Daylight Savings time: How is this still a thing?

[SoonerPride]

If you haven't seen this before, please watch it.

DST is stupid and needs to go away permanently.

[brooklynite]

1. DST needs to be made permanent

It should be dark in the morning when you're asleep, and light in the evening when you're awake.

[SoonerPride]

2. Wake up when it gets light and go to sleep when it gets dark.

[we can do it]

4. Fine if you don't have a job.

[Celerity]

59. +1

[SharonClark]

6. So in winter, go to bed at 5pm and get up at 7am?

[Rorey]

19. ...

[Jerry2144]

9. Not always possible

In the summertime, sunrise would be at 4:30. Stores and businesses don’t even open until nine or ten. Lots of wasted time there. And in the winter, sunset is at 4:30 under standard time. Way too early for bed. Changing the clocks twice per year sucks, especially when you have animals that can’t tell time and go off the sun. At least staying permanent daylight time moves sunset later in the day to allow for more afternoon and evening productivity and keeps things dark in the early morning when not much can be done.

I personally hate standard time in the winter. My work day is longer than daylight and I work in a windowless building. I get to work and it’s dark and leave an hour after sunset in the winter. If we stayed on daylight time year round, I would at least be leaving work at sunset and possibly see the sun

[Rorey]

20. I wish that too - that we'd just stay on DST

I can make my own schedule, but for some reason this year I just never adjusted to standard time. I'm looking forward to this Sunday when it'll appear that I'm waking up at a more normal time.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

61. Anchorage--Open for business 11-2 in the winter and pretty much 24 hours in the summer.

[Celerity]

63. lol, so i should go to sleep at 2/3pm or so in the late fall/winter? hard pass, this isn't 1821

[Happy Hoosier]

87. Lol! Should I get up after 9 in the late fall/winter?

Kids should not be walking to school before the sun comes up, like they would do 5 months of the year here if DST were permanent.

[Celerity]

89. come here to Sweden (which many seem to fail to realise is what I am talking about) and

your kids will walk to school in the dark during standard time as well in the time of year I am talking about.

I am not changing my mind, nor are the vast majority of the Swedes that are in my life here.

Why don't you move to Juneau, Alaska (which is about as far north as Stockholm) then tell me how you feel about losing an hour of sunlight in the afternoon, whilst waking up in the dark and going to school/work in the dark no matter which of the two time systems your choose.

[Happy Hoosier]

90. I get your point, but...

You just want a different time of day to be dark than I do. I don‘t need light in the afternoon when I am already awake. I do need it as much as I can get it in the AM. One reason I don‘t live that far North is I don‘t wan that much dark.

[Celerity]

91. If I am not telling you (or anyone else who lives in the US) what to choose, why then is there

this compulsion with some here to try and take away my autonomy about a geographically different situation? I have my opinions, and I am not trying to dictate them to others, nor am I browbeating (not you, that was another poster) anyone into accepting only my position.

[Happy Hoosier]

92. Man, do what works for you guys.

I don‘t mind. None of my bidness. Party on.

[Celerity]

93. I appreciate that, although not much partying going on here with COVID variants wreaking havoc

atm, unfortunately. I so so hope that the Brasilian P.1 and especially the South African B.1.351 variants do now blow up in the US. They are bad news, and some of the latest studies are showing both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines are perhaps far less effective against B.1.351 South African variant.


S. African Variant Challenges Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210309/s-african-variant-challenges-pfizer-moderna-vaccines

The key finding: The percentage of positive antibodies that neutralized the South African variant was 12.4 fold lower for the Moderna vaccine than against the original coronavirus and 10.3 fold lower for the Pfizer vaccine, the study says.

[Goodheart]

3. Agree, but we could all just re-establish our school and working times, no?

[sir pball]

58. Much much MUCH easier to just make DST permanent nt

[Happy Hoosier]

25. Where I live, that plan sucks.

I live in the far west of the Eastern time zone.

When we have DST, it is dark when I wake up and stays light until quite late in the evening in mid-summer. That sucks. Getting up in the dark SUCKS.

