Editing 2431: Leap Year 2021
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[[Black Hat]] wants ''every'' year to have a February 29, for no clear reason. Cueball acknowledges that he could accomplish this, if he could convince enough people to go along with it. Calendar systems are all invented, and whatever date systems are commonly acknowledged become the "correct" date. Cueball initially considers the change minor, assuming that they would simply change March 1st to February 29th on non-leap years, which would merely rename a single day and skip "March 1st" by going directly from February 29th to March 2nd. Black Hat clarifies that he actually wants to add another day, and the day AFTER that will be March 1. This could still be a minor change, if March were changed to a 30 day month on non-leap years, but Black Hat apparently wants the changes to propagate throughout the year. This would result in a 366-day year, causing the months to drift out of alignment with the seasons over the course of years, needlessly complicating time-keeping. Black Hat is unconcerned with the effect this will have on the "people of the future", and, as in [[1883: Supervillain Plan|the past]], people around him are much more concerned about the time problems he's creating than he is. This once happened in ancient Egypt, where the priests had leap years every three years instead of every four years, so ancient Egypt had to have no leap years for several decades afterwards in order to fix the calendar. | [[Black Hat]] wants ''every'' year to have a February 29, for no clear reason. Cueball acknowledges that he could accomplish this, if he could convince enough people to go along with it. Calendar systems are all invented, and whatever date systems are commonly acknowledged become the "correct" date. Cueball initially considers the change minor, assuming that they would simply change March 1st to February 29th on non-leap years, which would merely rename a single day and skip "March 1st" by going directly from February 29th to March 2nd. Black Hat clarifies that he actually wants to add another day, and the day AFTER that will be March 1. This could still be a minor change, if March were changed to a 30 day month on non-leap years, but Black Hat apparently wants the changes to propagate throughout the year. This would result in a 366-day year, causing the months to drift out of alignment with the seasons over the course of years, needlessly complicating time-keeping. Black Hat is unconcerned with the effect this will have on the "people of the future", and, as in [[1883: Supervillain Plan|the past]], people around him are much more concerned about the time problems he's creating than he is. This once happened in ancient Egypt, where the priests had leap years every three years instead of every four years, so ancient Egypt had to have no leap years for several decades afterwards in order to fix the calendar. | ||
| β | In the last frame, Black Hat states that if the those people cared about the problems he's causing, "they shouldn't have decided to live in the future." Of course, it is | + | In the last frame, Black Hat states that if the those people cared about the problems he's causing, "they shouldn't have decided to live in the future." Of course, it is as present impossible to choose the time period in which you live,{{Citation needed}} yet Black Hat intends on penalizing them for it. Any number of positions could be proposed as a motive for his actions (for example, he may envy them for having the technology or benefits of the future, and wants to counteract that), but it is most likely that he is simply honing his sociopathic tendencies on a defenseless target. |
In the title text, Cueball responds that this change would also cause issues for him, who is "living in the present", and he should not be forced to "move into the future". Alternatively, viewing the quote as a continuation of Black Hat's text at the end of the comic, he could mean that the effect of his new calendar is placed mostly on future people, and since he literally lives in the present and doesn't intend on traveling to the future, he can do what he wants without many repercussions. In this second interpretation, the phrase "move now" can be taken to have a double meaning: not only does Black Hat not intend to move presently, he also does not intend to move where the present currently is (i.e., move the "now" into the future). | In the title text, Cueball responds that this change would also cause issues for him, who is "living in the present", and he should not be forced to "move into the future". Alternatively, viewing the quote as a continuation of Black Hat's text at the end of the comic, he could mean that the effect of his new calendar is placed mostly on future people, and since he literally lives in the present and doesn't intend on traveling to the future, he can do what he wants without many repercussions. In this second interpretation, the phrase "move now" can be taken to have a double meaning: not only does Black Hat not intend to move presently, he also does not intend to move where the present currently is (i.e., move the "now" into the future). | ||
