Year Zero: The Starting Point of Human History

So guys, what are your thoughts on this? In my opinion, a lot of people nowadays, sadly, do mistake the year 1 AD as being the starting point for humanity when it was just a place to start since it was the birth of Christ. It does seem like a lot of people are forgetting the important individuals prior to AD in BC such Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Gilgamesh and important events such as the fall of Carthage and the Bronze Age of humanity.


I think it's a very interesting idea and, if it ever gains momentum, I'd probably support it

 

This won't make people magically understand the B.C era and thus it's a complete waste of time. Not to mention that the calendar will have to change again if we discover we're older

Better just keep the model current since it can go back and forth infinitely

 

I agree with Doom.
It will make it easier for us, while likely being awkward. It would be a bigger mind-shock then when Pluto got whipped off of the planets list. And when time drags on long enough, the start of time and AD1 will practically be the same.
It's already bad enough knowing that that the years are off by, what was it, 3-8 of them?

 

In my experience, I encounter, more often, people who mistakenly think that AD 1 marks the beginning of time or the beginning of Earth's existence. I can't tell you how many times I've face-palmed at people who state, unironically, "I can't believe the Earth is only two thousand and sixteen years old." Actually, I probably could if my memory was worth a damn, as it's likely no more than a dozen or so. Having a "year zero" would not resolve this, as the Earth is, roughly, 4.5 billion years old and our calendar would need to take this into account.

Likewise, with individuals whom do not understand the BC to AD system, creating a "year zero" to avoid confusion may, instead, simply cause more confusion, especially considering how prolific the BC to AD system, following the Gregorian Calendar, is in most literature dating back hundreds of years, thousands if we count the Julian Calendar. In order to be made familiar with historical texts or other literature which makes use of this system, all literature using said system would need to be modernized or, perhaps more practically, individuals would still need to be made familiar with it.

It seems that the most practical solution is just better history and social studies education.

 

This.

I'm of the opinion that the education system just lacks in covering history because Common Core has been dictating what gets covered in the United States. Sadly many of the BC era events are briefly covered while the US's history gets a bigger emphasis in comparison to other historical events. Up until I watched Fate/Night Stay, I thought Gilgamesh was merely an ability in Final Fantasy VII. I never learned about Gilgamesh in school, so needless to say Anime has taught me more about history than school, which says a lot about the education system and what it lacks.

For me, anytime a new date system is introduced (like in Gundam, Star Ocean, and Star Trek) I end up looking it up to find out how it correlates to our current BC AD system. Date systems like Star Date / Space Date (SD), Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE), Universal Century (UC) have all had me looking up it correlation to BC/AD time to get an idea of the timeline. I'm sure there are more out there that I've seen or hear, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

 

Perhaps we should invest in a Fate/Stay Night curriculum, making characters for each and every historical figure, have them tell you what happened.
Sounds fun, Da Vinci would be my prime interest in that case.
Of course, we would need them to be entirely unbiased in teaching goals.