Having said that, I am in favor of picking a time and sticking to it. I'd be happy enough with picking DST and moving to the the Central time zone, but for whatever reason, Indianapolis want to think of itself as being eastern.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

37. Especially if it's dark when kids are outside waiting for the school bus.

That worked out so well the last time we were on DST all year.

[muriel_volestrangler]

72. Why is it important to you to have solar noon at 1pm, all year round?

I can see that some people don't like the twice-yearly changes (although, at moderate latitudes, there is a sound biological reason for it - we like to get up a little earlier in the summer when the sun rises earlier; doing it with one shift once a year to earlier is a rough approximation of what we'd do without clocks).

But if you're going to get rid of the change, why would it be better to have New York on GMT-4, rather than the geographically accurate GMT-5? Today, your solar noon was at 12:06 - why would 1:06 be better for noon?

[RandomNumbers]

80. Meh. Just pick one and stick with it.

Adjust schedule of activities accordingly.

[leftyladyfrommo]

5. My dogs are permantly on DST. I will be glad

when it switches over. Then they wake me up at 5 instead of 4.

[Rorey]

23. Yes, I'm looking forward to "sleeping in" until 5 again

And maybe I'll also be able to stay away until 10 p.m.

[Blues Heron]

7. The work day needs to somewhat track morning light

Otherwise the sun would rise too late in the winter and too early in the summer. Hence dst. We tried going off it in the energy crisis and it sucked.

[greenjar_01]

8. Still mad about September 3-13, 1752 - the Lost Days!

[smirkymonkey]

10. This is great!

Thanks for posting! I hate DST!

[moose65]

12. Why do you hate it?

[Celerity]

62. multiple threads now on this contrarian stance

Perm standard time is very much a minority position, and not having perm DST is a massive energy waster in the winter.

In response to push back against this 'do away perm with DST' positing, you get snarky replies about how you just need to change your schedule, as if the world is going to accommodate you.

[RandomNumbers]

81. most who say they hate DST, mean they hate the changing back and forth

Personally I don't give a rat's patootie WHICH time zone I'm in, just that it stop changing.

I work in a global company and have to adjust my work to whacky time zones anyway. Yeah if I think about it, one of them (DST or standard time) would average out to be better, but then the company would figure out how to move the offshore team to an even cheaper locale that would now screw up my time again anyway. For me the point is simply, stop making us change our clocks twice a year. You can make my timezone 2 hrs different for some silly reason, whatever, I'll deal with it and get used to it. Just can't get used to it when it changes twice a year.

[Celerity]

84. Also, bear in mind that I am talking about Sweden, not the US, and yet I have non Swedes

telling me what to do, what I should believe, and hounding me like I am a fox at the Berkeley Hunt. I too travel (pre COVID) a lot on a global basis, so deffo can relate to the crazy time zone changes, lolol.

cheers

[smirkymonkey]

66. Actually, what I hate are the time changes and flipping the clock ahead.

I looked it up and I think what I like is it for it to STAY at DST, and not go back to standard, so that is always lighter in the evening, since I don't really care about it being lighter in the morning (I'm not a morning person) and I am more likely to be awake later in the day instead of earlier.

I guess I just don't like having to adjust to the changes twice a year, since I have such a hard time sleeping and getting up to begin with.

[moose65]

11. Why is it stupid?

I mean, do you hate Daylight Saving Time, or do you hate changing the clocks? If we were on DST year round, there would be no clock changes.

Standard Time isn't really standard. I mean, Time is a made-up, human concept. It's not a phenomenon of nature.

[SoonerPride]

15. Watch the video and get back to me

[moose65]

27. I did watch the video

So what? It's from a comedy show.

[kcr]

21. No clock changes

That would be the point. Not sure how you missed it.

[moose65]

28. But....

There wouldn't BE clock changes if we stayed on DST year round.

Do you say you hate Standard Time when we switch to it in November?

