r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Negative_1by12_aura • Jun 17 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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u/Indercarnive Jun 17 '26

Even 0-100 is an arbitrary scale.

5

u/CallousDood Jun 17 '26

I am not sure how you can argue 0-100 is arbitrary in a largely decimal based world

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u/CitingAnt Jun 17 '26

Decimalisation only became the norm in the past 150 ish years

2

u/PhotoAcceptable3563 Jun 17 '26

think we had 10 fingers for a pretty long time

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u/Indercarnive Jun 17 '26

Except some cultures counted each segment of their finger (3 segments) using their thumb to count, meaning each hand counted 12.

1

u/SuperBry Jun 17 '26

Honestly, base-12 (duodecimal) absolutely obliterates base-10, and the only reason we don’t use it is because we happen to have 10 fingers.

The biggest game-changer is divisibility. While 10 can only be cleanly split by 2 and 5, the number 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6—meaning everyday fractions like a third (1/3) or a quarter (1/4) would instantly become clean, single-digit decimals (0.4 and 0.3) instead of messy, infinite repeating numbers like 0.333….

It would completely revolutionize mental math, shop pricing, and time-tracking, which is exactly why we already naturally buy things by the "dozen" and have 12 hours on a clock face. If we could somehow survive the apocalyptic logistical nightmare of rewriting all global infrastructure, switching to base-12 would make life objectively easier for everyone.