Comment by jl6
3 days ago
Decoupling time from the Earth’s rotation paves the way for the future depicted in Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep, where they use a straight count of seconds since the UNIX epoch, and units like msecs (million seconds ~= 11.5 days).
Hopefully by the time UTC drifts more than an hour from UT1, we’ll be a spacefaring civilization that is happy to treat time as wholly independent from how a particular rock moves.
I think about Vinge's treatment of time often. Though I find "see you in a kilosecond" doesn't go down well with the family, so clearly some cultural adjustments needed!