[kcr]

35. Most proposals I've seen

chose DST as the time to stick with. It's the clock changing that people hate. I think the phrase "daylight savings time" is another way of saying time to change the clocks. People say that when we're changing both to and from DST.

[Happy Hoosier]

30. I personally hate both.

But I hate changing clocks more. It's a needless issue.

I hate DST because where I live, DST means it's dark when I wake up a good chunk of the year, and it can stay light, quite late into the evening, which I also don't particularly like. Seriously, can barely do fireworks here on the 4th until 10 because it is too light before that.

I am a curmudgeon, and I hate DST. Kill it. Or pick it permanently and move IN into the Central Zone.

[moose65]

34. Oh how awful!

You have to stay up late one day in the year to see the fireworks.

Just kidding - I get it. The further west in the time zone, the later the sun sets.

The further north you go, the shorter the days are in the winter on Standard Time. It would depress me to to live in Vermont in winter because the sun sets at like 4:15 pm.

Maybe we need North/South time zones split up horizontally as well as the East/West ones we have currently.

[Happy Hoosier]

52. Damn right. And you kids get off my lawn!!!!!

I'm obviously playing this up, but I do think changing the clocks is sill, and I'd rather it not be dark when I get up. That feels inhumane.

When my daughter was young, it would be pitch black when the school bus came about half the school year, and before the sun came up the rest of the year. Yuck.

[moose65]

55. I get that

Personally, I hate mornings. I am not a morning person at all, so I usually don’t have any problems with getting up when it’s dark 😝😝

[Happy Hoosier]

68. I don't do it by choice! That's for sure!! LOL NT

[Celerity]

64. try Sweden

It would depress me to to live in Vermont in winter because the sun sets at like 4:15 pm.

4 15 pm sunset would be a dream here in the late fall, early winter time (and I am in Stockholm, which is mild compared to northern part, where they get barely any sun then)

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

86. The overlay of cities map is incredible!

I've never seen it before, and it's always tricky just to try to look at a regular map and see where certain cities are in comparison to others. Thanks for posting that.

[qazplm135]

45. Time being real or not real

Is definitely not scientifically determined yet, lotta scientists on both sides.

[moose65]

56. Hmmmm....

Obviously, you’re an agent of Big Time 😝😝

[qazplm135]

69. time will tell

joking aside, I think time is a fundamental property of the universe and not merely emergent or imaginary. The universe seems to be built around causality and time to me. I get that in theory most physical actions look the same backwards or forwards mathematically but I think causality and entropy argue in favor of time as a fundamental property, not imaginary.

[FoxNewsSucks]

13. DST should be made permanent, year-round.

If I have to leave for work before dawn, that's not a big deal. But getting dark at 5 pm sucks.

Only in agriculture-related business does actual sunrise/sunset matter for work. And farm and ranch work probably is set a lot according to daylight rather than punching a timeclock for specified hours.

Make it permanent and leave it.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. "If I have to leave for work before dawn, that's not a big deal"

I was in junior high when Nixon changed DST to start in January in 1974 and was going to school when it was PITCH DARK in the mornings and we had to carry flashlights (had to catch a train and bus to school because there were no "yellow school buses" that picked me up at my front door - as a city kid we got on public transit).



THAT was one of the reasons they finally ditched that nonsense - the kids, many of the youngest ones who have to walk to/from school, and notably in the cities because the privileged suburban kids get the yellow bus that takes them door-to-door and but good luck with that being universal if you live in the city.

[FoxNewsSucks]

29. I remember that, I think I was somewhere around 6th grade at the time

It was different. It's just something that need people to adjust their routines. It's sometimes dark when people are going to school, drivers should be watching out anyway. We lived a few miles outside a small rural town. I don't remember any of the kids complaining about flashlights when walking to school, just some parents.

[BumRushDaShow]

38. How can you adjust a routine

if like I was at the time, getting on a "7:40 Express" commuter train in the morning to go downtown to school, and had to leave the house to start walking to the train station in the PITCH DARK by 7:30 am. And it wasn't starting to get light until almost 8 am, not long before I got downtown (and then got on the bus the rest of the way).

