Big Questions in Time

Earth Time - Time is Money

Misha Velthuis

work@mishavelthuis.nl

Thu 20 Feb 2025

Today

Emergent diversity

Modern uniformity

Distribution of time in space

Distribution of time in time

Assessment

First assignment due yesterday

Second assignment due next Tuesday

Monday exam

What kind of exam?

Overview: before only here …

Overview: now also here …

Emergent diversity

Cycles

Cycles with linear component?

Branches of science

Chronobiology

Phenology

Timing of life #1

Timing of life #2

To each their own time

Variation in Zeitgeber

Variation in chronotype

Variation in culture #1

From the Nature article:

There are seven species of periodical cicadas: four 13-year cicada species and three 17-year cicada species. Periodical cicadas emerge in groups called broods, which include multiple species that all emerge at a specific synchronized time within a specific range. This means that although all periodical cicadas generally emerge in the same year for any given region, cicadas in different regions are not synchronized with each other and there are cicada emergences somewhere nearly every year (for a table of brood emergences, go here ). This leaves us with some pretty intriguing questions: How do periodical cicadas know when to emerge (and where are they before that)? How did different species living in the same regions get synchronized to the same cycle? And what evolutionary pressures led to life cycles that are precisely 13- and 17-years long?

Variation in culture #2

Different sleep patterns

Ekirch: history of biphasic sleep
- Before cheap easy lighting: people would go to bed early, and wake up in the middle of the night to do stuff.
Everett: ongoing practice of polyphasic sleep
- See quot below

"But frequently they use an expression that, though surprising at first, has come to be one of my favorite ways of saying good night: “Don’t sleep, there are snakes.” The Pirahãs say this for two reasons. First, they believe that by sleeping less they can “harden themselves,” a value they all share. Second, they know that danger is all around them in the jungle and that sleeping soundly can leave one defenseless from attack by any of the numerous predators around the village. The Pirahãs laugh and talk a good part of the night. They don’t sleep much at one time. Rarely have I heard the village completely quiet at night or noticed someone sleeping for several hours straight. I have learned so much from the Pirahãs over the years. But this is perhaps my favorite lesson. Sure, life is hard and there is plenty of danger. And it might make us lose some sleep from time to time. But enjoy it. Life goes on."

Diversity in time

Variation in zeitgeber

Variation in chronotypes

Variation in cultures

Modern uniformity

Two effectively standardize time …

… you need a stable central reference point.

… you need a way for people to link up to, and keep up with, that central reference point

To each their own time?

Modern times, modern needs

Whose standard?

Timezones at Antarctica

Coordination in whose interest?

Resisting time

1906: textile workers strike against replacement Bombay time

1920: lo sciopero delle lancette

The Long History of ‘Bombay Time’ and Resistance to Colonial Rule

From here:

The move angered laborers right away. Bombay was important in the cotton trade, and textile mill workers, already piqued about overtime hours and low wages, would have to start work before dawn under the new time system. They didn’t hold back on their frustration. More than 2,000 workers amassed at Jacob Sassoon Mill and vandalized the timekeeper’s office, the Times of India reported.

Strike of the hands

From Wiki link:

"The strike of the hands was the name given to a workers' agitation that broke out in Turin in April 1920, which opposed the application of the day of legal time, an event that forced the workers to leave the house to go to the factory in the dark even in spring and summer. The protest resulted in a series of struggles and episodes of factory occupation."

"At the Fiat Brevetti, in protest, the hands of all the clocks of the plant were brought by an hour. The management of the company responded by firing the entire internal commission."

In conclusion: modern times…

Distribution of time in space

Who has how much time?

Labour theory of value

If you want to understand exploitation, look at how much time people effectively work for themselves, and how much time they effectively work for someone else.

Marx: Extraction of surplus value is theft

Raising absolute surplus value

raising relative surplus value

Relative surplus value of our time

Time inequality

How many people work for you?

Who is working for whom?

Distribution of time in time

stealing time from the future

We are all guilty

Generational procrastination?

There is no time to lose?

Are we stealing (time) from the future?

Reybrouck argues we are stealing resources from the future. If that is true, we are - from a Marxist perspective - also stealing their time.

From here:

"Colonialism, I learnt, is not just something historical. Looking over our shoulders is not enough. Because even when we’ve fully come to terms with the colonialism of the past, we still haven’t done anything about the dramatic way in which we are now colonising the future. Humans appropriate this century with the same ruthlessness, greed, and short-sightedness that characterised the way in which continents were once seized. Colonialism is no longer a territorial but a temporal thing – the worst may not be behind us, but yet to come. We’re behaving like the colonisers of future generations. We’re depriving them of their freedom, their health, possibly even their lives – just like the colonisers of the past did. We burden future generations with our own selves, and we do so with astounding brutality and indifference. We act as if they won’t be there, as if their land is ours, as if their world is empty, as if we’re free to dip into its resources – potable water, fertile soil, healthy air – forgetting that they might need them too. We plunder our grandchildren, we rob our children, we poison our offspring."

It should be noted that "we" do not "poison all offspring" equally: the offspring of those who colonized are not being poisoned as much as the offspring of those who were colonized.

Discounting the future

Preferring present consumption over future consumption

Imagine people have to choose between 100 euro now, or …

… 105 euro in a year, they take 100 euro now.
… 106 euro in a year, they take 100 euro now.
… 107 euro in a year, they take 100 euro now.
… 108 euro in a year, they take 100 euro now.
… 109 euro in a year, they prefer to take 109 euro in a year.

Discount rate is apparently 9%.

100 euro now is apparently equavalent ot 109 euro in a year.

Such calculations are for example made in cost-benefit analyses. If we for example take the discount rate of 9%:

If spending 100 euro now will prevent 200 euro damage in ten years, we prefer to not spend (and prevent) anything and just "accept" the future damage. Only if we expect the future damage to be 100*1.09¹⁰=236.74 euro or more, will we spend the 100 euro now to prevent the damage.

Why discount?

\(CDR = \rho + \mu * g\)