US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent • Hacker News Board

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#961

Post by jlokier » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

mushyhammer wrote: post #873

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

I really don't get what you're saying. Move the clock 4 hours forward and you favor some people; Move it backwards and you favor others. You literally cannot make everyone live in their "perfect sleep cycle." If you feel sleepy "at 2am" this changes nothing for you. In Norway in December people wake up "in the middle of the night" because sunrise is at 10am: Humans can adjust easily to this stuff, it's just that we l…

I didn't argue for any particular movement or direction, and I agree that any change favours some and is worse for others.

I argued that commenters who say permanent DST specifically favours night owls are incorrect about who it favours, because they (most of them) haven't considered the effect of the sun on sleep quality and daytime cycles.

My view is that most solar-affected night owls will have slightly worse sleep and daytime energy and metabolism, because clock-time social requirements will not change (that's the point of changing the clocks after all). Sunshine after will work will make people happier after work, which is reflected in economic activity, but I think the insiduous effects on health are being ignored. There is some scientific research to back up this point of view.

There are early risers here who don't like permanent DST saying "we're not all night owls like you", believing the change is designed to favour night owls.

There are night owls here who say permanent DST will be great for them because there will be less sun in the mornings to ruin their sleep. That implies they have a choice about when to wake, or they are thinking of Summer. They are in the minority even for night owls, because the change applies only to Winter, when most people are already forced by social requirements to get up when it's dark. There is no light streaming in that early in Winter. Permanent DST will only mean that it's dark for longer after they get up.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#962

Post by g_log » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 12:51 PM UTC

Sunlight is one of the most powerful zeitgebers and it makes sense to try and optimize the amount of sunlight exposure. However, is there a difference between morning light and evening light in terms of how they entrain the circadian rhythm?

If I work from 9am to 5pm in a dark office building, permanent standard time might allow me an hour of sunshine before work from 8am to 9am, and permanent DST might have me arriving in work while it's still dark but allow me an hour of sunshine from 5pm to 6pm. Which of those light exposure patterns would allow me to wake up easier at 7.30am?

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#963

Post by Loughla » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 12:51 PM UTC

sirspacey wrote: post #947

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

These problems are best solved by addressing the issue itself - that teenagers need more sleep than our maniacal obsession with starting school early in the morning. That’s a change that can, and should, be made independently.

So the problem with that is school also serves as a safe daycare for children/teenagers while parents work. Everyone wants to blame the puritanical "if you aren't present 8 hours, it's not real work/school" attitude, but it's not that.

It's economics. People can't work if they have to stay home with their kids.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, that's 99% of the reason for the standard school day/hours. To fix the school problem, we have to fix our out-of-date 8-5 mindset toward work, first.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#964

Post by greyhair » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 12:51 PM UTC

stormbrew wrote: post #506

I'd kill for a peek into the parallel universe where it was permanent standard time that was likely to get adopted and see how much effort went into researching the ill effects of that choice to convince people with enough FUD to keep daylight time switching going. Here's the thing: If you're a proponent of permanent standard time, you should be in favour of turning off the switching no matter what. Even if it means…

I agree, but schools need to get ahead of this, and plan for a later start to the school day, before this takes effect, because we already have firm data on the fact that the school day already starts to early, and permanent DST is going to make that worse. Personally, I'll just shift my 7:AM to 4:PM day to being 8:AM to 5:PM. But my wife cannot do that. She'll be stuck at 7 to 4.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#965

Post by pibechorro » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:06 PM UTC

sirspacey wrote: post #947

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

These problems are best solved by addressing the issue itself - that teenagers need more sleep than our maniacal obsession with starting school early in the morning. That’s a change that can, and should, be made independently.

It has nothing to do about the children. Its 100% because public school has become glorified daycare and kids need to go in early for their parents to work.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#966

Post by pibechorro » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:07 PM UTC

mvkel wrote: post #879

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

Norway would be the counter argument to everything you've said. Highly educated, longest living, least depressed. And the sun is out at midnight 76 days per year there. Humans are adaptable. A -permanent- hour change would surely be less harmful than changing said hours twice a year.