My walk to the train station was in a residential neighborhood (just a block or so) but it was poorly lit because it was "residential". There were kids who also walked to the elementary school a couple blocks past that train station.

When you live in a city with nuts who follow children around in the daytime in vans or who suddenly jump out in front of a child and unzip their pants to reveal their "beautiful wee wee" for all to see, imagine in the dark of the morning. Or the drug dealers who are out on the corners in the dark selling to people coming out of the "underground" 24 hour "clubs" or driving in from the suburbs on their way to work to get their stash, you sure as hell don't want that happening in the dark with children trying to go to school.

[FoxNewsSucks]

43. Why does it need to be one-size-fits-all?

Maybe the answer in big-city school districts is to just change their school day. Ours was 7:30-2:30 and 8-3, maybe districts like your should be 8:30-3:30 or 9-4.

[BumRushDaShow]

47. The cities do/did have staggered school schedules

but it depended on how many students there were, how many schools, and how many classrooms that could accommodate them. The "paid" schools (private/religious) had school buses and smaller numbers of students, but not so the public schools.

At one time, when the baby boomers were coming through, I remember the high schools in my area of the city had 3 shifts because they could not all fit in the classrooms, which were already boasting upwards for 40 kids per class. Nowadays you have many high schools with 2 shifts of kids who start at 7 am and go to 1:30 pm, with an alternate shift of 8 - 2:30.

At one point, the youngest children were on a 9 - 3 schedule, the junior highs/high schools were on an 8 - 2:30 - the issue being trying to avoid the "dumping" of too many kids into the public transit system at one time. But back then, you had some parent at home and I remember being in my first elementary school actually walking home for lunch every day (but then when I changed schools, I stayed at the school for lunch because I had to take a train to that school).

Now you have to find some kind of childcare for kids both in the mornings and after school because of the parents' work schedule.

[FoxNewsSucks]

48. Ours was younger children earlier

I really remember that, because the year I moved up to the grade that started later, I no longer got home in time to see the 3pm start of Dark Shadows.

Getting to leave for lunch was something we always wanted to do, but I never went to a school that allowed that even for students that lived close enough.

I just think that the country should stick to a time and let individual districts, and business for that matter, make adjustments that work for them.

[BumRushDaShow]

49. "I no longer got home in time to see the 3pm start of Dark Shadows."

(I had a thing for Jonathan Frid )

[FoxNewsSucks]

51. I have the DVD set,

found it on ebay a few years ago. I'm kinda embarrassed to admit I paid $150 for it, even though new it was $400. And that of all the things that go with moving up a grade, the only thing I was worried about, and really remember, was missing the first few minutes.

Fortunately, my mother liked the show as much, so she picked us up and drove 100+ once she got out of town a ways so we only missed about 5 min, which was usually just the recap and credits.

[BumRushDaShow]

53. LOL

I think back then, I got out at 3 and there was something like a 3:25 train that would get me home just in time. We had a little portable 13" black and white TV in the sunporch (color TV was in the livingroom) so when we got off the train and ran home, we could bust through the door and immediately turn that on.

[Polybius]

76. "and was going to school when it was PITCH DARK in the mornings and we had to carry flashlights"

That actually sounds super-cool, I'd love leaving for school or work in pitch black mornings.

[BumRushDaShow]

77. You must not be a city dweller?

As an adult, it's not so much a big thing and that is what happens with this whole argument. "Adults" are basing it on their perspective and not on the impact to others like children.

That happened back in 1974 when we went "permanent DST" from January '74 to April '75.



https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/30/the-year-daylight-saving-time-went-too-far/

As a public school student in Philly during that time, there was no yellow school bus that picked me up to take me to school. Only a handful of schools had buses and probably 90% of the students either walked or got on public transit.

As much as I hate changing the clocks, I would prefer the April - October and not this stupid March - November.

(and I do know that every time we change the clocks, this argument always surfaces and then it dies down and is forgotten )

[Polybius]

79. I have lived in NYC all my life

I just have a weird sense of cool.

