Daylight Saving Time Gripe Assistant ToolFor this map I made up a score to prove that you're right (or wrong) about Daylight Saving Time ruining everything. It's the total number of days with both sunrise and sunset times that satisfy your preferences, minus a penalty for sunrise and sunset times that are too late or early, respectively.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
I've been in Camp Abolish for years and this map only backs my argument. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be DST full time than keep switching, but yikes.
My personal preference would be for year-round DST. I would be OK with maintaining the status quo, and dumping DST entirely would be at the bottom of my list.
OTOH, year-round DST was tried back in the early 70's and while a lot of people initially thought it would be a good idea, after living with it for a few winter months support for the idea dropped in half, and they pulled the plug on it before the next winter. So I might be in the minority.
Thinking back, I do have one or two specific memories of walking to elementary school in the dark when there was snow on the ground that might be from that winter.
I'd always wondered why it seemed that people in the US have really strong opinions on daylight savings time, and this map showed me that the answer was fucking obvious.
America is really big.
The UK,and most European countries, fit easily into one timezone, so mostly DST just works. Looking at that map made it really obvious how much that doesn't work for the US (and Canada? and Russia too I guess).
My preference would be to have a 25–hour clock that isn’t synchronized with the sun at all.
Wow. The author's biases are clearly showing here. Given that the average sunrise and sunset times should be 06:00 and 18:00 respectively over a year¹, to have the "latest reasonable sunrise time" go from 05:00 (one hour before average) to 09:00 (3 hours after average), with a similar skew on "earliest reasonable sunset time" from 16:30 to 20:30, definitely skews the scores.
As someone who thinks that it's reasonable for the sun to set 4 hours after noon - because that's what it does sometimes - I want a score to tell me precisely how stupid changing your clocks twice a year is simply because of the ballache that it is, and how if you want more daylight later on in your day you should just get up earlier.
Why can't we just have clocks that are mostly correct according to the solar mean time in a given timezone? (While maintaining that timezones are still useful for having huge groups of people agree on what the time is for co-ordination purposes.)
¹ If clocks are mostly "correct" and roughly track the sun - you know, what they've done for thousands of years, pretty much since they were invented - meaning should 12:00 approximate solar noon.
People wonder why it's taking so long for capitalism to adjust to "work from home" when, over a century after subsistence farming ceased to be relevant, people still can't get a handle on, "if you prefer to be awake during daylight hours, stay asleep until the sun comes up".
DST wasn’t adopted for farmers and it wasn’t started until after subsistence farming was mostly done in the U.S.
I agree. I come from a farming family: DST is simply irrelevant for farmers, and no farmer I know would support it if they cared. Farmers days are driven by things like when cows need milking and when dew has gone. These depend on the time of sunrise and sunset, not on what the clock's hands point to.
We always knew some types won't adjust to change as long as fighting is an option. I thought it was "them" until I discovered my related category: I'll keep doing shit my way until someone notices/objects. But I'm sneaky, so I never have to adjust, MUHAHAHA. Wait, am I still winning if noone notices?
As an ex-student who thought things would change in the "real" world but in fact never adapted to fixed, daytime work —when everyone else is annoyingly, distractingly, there, so you end up fixing their shit instead of doing your work—, and sometimes had to fake arriving early after having in fact dropped dead under a table, too weak to reach the light switch, I'll submit this proposition to anyone willing to consider the issue from an "executive" position:
If your place of work or workforce would perform better or just prefer to open at different hours in differents seasons, just fucking change opening hours accordingly. It's not hard. Even your grandparents with the ever blinking VCR display could set their alarm clock just fine.
You don't warp all of space-time to go somewhere if (walking|your preferred mode of transport if walking is controversial in your country) works. Also it doesn't require more energy than is present in the universe.
On one hand, I think that choosing always DST instead of never is just dumb because if a society thinks it'd be better for things to open or close an hour earlier, then just do that.
On the other hand, if always DST is chosen over never, if things open or close at the wrong time of day, just change when they open or close.
"Just change when things open or close" has big "just pay a living wage instead of tipping" energy.
It does, doesn't it?
But it's also a naturally-occurring thing, I think.
If a business is daylight-centric (a supply house for tradesmen who work outside, say), then they'll... adjust.
Rooferman: "Hey Karl, you know how we used to show up here to buy roofing supplies three or for days a week, about an hour before dawn?"
Karl: "Yep. You been doin' that for decades now, I reckon. Mmm-hmm."
Rooferman: "But ever since they screwed up the clocks that one last time during the Biden administration, your store doesn't open until well after the sun is up, so we've been buying more stuff from Fred's shop on the other side of town just because he's got his door open earlier this time of year than you do."
Karl: "Mmm-hmm. A'ight, then."
Karl, now actively informed about this obvious thing, either adjusts the hours to match the seasons or watches his sales continue to adjust downward as he loses more business to Fred's place across town, where they're better at reading the room.
People don't buy their morning coffee at 8 because that's when the sun's up, they do it because bossman says they have to be at their desk by 8:30. You keep following that chain backwards and you probably zip past a market opening 3 time zones away (which hundreds of years ago was a "market" for "things" but has now just moves concepts) all the way past railway gauges and back to ancient Roman buggy tracks, none of which has anything to do with solar time.
Well, I mean: Sure.
If the boss-man doesn't care if it is light or dark (or frozen or flooded or fire) outside as long as he's got butts in seats at 0830, then that's the end of that.
He is ruled by the clock, and therefore his underlings are also ruled by the clock. (Stay on your treadmill. Keep running on that wire wheel, briefcase in hand. Money rains down just out of reach. You'll burn out soon enough. It's all part of the plan.)
Whether we standardize on DST, standardize on standard time, or continue to standardize on flipping things around twice a year, PHB will only care what the clock says.
And yeah, there's a lot of those in the world.