Living in a world with high speeds

We are told that relativity is hard to grasp because we live in a world
where we travel at speeds << c. Supposedly, if speeds that are a
significant fraction of c were common, then relativistic effects such
as time dilation and length contraction would be intuitive to us.

I am wondering, however, how such a world could function. For one
thing, there's the well-known example (twin paradox) where, say, a
parent would go on a space voyage and upon his return be younger than
his children. Think of the social consequences of such effects.

As a more mundane example, since everyone would have his or her own
time, how could a group of people decide to have a meeting at a
specific time? If the time is referenced to a particular frame,
everyone would have to keep a detailed record of their motion (speeds,
times, accelerations) in order to be able to calculate the
corresponding time in their own frame of reference.

Am I missing something, or would such a world be quite chaotic?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Electron-positron annihilation
    ... Oh, BTW, you didn't gave the reference for this quote. ... Perhaps no one ever bothered to do the experiments when the clocks ... since relativity was already firmly established. ... then this speeds follows quite simply from conservation ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Electron-positron annihilation
    ... Oh, BTW, you didn't gave the reference for this quote. ... Perhaps no one ever bothered to do the experiments when the clocks ... since relativity was already firmly established. ... then this speeds follows quite simply from conservation ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Note to all the world.
    ... In the theory of relativity, at no point, is the ... There is no reason to assume any particluar frame of reference is absolute ... measurements) does not vary at all .. ... speeds, then there is a variance in the speed at ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Is the speed of light really constant ?
    ... > either of the light emitting vehicles or the local frame of one or the other ... since Relativity addresses c wrt local frames? ... cannot simply add the speeds to get the speed that will be measured for ... Neither physics nor relativity has remained static, ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Teaching Relativity Simply III
    ... > relativity, an association that ultimately leads to misconceptions. ... Some students may recognise the limiting speed ... > to see it as a property of the reference frame switch.) ... > all light speeds that forces them to disagree on simultaneity. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)