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The Waste of Daylight

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Re: The Waste of Daylight

#191

Post by jacobr1 »

rjmunro wrote: post #174
bloak wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment perhaps illustrates the most likely explanation of why people keep on suggesting we should have permanent "summer time" rather than permanent "winter time": they genuinely believe or subsconsciously imagine that the government can legislate for better weather. Unfortunately, here in England, there is no flexibility for adjusting our timetables in the winter: the length of the school day is roughly equal…

The clock time that schools start and end at doesn't have to be fixed for the whole year. The clock time could stay at GMT, and schools could open earlier, maybe also slightly longer for some parts of the year. Businesses could follow school opening times.

Right, plenty of places around the world have seasonal hours anyway, regardless of the DST changes. There is no reason you couldn't have more a of tradition of making similar changes when needed. The benefit of having your regional government declare the change at the time-level rather than the business/school/organization level is universal coordination. But the downside is that you necessarily live with a one-size fits all solution that organizations will work around to suit anyway.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#192

Post by throw0101a »

dschuler wrote: post #188
throw0101a wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] the promise of leaving the clocks on DST all year around. Which goes against the current scientific/medical consensus on the issue: > As an international organization of scientists dedicated to studying circadian and other biological rhythms, the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) engaged experts in the field to write a Position Paper on the consequences of choosing to live on DST or Standard Tim…

Based on the first link: "Less than 200 years ago, humans organized their daily routines by the sun clock ... which was in synchrony with their body clock. Now, most of us ... use electric light at night... these new conditions challenge our health and can cause safety problems, [and] ... become even worse under Daylight Saving Time (DST)". It seems like most people would agree that living in synchrony to the solar d…

> For example, New York’s social clock closely matches the sun clock in winter during Standard Time: when the social clock says it is noon, it is very close to midday, the sun’s highest point in the sky. During DST, however, New York’s social clock shows noon when it is only 1100 h by the sun clock. People who have to get up at 0600 h by the sun clock in winter have to get up at 0500 h by the sun clock under DST, despite the social clock showing 0600 h. Essentially, they have to go to work in 1 time zone further to the east. This means that people in Chicago have to work during the office hours of New York, and people in Berlin have the office hours of St. Petersburg. Instead of seeing DST as working according to one time zone to the east, one can also think of it as people’s body clocks being pushed further west within their time zone (or social clock). Since the body clock follows the sun clock, these changes can affect our health.

* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07487304198541...

> Although DST has always been a political issue, we need to discuss the biology associated with these decisions because the circadian clock plays a crucial role in how the outcome of these discussions potentially impacts our health and performance. Here, we give the necessary background to understand how the circadian clock, the social clock, the sun clock, time zones, and DST interact.

* https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...

Personally I do not have time/desire to crawl down this specific rabbit hole, so I'm just going to go by what the Abstracts and Conclusions say. Feel free to follow the various citations in these links if you want more details.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#193

Post by faitswulff »

mrfusion wrote: post #185

I support full time DST but ... Isn’t it weird to think That the Vast majority Of people are so powerless over their own schedules that they need nationwide legislation to do what they want and enjoy their evenings? I don’t have a point. It’s just kind of a funny thing to think about.

Society has dictated the majority of people’s lives for most of human history. Being able to control one’s schedule is the exception. In fact, even having eight hours of leisure wasn’t always a given in the US [0][1].

[0]: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6645/

[1]: https://www.paunions.com/may-day-eight-hours-for-work-eight-...

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#194

Post by _ph_ »

iso1631 wrote: post #143
_ph_ wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the EU parliament passed a resolution to end DST 2021. Unfortunately, they didn't mandate a return to standard time along with it, leaving it open for countries to stay on permanent DST. But of course, a decision about this was never made - looking at the EU timezones, permanent DST basically has no place in the schema. The only non-chaotic alternative to DST would be standard time, but no such resolution has be…

> Unfortunately, they didn't mandate a return to standard time along with it It's arbitary anyway -- Spain and North Macedonia are on the same time zone, but in A Coruña in winter the sun rises at 9am, while in Bitola it comes up at 7am, despite being on about the same latitude. What makes "standard time" standard? Sun at the highest between 1130 and 1230? Timezones have a rough connection to solar mean, but on stand…

In this context: the time which is valid in each country outside of the DST shift. Yes, there is some mismatch between the time zones and the local astronomical time, but this was decided long ago for the sake of good inter operation between the countries. If the EU wanted to get quickly rid of DST, just not doing the switch to DST would have been the means of choice. Renegotiation of all time zones first will take many years to resolve, and there are few really good alternative layouts.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#195

Post by another-dave »

bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

I think the real benefit of DST is spring/autumn where you definitely do get more daylight during waking hours rather than mid-summer (i.e. check out sunrise/sunset times for April/September rather than July)

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#196

Post by ianai »

faitswulff wrote: post #193
mrfusion wrote: post #185

I support full time DST but ... Isn’t it weird to think That the Vast majority Of people are so powerless over their own schedules that they need nationwide legislation to do what they want and enjoy their evenings? I don’t have a point. It’s just kind of a funny thing to think about.

Society has dictated the majority of people’s lives for most of human history. Being able to control one’s schedule is the exception. In fact, even having eight hours of leisure wasn’t always a given in the US [0][1]. [0]: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6645/ [1]: https://www.paunions.com/may-day-eight-hours-for-work-eight-...

That doesn’t make it right nor correct. Just “normative.” Hunter gatherers didn’t/don’t have these problems. (Though they definitely have plenty of other problems.)

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#197

Post by shmerl »

watwut wrote: post #134
shmerl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this is a mess due to DST anyway (like system bugs and so on). So it's much better without the switch.

It is not. You can reliably know that school/work starts at this or that hour. You dont have to negotiate different hours. You dont have to go through the "is it changing this week or next week, should I appoint at 8:00 or 9:00 that week" issues.

You decide on hours one time and don't do it anymore, instead of messing up the clock twice a year without end. I'd totally get rid of DST and leave the rest to those who want to handle their schedule in custom way.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#198

Post by cptskippy »

mrfusion wrote: post #185

I support full time DST but ... Isn’t it weird to think That the Vast majority Of people are so powerless over their own schedules that they need nationwide legislation to do what they want and enjoy their evenings? I don’t have a point. It’s just kind of a funny thing to think about.

It's a hack because it's easier to change the fundamental concept of time than it is to change all of our published schedules.

Imagine if businesses, trains, fairies, parks, etc all had summer and winter hours.

A simple glitch in the Matrix twice a year is preferable.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#199

Post by ianai »

mrfusion wrote: post #186
bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

It seems like the children going to school in the dark is the main counterargument. Could schools just start later in the winter or have reduced hours? Or could we add street lighting?

Or just make their day end earlier. No reason it needs to be a national impact.

Re: The Waste of Daylight

#200

Post by burnte »

bloak wrote: post #151

As I see it, in the summer there's plenty of daylight so it doesn't matter very much how you set your clock, but in the winter it does matter: children would be cycling to school in the dark if you moved the clocks forward (and they'd be cycling back from school in the dark if you moved the clocks back). Therefore, if you want to abolish the clock changes, which seems like an excellent idea to me, the safe and conser…

I am from Pittsburgh PA, and we'd be up in the dark waiting for the bus half the school year. IMO that's not an argument for falling back because we were in the dark whith falling back already.
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