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You didn't actually make many claims to counter the "for the kids" argument. The fact that kids in Alaska do that is unsurprising, but how does it affect them?

• jedberg 10y ago
  As others pointed out society adjusts. In Anchorage for example elementary school starts between 9am and 9:30am to account for the late sunrise.
  • raldi 10y ago
    Sure, but "society adjusts" works both ways: Society also adjusts to turning the clocks back and forth. The question isn't whether society can adjust, but rather which society prefers: winter morning sunlight or not changing clocks. If two people come to opposite conclusions on that point (as you and I do), there's really nothing left to do but agree to disagree.
    • CaptSpify 10y ago
      A small subset of society (school-children) needing to adjust is much less of a hassle than everyone adjusting though. I'd be curious to see how many subsets of society would prefer changing their clocks, vs keeping them the same.
      • raldi 10y ago
        It's not just schoolchildren. People on HN have a skewed perspective here because we generally don't get in trouble if we're not at work by 9:00 (or earlier). Those who do are more likely to appreciate the extra hour of winter morning sun.
        • CaptSpify 10y ago
          yeah, thats kind of my point. I wonder if there's enough sub-sets of society that it's actually a majority or not?
          • raldi 10y ago
            And my point is that since elected representatives across the country and around the world have reviewed DST a number of times over the years and have usually chosen to keep it, the simplest explanation is that it reflects the will of the majority in those locales. It's possible that it doesn't, but like I said, Occam's Razor makes the simplest explanation the default until evidence to the contrary is presented.
• henrikschroder 10y ago
  At the latitudes of Alaska, the length of the day shrinks very rapidly around the time of the daylight savings switch. A bit more than a week after the switch, sunrise has moved back one hour, thereby eliminating any further effect of daylight savings. Making a single one-hour shift makes absolutely no sense at all. At the latitudes of California, the length of the day doesn't shrink as fast, and the effects of the daylight savings switch last over a month. There's a little bit of sense in having it here, but not a lot. Europe lies much farther north than the US, and the Scandinavian countries are on roughly the same latitudes as Alaska. In the winter it is dark when you go to school/work, and it is dark when you come home from school/work. Seasonal mood disorders are a thing, but daylight savings time doesn't help one bit, there's simply not enough sunlight in the day, and shifting it back and forth doesn't do squat.
  • Dylan16807 10y ago
    >there's simply not enough sunlight in the day, and shifting it back and forth doesn't do squat. If you could move the daylight hours without breaking everyone's schedules, I would bet that filling 4pm through 8pm with sunlight would be very effective.
    • henrikschroder 10y ago
      I would bet that's highly individual, some people would love the sunlight in the morning to help them wake up, others would like it on their lunch break, and some, like you, would like it in the evening. Tough cookie. :-)
      • Dylan16807 10y ago
        I'm not really talking about when I want sunlight. I'm talking about the ability for sunlight to affect you. In the morning? That's half an hour through a window. At lunch? Slightly longer, still not much. In the evening? You can go outside and really soak in the sun. Evening is the only part of day where people are consistently both awake and able to go somewhere sunny for an extended period. Alternatively we could shut everything down for a while starting midmorning. Or keep going as we do now, with the sun not being a priority.