Also some of the highest rates of suicide...

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#967

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

sirspacey wrote: post #947

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

These problems are best solved by addressing the issue itself - that teenagers need more sleep than our maniacal obsession with starting school early in the morning. That’s a change that can, and should, be made independently.

Say you're a parent working for Walmart or Amazon. You have to get to work at 8.30AM so the store can open at 9AM. Your kid starts school at 9AM. How are you going to get your kid to school?

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#968

Post by zonotope » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

greyhair wrote: post #954

Why don't we leave the clocks aligned with the Sun, so noon occurs at solar noon, and just have everybody agree to shift their work day to 7:00 to 4:00. Because on a solar basis, that is exactly what you are doing. "8 to 5" will now be "7 to 4". And people that normally work "7 to 4" will now be working "6 to 3" That is all you are doing. You are basically just kidding yourselves. It is so extremely stupid, really. Y…

> ... and just have everybody agree to shift their work day to 7:00 to 4:00.

That "just" is doing a lot of work in this phrase. We live in an interconnected society consisting of lots of quasi independent actors organized in families, office locations, schools, businesses, and many other organizations. Coordinating a change in operating hours for _everyone_ is deceptively difficult.

If a person with a school aged kid wants to individually go to work an hour earlier relative to the sun, you're proposing that he lobbies his employer to set work hours an hour earlier, then lobbies his kid's school principal to start the school day an hour earlier so he still has time to drop his kid off, and then lobbies his favorite coffee shop to open an hour earlier so he can still sip his latte while he walks into the office. The employer has to coordinate with all of the other employees, who have to coordinate with their spouses and families and kid's schools, and favorite coffee shops. The principal has to coordinate with all of the teachers and the parents of all the other kids. The communication complexity of this scheme is exponential. Of course, there will be many opinions about how smart and stupid this change would be, so we'd also need a way to incorporate all of this feedback to make a decision that everyone will follow.

It turns out that we've already developed a method to manage the complexity of gathering feedback and making binding decisions in coordination problems like this. It's called the political system. We elect representatives to the government. Those representatives make proposals, debate those proposals, and, sometimes, pass them into binding laws that everyone has (implicitly) agreed to follow.

So yes, you're right that is "all [we] are doing". It's just that when you live in a country of over 300 million people, the most practical way of having everyone "agree" to do anything is by using the pre-established political system and passing a law. It's much more practical to pass a law that shifts the official clocks back an hour than to mandate starting and stopping times for every single organization in existence.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#969

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:18 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #943

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

What if you sleep with blindfolds on already? I’ve been messing with my body this whole time?

Yes, unless you have some programmed lights to help you wake up. Sleep normally ends as the sun starts shining. If you don't get that "signal", your body will have a harder time waking up, and be more confused about the right rhythm.

Re: US Senate votes unanimously to make daylight savings time permanent

#970

Post by globular-toast » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 1:27 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #794

I'm surprised at the number of commenters who think permanent DST is favourable to night owls and bad for morning people. I think it's night owls and delayed-cycle teenagers attending school who will suffer most under permanent DST. In the Winter, permanent DST means everyone has to get up an hour earlier for work or school's clock time, relative to the sun which regulates their body rhythm. Someone pointed out virtu…

Changing the clocks is basically a form of hibernation. It makes it OK for people to wake up later in winter by forcing everyone to do the same thing.

I guess any form of coordination is going to be more convenient for some parties than for others. The question is whether we really need to coordinate our entire days to such an extent. Many companies already practise a "core hours" schedule which allows individuals to be flexible about when they start work. This seems like the right approach.

I'm not looking forward to having to make normie appointments on Summer time during the winter, though. Making my way to the doctors at 5am in winter isn't going to be fun.