Real Millennium Group (TM) Go 2 Zero Debates - File 6 (When viewing these files in Notepad, make sure you have your Word Wrap (under the "Edit" function) checked. *********************************** These are conversations and debates with Go2Zero supporters. Alan Dechert is the creator of the Global Era Calendar which he hoped would be used starting this year to eliminate the religious connotations of our current AD/BC system, and begin with Year 0, so all the millennia and centuries begin in the "0" year, such as 2000, instead of the current 2001 year. The first 4 files that are primarily posts from me and Alan. Files 5 and 6 contain posts from other people, as well as myself about this and other related subjects. *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/18/2000 Author: Darrin Dailey I have always referred to the actual day of my children's birth as their zeroth birthday. And as if that wasn't troubling enough, some cultures (and I agree with them in principle) number their years of life not from birth, but from conception, for example, a baby born of normal gestation is 9 months old at delivery. If we are sentient enough to even count years in the first place, then we are mighty enough to alter history by declaring that the first millenium as reckoned by Didymus, loosely based on the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, possessed only 999 years. There. That should fix everything. Let's replace the error of Rome not using zeroes (BTW, what is zero in Roman numerals) with the more palatable error of a short millenium. Darrin Dailey Associated Chemists, Inc. Portland, OR Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/23/2000 Author: bjwyler Hi Darrin, First, I'm not sure we can call anything "zeroth." Even if the word is recognized as a true, definable word in the English language, just taking what we know of the definitions of zero, one, and first, zeroth could be applied to anything that is not part of a specified unit or object. Using birthdays as an example, the first birthday occurs one year after the actual day of birth (and our ages only count the number of birthdays (points on a line) we have had, and not the years (segments on the line). Since, we consider zero to come before 1 and after -1 on lines and certain scales, it would seem logical to call the day of birth the zeroth birthday. But taking the definitions in consideration, (zero -- a cardinal number indicating the absence of quantity), then that would make any day that is not a birthday your zeroth birthday. That means all days prior to your first birthday are zeroth birthdays, and all days following your first birthday, except for your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., birthdays your zeroth birthdays as well. Quite reminiscent of the Mad Hatter's "un-birthday" in Louis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland." Second, it was not an error by Dionysius Exiguus in not using a year zero. Not only wasn't the symbol or concept of a zero developed at that time (it wasn't until around 970 AD that Arabic numerals even made it to Europe, and even then it was another 500 years before zero became an accepted numeral), but by the definitions of AD (anno Domini -- year of our Lord) and BC (Before Christ), we cannot have a zero year. This is one reason Alan wants to begin a new system, one that can use a zero by his reasoning, and eliminates any religious connotations. 1 BC was the first year before Christ's birth, 1 AD was the first year of Christ's birth. We either have a year of our Lord, or have a year prior to our Lord, each indicating a distinct (discrete) quantity, making the use of zero (def. above) not applicable. As for being sentient enough to change history, sentience has nothing to do with the unalterable events of our past. What happened happened, and there is nothing we can do about it, except hide the facts. In addition, the basic definitions of century (a period of 100 years) and millennium (a period of 1000 years), makes it impossible to have one millennium and century 999 and 99 years long respectively, and all others 1000 and 100 years long respectively. Unless you are saying that all basic rules of our mathematics and definitions should be changed at a whim, just so things can fit into our nice little packages, in which case, why bother having any rules or laws at all? Let's all just live life the way we want, and make everything fit what we feel at the time, we'll just change the meaning of blue to mean purple because I like a having a purple sky better, except on Sunday's when I would prefer it to be green, so we have to change the meanings of those words again. Society cannot exist in such a world. BJWyler www.RealMillenniumGroup.com *********************************** Subject: Re: Problems of having a Zero Year Date: 01/24/2000 Author: Frank Ney On Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:20:10 -0800, an orbiting mind control laser caused "Darrin Dailey" to write: <> We only ever have one birthday. Everything else is a celebration of the anniversary of that birthday. June 1, 2000 is not my 36th birthday -- it is the 36th anniversary of my birthday. And that's the bottom line, because *I* said so! Frank Ney N4ZHG WV/EMT-B LPWV NRA(L) ProvNRA GOA CCRKBA JPFO -- "God, protect me from politicians who are determined to be seen doing something, no matter how poorly reasoned and counter-productive." Just Say No to Gestapo Tactics http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.freespeech.org]/jump/http://www.freespeech.org/justsaynoAbuses by the BATF http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.hamnet.net]/jump/http://www.hamnet.net/~n4zhg/batfabus.html L. Neil Smith for President! http://www.deja.com/[ST_artlink=www.lns2000.org]/jump/http://www.lns2000.org -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version 3.12 GAT d- s:+ a35 C$ L++>++++$ P+ W++ N++ o-- K- w>--- O(++) M- PS+++ PE++ Y+ PGP+ t+ 5++ X+ R tv+ b+++ DI+++ UF++ D++ G e+* h* r++ y?* ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ ***********************************