-making process due to discussion, but decisions that many more people are happy with. Consensus can scale to large groups of people using approaches such as the [https://seedsforchange.org.uk/spokescouncil spokescouncil model] to speed dialogue. By this definition, Consensus New Year happens at one of the last four time zones as the last to "agree" enter 2019, so (nearly full consensus definition) 4:00 am, 5:00 am, 6:00 am, or (full consensus definition) 7:00 am EST on January 1, 2019.

Consensus lies in contrast to majority vote, where a decision passes when over 50% of the people desire it. Majority vote is used in most current large democracies and is what most people are familiar with. It is quick to describe and implement, but can result in a stark lack of minority rights unless tempered by constitutions and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling logrolling].

It is also possible that Randall is using "{{Wiktionary|consensus}}" in its statistical sense, where it indicates the average projected value of a metric.

The leftmost horizontal axis label (10am EST Dec 31st) was an error. The point marked as 0% should be 5am EST (see table below).

Additionally, some of the lines are shown with a slope, which is inaccurate. Since sun time is not used anywhere, a correct graph line would only consist of horizontal and vertical lines.

===Time zones===

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Time EST !! Time UTC !! %Population in 2019 !! Regions entering 2019
|-
| 5:00 AM || 10:00 || 0 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 6:00 AM || 11:00 || 0 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 7:00 AM || 12:00 || 0 || Kamchatka (Russia), Fiji, New Zealand
|-
| 8:00 AM || 13:00 || 0 || Magadan (Russia), Pacific Islands
|-
| 9:00 AM || 14:00 || 0 || Vladivostok (Russia), Queensland (Australia)
|-
| 10:00 AM || 15:00 || 5 || Yakutsk (Russia), Japan, Korea, Eastern Indonesia
|-
| 11:00 AM || 16:00 || 25 || China, Irkutsk (Russia), Taiwan, Western Australia, Malaysia
|-
| 12:00 PM || 17:00 || 30 || Krasnoyarsk (Russia), Vietnam, Thailand
|-
| 1:00 PM || 18:00 || 35 || Omsk (Russia), Kazakhstan, Bangladesh
|-
| 1:30 PM || 18:30 || 55 || India, Sri Lanka
|-
| 2:00 PM || 19:00 || 60 || Yekaterinburg (Russia), Pakistan
|-
| 3:00 PM || 20:00 || 60 || Samara (Russia), Georgia, Oman, UAE
|-
| 4:00 PM || 21:00 || 70 || Moscow (Russia), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, East Africa
|-
| 5:00 PM || 22:00 || 75 || Eastern Europe, Egypt, Central & Southern Africa
|-
| 6:00 PM || 23:00 || 85 || Central Europe, Africa
|-
| 7:00 PM || 00:00 || 90 || (GMT) UK, Portugal, Ireland, Western Africa
|-
| 8:00 PM || 01:00 || 90 || Azores (Portugal), parts of Greenland
|-
| 9:00 PM || 02:00 || 90 || Parts of Greenland
|-
| 10:00 PM || 03:00 || 90 || Northern Brazil, Argentina, Chile
|-
| 11:00 PM || 04:00 || 90 || Atlantic Canada, Venezuela
|-
| 12:00 AM || 05:00 || 95 || (EST) Eastern USA, Peru
|-
| 1:00 AM || 06:00 || 100 || (CT) Central USA, Mexico, Central America
|-
| 2:00 AM || 07:00 || 100 || (MT) Central USA, Western Mexico
|-
| 3:00 AM || 08:00 || 100 || (PST) Western USA
|-
| 4:00 AM || 09:00 || 100 || Alaska
|-
| 5:00 AM || 10:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 6:00 AM || 11:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|-
| 7:00 AM || 12:00 || 100 || Pacific Islands
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A graph labeled “Percentage of the world's population living in 2019” with Y-axis markers at 0%, 50%, and 100%, and X-axis markers at 10:00 AM EST Dec 31st, 1:30 PM EST, 7:00 PM EST, Midnight EST, 3:00 AM EST Jan 1st, and 7:00 AM EST.]
:[The line graph shows the percentage increasing from 0 to 100% in several steps, with 50% reached at 1:30 PM EST.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Consensus New Year: as of 1:30PM Eastern Time (6:30PM UTC) a majority of the world's population will be living in 2019.

==Trivia==
Randall has mislabeled the leftmost point of the graph: the Earth's earliest time zone ({{w|UTC+14:00}}) should have the midnight at 5:00 AM EST rather than 10:00 AM EST. The number of one-hour increments on the x-axis does not match Randall's label.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:New Year]]
[[Category:Time]]

Talk:1927: Tinder

2017-12-12T09:00:29Z

Scm:

This comic reminds me of [http://xkcd.com/582] (because of using an inappropriate form of communication in an emergency).

"Cueball is violating the law by using a cell phone that is not in "airplane mode" when on an airplane.", really? I don't think it's an actual "law" since the entire concept is based on garbage and bullshit (you'd have to be in the cockpit AND within about 2 feet of the equipment in question in order to interfere with it. For both airplanes and hospitals the rule is actually just to try to bully people into being considerate to the people around them). I believe it's just a rule set by the FAA or some other governing body. Also, I believe said rule is limited to during take off and landing, not the entire flight. [[User:NiceGuy1|NiceGuy1]] ([[User talk:NiceGuy1|talk]]) 07:31, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

*I also wondered about "Cueball is violating the law by using a cell phone that is not in "airplane mode" when on an airplane.", but for a different reason: How do we now that the phone is not in airplane mode, but which activated wifi? As some airlines (at least in Europe) offer wifi on board, it would be quite common (and allowed) to be able to use online services on a phone while flying (but not other wireless signals, e.g. phone calls). [[User:Scm|Scm]] ([[User talk:Scm|talk]]) 09:00, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2092: Consensus New Year

Talk:1927: Tinder