4 ms·

Clock time is just a semantic construct. You can call it 3pm DST or 4pm EST, but it's still the same damn time. The real, simple answer IMO, is for people to wa

Clock time is just a semantic construct. You can call it 3pm DST or 4pm EST, but it's still the same damn time. The real, simple answer IMO, is for people to wake up earlier, go to work/school earlier, and go to bed earlier. Adjust our lives and work hours, don't optimize for a silly fake number on a wall.

Spivak 7y ago
And when/how do you decide to shift working hours around? You’ve basically invented DST except now everyone’s schedules have to shift instead of the clock. The “silly fake” number on the wall is roughly speaking a sundial that’s been adapted for more precise coordination. Archaic maybe but not arbitrary or fake. If humans started from scratch we would likely invent it again.
Osiris 7y ago
How do you schedule meetings without a fake number on the wall? Getting 2 or more people together takes coordination and clocks are a great way to do that.
kleiba 7y ago
Except there are some things in life that are tied to specific times and that you cannot influence. For instance, buses run less frequently in the early morning where I live, so if I want to go to work earlier, my commute would be much longer. That's just one example but of course there are quite a few other things, too.
- Spivak 7y ago
  Obviously when “totally not DST” happens the schedules for everything would shift by an hour to accommodate people.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Or more likely the summer-winter scheduled shift in a largely uncoordinated way over course of a month or two.
  - kleiba 7y ago
    Not obvious at all.
- yiyus 7y ago
  Imagine a world in which everybody does everything earlier during the summer, including buses, and we were discussing the convenience of having DST: "but if we move forward the time, the buses will start running before people go to work and they will be much less frequent when I have to leave!". We need a convenience to which everyone agrees about how to deal with the different sunrise and sunset times. The question is which system is more convenient. But you cannot evaluate one of them under the assumption that everything will work following the other one.
jonhohle 7y ago
As much as I don’t like DST (Arizonan, here), time itself is pretty effective low resolution synchronization mechanism for humans. My preference would be to standardize on UTC or metric time or something unrelated to position in the universe and adjust schedules for environmental convenience. A meeting at 4:00pm should be at 4pm (or whatever system of measure is chosen) regardless of where you are.
- Spivak 7y ago
  I think it’s funny that wall clock time is considered low resolution when a unit of human time is like 15 minutes. Like if you had a watch that just went 9:00 9:15 9:30... very little would change.
  - jonhohle 7y ago
    High ranking Starcraft players can perform 300-600 actions per minute and some gamers can perceive differences between 60fps and 120fps (24fps bothers me, and I can often notice 60hz flicker). Musicians perform, in large groups at similar frequencies - 300-450 notes per minute. Audio that’s unsynchronized by 200ms is easily perceptible. At a macro level, 15 minute resolution may be fine, but there are many sub-second tasks that humans often perform.
  - detaro 7y ago
    It'd be quite inconvenient while using transport.
rectang 7y ago
Everybody else is at work from 9 to 5. (To a first-order approximation.) I don't have control over that.
- coldtea 7y ago
  He is not talking about you going rogue, he is talking about what each country should do.
  - kmm 7y ago
    But that's just DST with extra steps.
    - yiyus 7y ago
      I think it would indeed be less practical, but also more honest. The sun rises earlier during the summer, and we actually start doing things earlier. The DST system is just hiding this so we do not need to change any schedules, at the expense of having to adjust every clock. It looks to me like most people think this is a good compromise, but I do not think the other option is unreasonable.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> Clock time is just a semantic construct. You Standardized clock time is a mechanism for coordinating social consensus around which social behavior is organized. > The real, simple answer IMO, is for people to wake up earlier, go to work/school earlier, and go to bed earlier. Debates over clock time are actually debates over coordination of behavior to make the things you suggest viable, or not, given the external dependencies which effect the incentive and cost structure for individuals doing the behaviors you discuss.

Spivak 7y ago

And when/how do you decide to shift working hours around? You’ve basically invented DST except now everyone’s schedules have to shift instead of the clock. The “silly fake” number on the wall is roughly speaking a sundial that’s been adapted for more precise coordination. Archaic maybe but not arbitrary or fake. If humans started from scratch we would likely invent it again.

Osiris 7y ago

How do you schedule meetings without a fake number on the wall? Getting 2 or more people together takes coordination and clocks are a great way to do that.

kleiba 7y ago

Except there are some things in life that are tied to specific times and that you cannot influence. For instance, buses run less frequently in the early morning where I live, so if I want to go to work earlier, my commute would be much longer. That's just one example but of course there are quite a few other things, too.

Spivak 7y ago
Obviously when “totally not DST” happens the schedules for everything would shift by an hour to accommodate people.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Or more likely the summer-winter scheduled shift in a largely uncoordinated way over course of a month or two.
- kleiba 7y ago
  Not obvious at all.
yiyus 7y ago
Imagine a world in which everybody does everything earlier during the summer, including buses, and we were discussing the convenience of having DST: "but if we move forward the time, the buses will start running before people go to work and they will be much less frequent when I have to leave!". We need a convenience to which everyone agrees about how to deal with the different sunrise and sunset times. The question is which system is more convenient. But you cannot evaluate one of them under the assumption that everything will work following the other one.

jonhohle 7y ago

As much as I don’t like DST (Arizonan, here), time itself is pretty effective low resolution synchronization mechanism for humans. My preference would be to standardize on UTC or metric time or something unrelated to position in the universe and adjust schedules for environmental convenience. A meeting at 4:00pm should be at 4pm (or whatever system of measure is chosen) regardless of where you are.

Spivak 7y ago
I think it’s funny that wall clock time is considered low resolution when a unit of human time is like 15 minutes. Like if you had a watch that just went 9:00 9:15 9:30... very little would change.
- jonhohle 7y ago
  High ranking Starcraft players can perform 300-600 actions per minute and some gamers can perceive differences between 60fps and 120fps (24fps bothers me, and I can often notice 60hz flicker). Musicians perform, in large groups at similar frequencies - 300-450 notes per minute. Audio that’s unsynchronized by 200ms is easily perceptible. At a macro level, 15 minute resolution may be fine, but there are many sub-second tasks that humans often perform.
- detaro 7y ago
  It'd be quite inconvenient while using transport.

rectang 7y ago

Everybody else is at work from 9 to 5. (To a first-order approximation.) I don't have control over that.

coldtea 7y ago
He is not talking about you going rogue, he is talking about what each country should do.
- kmm 7y ago
  But that's just DST with extra steps.
  - yiyus 7y ago
    I think it would indeed be less practical, but also more honest. The sun rises earlier during the summer, and we actually start doing things earlier. The DST system is just hiding this so we do not need to change any schedules, at the expense of having to adjust every clock. It looks to me like most people think this is a good compromise, but I do not think the other option is unreasonable.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Clock time is just a semantic construct. You Standardized clock time is a mechanism for coordinating social consensus around which social behavior is organized. > The real, simple answer IMO, is for people to wake up earlier, go to work/school earlier, and go to bed earlier. Debates over clock time are actually debates over coordination of behavior to make the things you suggest viable, or not, given the external dependencies which effect the incentive and cost structure for individuals doing the behaviors you discuss.