Why is it March to November anyway? Why was it changed from April to October? I remember it being that. I think.

[BumRushDaShow]

83. Oh no!

Don't let the Iggles fans hear that!

This stupid "March to November" happened in 2007 (after a 2005 Energy bill was passed with the phase out of incandescent bulbs, etc).

I think it was an underhanded attempt to go back to year-long DST, with the same well-worn arguments about "energy savings" (despite the fact that all you do is shift the usage from the evenings to the mornings and they act as if "everyone" has a "9-5" job so the sun is up by the time they get ready for work ) But this go around, it has the added sweetener of "more commerce in the evenings".

[frazzled]

24. You don't want school kids

Waiting for the bus or walking to school in the dark.

I’m fine with adjusting the time twice a year (even though I hate when it’s dark at 4:30 in the afternoon in the deep of winter). My biorhythms are such that they start to sense when the time needs changing in fall and spring. I pretty much sleep from 11 or 11:30 to 6 or 6:30 year round. And I like to keep the bedroom windows part way uncovered so that when I wake there’s usually at least a bit of light. To me, getting up in the dark is disorienting.

[moose65]

31. There's a solution....

There's a solution to the "kids going to school in the dark" question. Schools should start later. There's a lot of research that says that many kids (especially high school kids) do better in school later in the day. Why does school have to start at 8 am?

[Happy Hoosier]

33. Or simply don't do DST. As you mention, time is arbitrary.... NT

[Ex Lurker]

40. Because it allows parents to get their kids off to school

before leaving for work themselves.

[BumRushDaShow]

42. There have been efforts to do that

but for some reason, there has been pushback. I know there is the issue of the parent trying to get the kids out the door before they have to go out the door themselves.

But it will also be a city-suburban-rural issue with respect to getting kids to where they need to be safely - particularly when school-provided transportation is NOT available "door-to-door" (either literally or from someplace on the child's street) as is the situation in the cities.

[Gregory Peccary]

26. I agree

Nightfall before 5pm makes me grumpy - lighter later would be greater. I'm for Daylight Savings Time, all the time.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. No more DST

Just stay on regular time or at least take the change it back to April and October instead of this stupid March and November.

[moose65]

32. But "regular time" is made up, too

Humans invented standard time, just like we invented DST. One is not more "regular" than the other.

[BumRushDaShow]

36. The problem right now

dependent on what latitude you are in, is the amount of darkness in the morning when children are going to school, and that is an issue. I posted about that here and my experience with it back with Nixon - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215210164#post22

For those places in the northern latitudes that have upwards of 20 hours of darkness in winter, they have made major accommodations to the lighting for people during those hours, but further south they have NOT. And if you are in an urban area, forget it.

The "compromise" was the April - November switch to try to balance the "post-equinox" day/night cycle, which right now, is unbalanced based on when the changes are being made.

[arlyellowdog]

16. I love DST

I get up at 5. It’s dark. So what? Fireworks at 9. Long walks in the evening. Geez.

[Siwsan]

17. I hated DST, before I retired. Now - meh.

I started work at 5:30 am and tried to go to bed early because I knew my insomnia would be kicking in. DST was just a bad fit. Now I pay very little attention to clocks.

[Buckeyeblue]

18. I love it

I enjoy having light as late as possible, especially when work meetings sometimes stretch until 6 or 6:30. Having the sun rise at 4:30am doesn't make sense.

[WHITT]

39. I Think

a majority of the states have passed legislation to make DST year-round, but it would have to be done federally. I hate standard time.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

41. It seems that a lot of people really don't get it that, depending on where we live,

and no matter what the arbitrary time standard is where they live, in the summer the sun will still rise earlier and set later than it does in the winter.

And I am constantly astonished at the people who complain bitterly that it takes them WEEKS if not MONTHS to adjust each time. I gather an awful lot of people have never crossed a time zone or two, which is pretty much what the change between the two time standards is the equivalent of.

The real problem is that we make the change too early in the spring and too late in the winter. DST should start no sooner than mid-April, and end no later than the end of September. Or, if we're going to go off it completely, let's stick with standard time.

