Aspies For Freedom

Anybody else a determined docenist with a serious contempt for that idiotic irrational finger-counting of a base ten numeric system?

I write things in multiples of twelve whenever possible, fractions likewise, and even wrote my own numerals to be much cooler than the idiotic "AB" system invented by some uncreative imbecile.  Almost as bad as the cretin who decided that he couldn't count above his fingers and thus would make that the system base.

~72 virgins?
~100/2 = 60 (72)
~Mohammed was a docenist.
(Thought that's occured to me several times).

Agreed =p - 10 is purely based on our fingers it's not some divine constant in the universe, there's probably a much more potent system to be found with some imagination.

Yet most people can't seem to grasp a numeric system NOT based on multiples of 10  :roll: - personally I tend to work in blocks of 4, not sure why, probably because it goes into binary numbers well and I tend to do a lot of stuff on computers.

It's funny, I don't even like math much, but I've done times tables for docenal on several occasions and one for hexidecimal, all for the heck of it.

I'm that into it.

I know what you're saying.  I try to explain base-12 to people and they're like "well I want the numbers even. I like having everything end in zero."  

And I'm like "In base twelve, 12 would be written as 10, 144 as 100, and 100 as 84."  

And they're like "But I don't get it, it's too complicated."  

And I'm like "You'd get it if you'd grown up using it.  Base ten is illogical and only makes sense to you because you grew up using it."

And they're like "Okay man, whatever you say (Thinking Meanwhile: He's a whacko.   Everybody knows that one hundred is written as 100)"

  
Binary would be neat, except that it's highly impractical.

"Hexadecimal" is based on 2^2^2, about the perfect number with the possible exception of 2^2*3^2.

However the latter is so large as to be impractical, and hexidecimal has only one prime factor.  Twelve has the advantage of being divided evenly by 1,2,3,4,6,and of course 10 (docenal), and finitely by 8&9.

Very versitile number, since it only leaves out the larger primes.

This as opposed to hexi, whic only divides by mulitples of two, and ten, which only divides evenly by 1,2,5, and 10(decimal), and finitely by multiples of two (4&8).

While many may see no difference between the two prime factors in twelve and the two in ten, we use the two in twelve a lot more, except where we "round" to multiples of factors of ten.

I hate the Metric and decimal system of course.
I'd do anything to keep Metric out of the United States.

People tell me I'm being illogical.

I retort that the Metric system is illogical.

And they're like "How, it's all round numbers?"

And I'm like "It's base ten, base ten is illogical."

And they're like "But base ten is what numbers are based on."

And I'm like "Base twelve makes more sense."

At this point, we get to conversation at the start of the comment, which occurs both to conclude this one and as a stand-alone act.

I really hate base 10.  
And the Metric system.
And Centrigrade.
And the decimal system.
And pretty much anythign else that involve base ten, including the denominations of currency.  I'd love to replace the dime with the bit and the nickle with the half-bit.  The penny could be done away with.

And I love the time system.

Long live 20(docenal) and 50 (docenal)!

I remember the last fourth of the last semestar of freshman year of college, when we did Ptolemy's math from his own treatises--all in base-12. It was cool, and it was beautiful. Yet, at the same time, base 10 and base 12 are equally arbitary. Except for reasons of aesthetics and/or tradition, why champion one over the other over anything else?

OK, that's cool. But I champion the old (British) money for reasons of tradition.

That said, if anyone finds an old French metric clock from their Revolution, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Because history rocks.

I've often had ideas about tribes of people with different numbers of fingers, and their counting systems were based on that.  I also tried to divide the earth into decimal pieces, my teacher saw me and told me about radiens (or did they call it gradiens?  I forget.)

I also have three or four different numeral systems, I think there's only one where I actually bothered to come up with twelve new numerals, though.  The rest were base-ten: two all-original, one derived from joined up roman numerals.  Several of my alphabets have numerical values for the letters, but that's not really a separate numeral system.

Twelve has always felt natural to me, ten feels artificial.

Base twelve works neatly. Has both the two first prime numbers in it, which, along with the first two squares, are used a lot.  How many people would use fifths if it weren't for metric.

We think in blocks of 2,3, and 4 naturally it seems, and in blocks of ten only because we count them on our fingers.

Base 2^2*3^3 or base 2^2*3*5 would work even nicer, but they're too big to deal with (and the latter is a bit assymetric besides, though still nice).

I like the old British monetary system.

That said, most people are too stupid to puzzle through it, so there's no way people would be convinced to re-adopt it after all the metric propaganda.

Making the dollar based on 1/2 seems more likely to be understood by the average gamma-moron out there (though still not plausibly imposed short of a revolution and/or dictatorship).
Quarters are immensely popular, half dollars exist, though unpopular (I think due to their size), and one could easily see the use for bits and fractional bits.

Actually, a plausible way to accomplish this would be to re-value the dollar at $4.  That would make the immensely popular quarter equal to a half-bit.

Bring back the pieces of eight, awrk!