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- Hacker News
- Every few years these studies are published. Nothing changes. Unfortunately policy isn’t dictated by science, facts, or optimal outcomes for all.by sharts
- Even in Southern Europe the winter day is 2+2 hours less than the summer. Not only I am PRO-DST but I advocate for a full two hour change. It's not 20th century any more. Most jobs start later, people want to enjoy after job and LEDs offer bright light if needed. Tell the Spaniards where the sun sets later that the Dutch.by tsoukase
- It was tried 52 years ago, and no one actually liked it, so we went back to DST again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_time_observation_in_...
Possibly another example of the old Chesterton's Fence.
by userbinator - Except it's not like Chesterton's fence, it was created at the edge of living memory for known reasons. If anything it's an example of the opposite effect, something like Chesterton's field, do we really need to build a wall here, it's been a field for a damn long time...by reedf1
- No, that’s describing permanent DST, which was tried and failed, not lack of DST. Most people in the world live without DST and it’s fine. (The article also mentions this.)by tumult
- DST is bad because it changes the clocks in huge jumps. Very poor for people's health. Noticeably increases excess deaths.
Fixed clocks are bad because they don't track the sunlight.
We should change the clocks by 10 minutes, every month. Keep dawn at roughly the same time every day, say 06:30. Add enough time zones so that dawn will always be within 10 minutes of 06:30 at the equator for a given longitude.
- The topic always feels like a typical propaganda push to me; the constant sensationalist articles, people constantly bemoaning it when in reality having to change your clocks by an hour twice a year is the most trivial, irrelevant thing to spend any energy/attention caring about, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the propaganda angle actually is. How does some group benefit from getting rid of it? Or is the negative messaging, creating an us-vs-them argument about even the most random of issues, increasing conflict/division in society, the angle, and they don't even care about getting rid of it?by thegrim33
- I really wonder about the methodology. The article didn't mention it.
Did they get several cities to participate?
by kuboble - Of all the things that cause obesity and sleep loss, is an hour change twice a year really a major issue?by keiferski
- It's an extra hour of potential outdoors activity before nightfall. Yes.
- “This stupid thing we do that is worse for society than the perceived upsides is only twice a year. Why not keep doing it anyway?”by kortilla
- There are measurably more heart attacks and traffic accidents after the switch.by scns
- I don’t know, maybe someone should do a study on it.by pimlottc
- My controversial idea: midnight should be where current 4AM is because 04:00 is the lowest point of human circadian rhythm. Currently we have nonsense like "1AM is technically a part of the next day but for all practical purposes it's still the previous day". Also, 24h clock should be the standard so that we can avoid discussions "is 12AM noon or midnight".by anal_reactor
- I live in a hot desert climate where most of the daytime during summer is inhospitable to human activities.
We also do not observe DST at all, and that makes us a red-headed stepchild in America.
I have longed for a system here where summertime means a 12-hour DST: everyone sleeps all day and then goes to work/school in the coolness and darkness of nighttime. I absolutely love chilling outside in the dark when the lows are in the 70s, 80s.
Time zones were invented because of railroads, and all of the time/date related troubles we have today is because modern urban technology is 100% fake artifice that denies the contours of the natural world, not to mention globalism that denies contours of local culture and seeks to cram everyone and everything into rigidly defined boxes.
- In Japan, if you get on a 1 hour train just before midnight, the printed ticket will say something like "23:05" for the embarkment time, and "24:05" for the disarmament. Same date for both - the clocks can just go beyond 24 hours.
Spend enough time out late in Japan, and you'll see hour 24, 25, even 26.
- This isn’t going to get fixed in my lifetime, and that’s sad. Countries have lost the ability to act.by kubb
- Plenty of countries have moved away from DST. Over half who previously used it IIRC.
- Do the anti-DST people understand what they're advocating for?
Have a look at the sunset/sunrise graph for northern parts of the US https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/seattle
In Seattle, without DST, sunrise happens at 4:11am. Because of DST, it's pushed back an hour later to a more reasonable 5:11am.
I am not awake at 4am, I have no use for sunlight at 4am, and I don't want the sun appearing that early. That hour of early sunlight is wasted for me. Plus with DST, the sun sets an hour later, at 9:11pm, a time I am actually awake, and I can actually go outside and use the extra sun.
And, with permanent DST (which is what many people are advocating for), then in winter sunrise is at 9am in Seattle, which is far too late. I do not want to drive to work in the dark, before sunrise. So I want standard time in winter, pushing sunrise an hour earlier to a more reasonable 8am.
In both situations (summer and winter), modifying the time via DST benefits me and gives me better use of sunlight.
by tristanj - You can have your own household clock.by tchalla
- > Do the anti-DST people understand what they're advocating for?
They do, which is why only 45 countries observe DST.
25 observe it partially.
And the rest, roughly ~125 countries do not.
Historically, ~140 countries did.
To put this into perspective, only about 1.2B people out of 8.3B observe it today. Which puts you into a very small <15% minority.
by gspetr - You realize that you can change your own sleep patterns seasonally if you want to? Heck, you could do that even gradually instead of those abrupt 1 hour changes. That is your choice, we don't need to fiddle with clocks for the whole society for that.by zokier
- Hol up, don't fix time, there's a few guys in Seattle without curtains. Sorry everyone.by reedf1
- Yeah, it’s insane. Along with that, any permanent gains in the morning will be lost as soon as it becomes normal. Businesses will just open that much earlier. And this study assumed bedtimes of 10pm, which is not the average anywhere on the planet from what I remember the last time I looked into this. The average is like past midnight.by snowe2010
- This just seems like a backwards justification. There is nothing wrong with a 9am sunrise or a 4:11am sunrise. People in Anchorage deal with both just fine.
> I am not awake at 4am, I have no use for sunlight at 4am
Most people aren’t awake at 5am either. Your use for the sun when there is an excess of it that goes well past your bedtime if you get up at 5am is irrelevant.
by kortilla - Yeah, as someone who lives in Vermont, you could talk me into permanent DST. That would move the winter sunset from, say, 4:21pm to 5:21pm, which would mean I'd get enough twilight for a short walk after work. And Maine is even further east and north in the same time zone, so they have an even earlier sunset. On the other hand, Vermont's standard time sunrise around 7:20 is reasonable enough.
Parts of Vermont have traditionally coped with this by having an 8-4 workday instead of 9-5.
But the reality is that Vermont gets only about an hour of daylight outside working hours, depending on local customs. People have extremely strong preferences about how that hour gets split up.
by ekidd - Why should the clock be set to those arbitrary points? If you want sun in the morning, wake up later, it you want sun in the evening, wake up earlier.
If your issue is when work is scheduled, well businesses set their own hours, not the government.
by AngryData - Between this and the "Sunset time and the economic effects of social jetlag: evidence from US time zone borders" paper [0], it seems like the issue is the size of the discontinuous jump in time, not necessarily that we change the clocks. So why not "smear" the DST<=> ST transitions by having four half hour transitions, once each quarter?
- If you present this as the alternative, I think there's a chance people might actually just get rid of it :)by raz32dust
- > So why not "smear" the DST<=> ST transitions by having four half hour transitions, once each quarter?
Very easy answer: Because it's already painful twice a year, and that would be making it even worse.
That answer is similar to the one for questions like "why do we have wide time zones that are somewhat inaccurate, rather than setting every clock based on the exact position of that clock?".
by JoshTriplett