The 21st Century: A Ranking

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

2004
2002
2000
2001
2003
2005

you get the picture.

(and, yes, it's a little scurrilous to already rank 2005, but I think I can already taste its flavor... and there's too much dancing! yargh!)

(and, yes, this is pointless, but it makes gads more sense than decade lists. i like to think about decades from the fifth year in, '65 to '75 and so on. it's like looking at a world map upside-down.)

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 08:08 (twenty years ago)

(Here's Gear's contribution from another thread that inspired this one...)

the 21st Century: A Ranking

2000
2005
2003
2002
2004
2001

-- Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (speed.to.roam@gmail.com), March 8th, 2005 2:20 AM.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 08:09 (twenty years ago)

2002
2005
2004
2001
2003

― green uno skip card (ex machina), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)

2001
2005
2003
2002
2004
2000

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

02
01
03
04
00

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

1. 2004
2. 2003
3. 2002
4. 2001

Far too early to tell about 2005 yet
The year 2000 was in the 20th Century not the 21st.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 10:27 (twenty years ago)

was 1900 in the 18th century?

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

i got that wrong

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

Was 1980 in the 1970s?

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

2001--Love & Theft, White Blood Cells
2000--Marshall Mathers LP, The Glands
2003--Meadowlands, Decoration Day
2004--Dirty South, More Adventurous
2002--Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Veni Vidi Vicious

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

2002
2003
2004
2001
2000

Feel no urge to rank 2005 yet.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 15:46 (twenty years ago)

"was 1900 in the 18th century?"

No, it was in the 19th

"i got that wrong"

Yes, you did.

"Was 1980 in the 1970s?"

Yes.

This really isn't hard to master - start at the beginning and starting counting in groups of ten.

You can use your fingers if you like.

Now, what's the last number in your first ten? Is it nine or is it ten?

It's ten, isn't it?

So what's the first number in the next group?

Repeat this procedure until you've collected 197 groups of ten.

What are the numbers in the last group?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

you have too much time on your hands

it is acceptable to class 1900 as 20th century and 2000 as 21st century, 1980 as part of the 1970s seems far more illogical and nobody seems to consider it to be in reality.

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

I blame it on the Romans for not having a number zero. You can have it your way if you like, and say that 1980 was in the '70s - but to me that's insane! I prefer to think the first decade had 9 years, the first century 99, the first millennium 999, etc... and everything after that is ok. Equally insane maybe. Either way it's the Romans' fault.

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

You can have it your way if you like, and say that 1980 was in the '70s - but to me that's insane!

it IS insane. 1971-1980 is certainly a decade, covering 10 years all, but it's not the '70s, which is a whole 'nother concept. 1970-79 is the '70s, as any 3-year-old could tell you.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

Actually, it's not acceptable. Historians and people that work with such things consider 1980 as part of the 70s and what you have going on there is in no way anyone's correct reality. Centuries end in the following year as in the 20th century ended in 2000 and 2001 began the 21st. There's really no other way to count it unless decades and centuries have nothing to do with one another which is a silly way of looking at time.

― Jerk (dan.), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

centuries are a completely arbitrary period of time that somebody just MADE UP. it's not like the world started in year one or year zero. so to suggest that there's some scientifically or historically correct way of counting them is silly. much much sillier than, say, defining the '70s as all years that actually have the word "seventy" in them.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

"it is acceptable to class 1900 as 20th century and 2000 as 21st century"

Acceptable to whom? Not a mathematician that's for sure - and if it's not good enough for a mathematiciam, it's nopt good enough for a pointless pedant like me!

"I blame it on the Romans for not having a number zero."

Actually the Romans did have a number zero (well, actually they had a number nil or nihil; although curiously enough the roots of the word zero also go back to the Latin zephirum....).

What I imagine you mean is that there was no "Year Zero"; and if you really feel the need to blame anyone for that then I guess it should probably be Pope Gregory XIII; although since they reckon he was at least 4 years out in calculating the actual date of birth of Jesus anyway, it's all a bit academic really.... unless of course you want to start insisting that the 1970's should properly have run from 1966 to 1975; in which case you'll have my wholehearted support right up until the very moment that the men in white coats come along and cart you off to the funny farm.

"You can have it your way if you like"

It's not my way; the human race were using decimals as their number base convention of choice long before I came along.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

which is a silly way of looking at time

hi, we are the human race

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

Apologies to the Romans, it was a wild guess. (xpost)

Anyway everyone knows the '80s began in 1979 as that's when Video Killed the Radio Star came out.

― ledge (ledge), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

...and haven't ended yet.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

it seems the majority of people are not comfortable with 2000 as part of the 20th century, or indeed 1900 as part of the 19th, or indeed 1980 as part of the 70s. i can't think of any actual significant advantages to classing them as such, even for mathematicians or historians. With computing it is 'more logical' to begin with 00 when counting periods of time (0 is at the alphanumerically first despite it's position on the keyboard, another inconsistency courtesy of your caring, sharing human race there), so I take that 'logical' approach.

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

so the hundredth at the end date-wise may be technically logical but it seems irrelevant in the majority of scenarios, even to historians and mathematicians perhaps (because what is the actual advantage to them referring to 1980 as the 1970s? is it just how they get their perverse kicks?)

― Sven Bastard (blueski), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:25 (twenty years ago)

"everyone knows the '80s began in 1979 as that's when Video Killed the Radio Star came out."

Maybe that's because the '70's ended when London Calling was released - which as everyone knows was 1979 in the UK and 1980 in the US.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

which makes perfect sense inasmuch as mathematicians in the UK and the US continue to labor over not only different interpretations of when decades start and end, but also different interpretations of how to spell labor.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

Hey Stewart, the whole decade convention (and by extension, possibly century convention) has little to do with base ten. For those referring to the current decade as "the ohs" or the "the noughts," it's fairly obvious that 2010 will be the beginning of the next period, not the last year of the current one.

It's not correct in a "this lines up with year one being the first year" way, it's correct in an "everybody understands that when you say a word that ends with nineteen EIGHTY it sure as hell is part of the eighties or you sound like a knob."

― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

is it just how they get their perverse kicks?

It must causes them a lot more greif than anything. They were at their wits end around the millenium. Imagine billions of people all getting it wrong at once. Kind of like insisting that 2+2=4 in the Ministry of Love.

― dan. (dan.), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 17:33 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.