And has anyone here even noticed that most of the rest of the world also switches back and forth? I wonder if these same complaints pop up everywhere?

[BumRushDaShow]

44. "DST should start no sooner than mid-April, and end no later than the end of September."

Or, if we're going to go off it completely, let's stick with standard time.

This is exactly my position. And I have been through the nightmare of catching a Greyhound bus from Cincinnati to Indianapolis during DST (when IN wasn't changing their time) and trying to deal with the bus schedules.

[treestar]

85. The video showed

comments from Australia, Italy and Germany.

[central scrutinizer]

50. Some of the problems

[link:http://

|

[hunter]

54. Clocks and money were invented by the devil.

In my utopia I get up before dawn so I'm running as the sun rises. When I return from running I shower and work six hours or so, no automobile commuting involved.

I've managed to live like that for some of my life. Alas, severe arthritis now interferes with my running, but I still like to watch the sun rise.

The most hellish jobs I had involved long automobile commutes in stop-and-go traffic, leaving for work in the dark and arriving home in the dark.

There's no good reason for anyone in modern technological society to work as wage slaves except that a few powerful people profit immensely from it.

Most of us suffer work that is not making the world a happier place.

This thing we call economic productivity isn't productivity at all. It is in fact a measure of the damage we are doing to our earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

The high technology world economy now runs on a single universal time. The local time is calculated from that.

Time zones were originally invented by the railroads. Railroads had to run by a single clock, for safety and scheduling reasons. Railroad time was set by telegraph and chronographs.

Before railroad time local communities had their own local time loosely synchronized to "high noon."

Later radio and television broadcasting followed railroad time.

If we wanted to we could go back to local time and use a single universal time only for those activities that require it.

We could even build clocks with variable hours so the day in a community would always began at dawn. That's the environment humans evolved in; that's the rhythm the internal clocks of our bodies follow.

[Bettie]

57. I honestly don't get why this is such a big thing

There are way worse things to deal with in life than DST.

But, it doesn't bother me at all. Never has.

[moose65]

60. Hmmmm

You’re obviously an agent of Big Time 😝

[hunter]

71. It kills and maims people and it's stupid.

Here in the 21st century where we don't live by candlelight there are good reasons to abolish this spring forward fall back nonsense.

[maxsolomon]

65. DST makes perfect sense if you live in the North.

I live in the North. It puts the daylight and nighttime when it can be best utilized. I like to sleep past 6 am and I love the late sunsets.

I'm so tired of the whining. Just do it for Seattle & MPLS & Boston, OK?

[msfiddlestix]

67. California voters actually passed eliminating 2018

But inexplicably it hasn't been put into effect.

I've always DST. I still hate it. it should be abolished. there is no benefit for it.

[forgotmylogin]

70. I do enjoy having extra sunlight hours in the evening. n/t

[LetMyPeopleVote]

73. Why do we do this again?

Link to tweet

[Mosby]

74. What is permanent DST?

Isn't that just standard time?

Is the idea to change the time zones to reflect DST?

I have never lived anywhere else than AZ, so I never really understood DST at all.

[Polybius]

75. Why do most liberals oppose the two time changes?

And why do most conservatives support keeping it exactly the way it is? I hate when I side with them.

[RandomNumbers]

82. I'm curious what people's reasons are for their positions

For me, the assault on the stability of my biorhythms is my main reason to despise the changing of the clocks twice a year.

I think the most common response I've gotten from people who want to keep the time changing, is some mumbling about not wanting their kids to have to wait for the school bus in the dark. (To which I wonder, why shouldn't the schools change their schedules then? Or something? Why should people like me have to suffer for something that is completely artificially constructed and could be changed without bothering me?)

But, I am sure if we gathered everyone's responses, there would be more varied answers than just those.

[treestar]

78. That was hilarious

At this point in history, it doesn't matter what time it gets dark. May as well just stay on one standard.

[Owl]

88. I like it all just the way it is. The time change stuff is trivial.