- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
In the past six years, 19 states have made efforts to move to year-round daylight saving time. So what’s in the way?
In the past six years, 19 states have made efforts to move to year-round daylight saving time. So what’s in the way?
I know some think permanent standard time is best. But I respectfully disagree, for several reasons.
First, the argument for standard time is that we need the light in the morning to wake up. And, sure, that would be great. But with standard time, most people are already getting up in the dark. Sunrise only moves to 7am or later around here. A lot of people are already up earlier to get kids on buses (my bus went at 6:45) and to work starting between 7 and 8.
Meanwhile, look at what happens to evening light. Sunsets will go from 6 to 5, and many will travel home in the dark, or simply have no light when the get home, with hours to go before sleep.
The fact is, winter just doesn’t have enough light to go around. So we have to pick our poison. I’d rather get home with some light.
Second, no one considers what would happen in the summer. Here, sunrise would come at 5 am, too early and disruptive to sleep. If light would wake us up better in the winter, than it would wake us up too soon in the summer.
Third, people say we tried it in the 70s and everyone hated it. But when it happened, we didn’t just stay on daylight savings, we switched in the fall, and then back in January, an abrupt change in the darkest time of the year rather than the gradual change it should have been since fall.
And even then, many people lived it. There were people that didn’t, sure, but it is wrong to say it was universally hated.
But make we just need to compromise. Move the clocks 30 minutes and be done with it.
I was with you until this. But that’s because I’m a programmer and time stuff is hard enough before you start using minutes instead of hours.
I think putting the sun’s zenith at 1pm would be better year round. Even with that my kids still wake up before dawn starting in October, and I’d rather have daylight when I’m awake.
I’m sure it’s already figured out. India is already 30 minutes off the rest of the world.
But I was mostly joking. Because I want the madness to end.
But I totally agree. 1 pm is mush more the meridian of most people’s day how we typically actually live.
I’d rather have light in the evening but I honestly just want to get rid of the changing.
I hate standard time, but I’d still rather stop changing even with it.
The question is basically: do you want school and work to start earlier or later?
Why change the time for everyone when you can just adjust “working” hours. People who do shift work or work retail and other non- white-collar jobs are collateral damage. Roofers and farmers change their start and stop times baes on light and heat conditions.
Just start at a different time. Time is based (roughly) on the global position from a reference mark. Stop fucking with it.
This only works if everyone in the country starts and stops work/school at the exact same time which isn’t possible.
Local businesses and governments already shift their hours to be open when people are awake and available regardless of whatever arbitrary thing the clock says…
If DST and Standard Time are functionally equivalent for all intents and purposes, why not just stick with the simpler one?
On permanent dst sunrise in Boise would be at 9:20 during the first half of January.
It’d be like 9:50am here in the Netherlands and I still support permanent DST. The daytime is basically our employer’s time anyway, I’d rather not waste any more precious daylight on that part of the day. It really sucks getting off work and it’s already dark outside. Hard not to crash when it’s pitch black out by 5:30 pm.
I feel like this strikes at the heart of the whole DST vs. ST argument. As I mentioned in a sibling thread, it boils down to how much control we have over our own schedules. Instead of a mutualistic relationship, we’ve sold our souls to our employers. Shifting to permanent DST may be a temporary solution, but if we can’t figure out a way to form healthy relationships and boundaries with work/school/etc, even those gains will eventually get optimized away from us.
That’s an interesting take. I think with respect to wanting more daylight hours “for myself,” perma DST is definitely a stop gap solution, but it’s also legitimately achievable on the near term and has a decent amount of support.
I do fully agree that work life balance is the bigger, more significant problem but also a lot harder to tackle. Society seems to be going through a big shift right in terms of how we view our relationship with all of this. I’m glad to see more mainstream discussion about stuff like 4 day work week and UBI. Feels like attitudes are changing.
Wholeheartedly agree. Though school factors in a lot, too
And sunrise would be 5am in June. And you ignore that sunset would be 6:20pm instead of 5:20.
The fact is, Boise gets just 9 hours of daylight. Pick your poison. I’d rather the light when I might be able to enjoy it.
There’s a subtext to every DST vs. ST argument that never gets talked about: how much control people have over their own schedules. If, instead of shifting your clock, you could instead shift your schedule, wouldn’t that achieve the same result?
I don’t want to change my schedule. I don’t want to have to go to work an hour earlier just so I can get daylight in the evening.
So you’d rather change everybody else’s schedule to meet your desires? Because that’s what DST is: the government telling its people to change their schedules by an hour.
Who says I’m changing everyone else’s schedule? I the one that DOESN’T want the clocks to change.
I’m not arguing for changing clocks twice a year. I’m arguing that permanent DST is no better than permanent Standard Time when it comes to scheduling. The difference is that people are falsely convinced permanent DST will give them “more daylight” when it will not. Schedules have always shifted between seasons. We can’t do anything about the motion of planets, but we can decide to go to work an hour earlier to maximize how much continuous time we have after work to do yardwork or whatever.
Today, we have this arbitrary “9 to 5” work schedule. Give it 20 years of permanent DST, and we’ll start wishing we “had more daylight” because we have a “10 to 6” work schedule. They’re just numbers. Why not choose the simpler standard?
I already go to work in the dark most of the year. It is the time change that robs me of that that it takes what was a dark hour to a slightly less dark hour, all the while costing me that hour earlier. Perhaps you think I work 9-5. No, I work 7-4. I have no desire to go to work an hour earlier, because it’s not arbitrary. The rest of the world operates on a schedule by necessity. Further changing my start time puts me further out of sync with everyone else.
I never said DST gives more daylight. I said it puts the daylight where I want it.
In June on dst sunset is after 9:30pm. I don’t need it to be light at 10:00, it’s frankly annoying. I actually enjoy it being light when I drive to work in the morning.
The fact is, the US tried permanent dst in the 70s and everyone hated it. It’s why we took it back
I would rather it light at 10pm than 3:30am.
I enjoy having light in the morning. But I enjoy light in the evening MORE.
And I have discussed the 70s event elsewhere in this post. It was horribly implemented (changing clocks in both October and then in January) and even then some people liked it. It certainly wasn’t “everyone.”
And what time is your sunset in first weeks of January on standard time?
Around 5:25pm
Ouch.
I love how a purely factual statement somehow receives as many downvotes as it does upvotes … People are weird.
A had to upvote you to get your comment back positive