8 ms·

...no, actually it’s extremely logical. Changing clocks society wide is far easier than getting every single person and company to adjust its schedule.

Lvl999Noob 6y ago
Perhaps it was easier in the times before the internet. Now a consistent timeline should be far more convenient than not having to change your habits by a little bit. Edit: If changing schedule is normalized, then it would be just as convenient as changing the clock. In countries without DST, if someone started using DST instead of changing their own schedule, it would be just as difficult.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal. That’s infinitely less complicated than asking your boss if you can start earlier, which means the store at the subway station will need to be open an hour earlier (since its business comes from commuters), which means restaurants will need to be open earlier to address the lunch crowd, which means your doctor will need to schedule appointments earlier, on and on.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    In all fairness, people like parents with young children, pets, etc. find time changes disruptive. That said, there are good reasons to shift schedules in mid latitudes and daylight saving time is a good way to do that if you don't want 4am sunrises in the summer or heading out in the pitch black in the winter. The reality is that if you don't do daylight savings, you're not going to have a collective switch in schedules and you're going to have to deal with what, for most, is sub-optimal sunlight. Personally, I don't care much now because I mostly set my own schedule. But I'd have hated eliminating daylight savings when I was on a more fixed schedule.
    - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
      What's the problem with 4am sunrises?
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Because most people would prefer the 4am-5am hour of sun in the evening after work.
        GoblinSlayer 6y ago
        What, morning sunlight is worse than evening sunlight?
        ghaff 6y ago
        For many people? Yes. They wake up in time to go to work and they do their outdoor recreational activities in the evening. Of course, there are morning people who appreciate early morning time to go for a run or whatever but I'm willing to bet that most people prefer their sunlight after work.
        xboxnolifes 6y ago
        I prefer the sun out when I'm awake.
        GoblinSlayer 6y ago
        Yes? The sun is out in the morning for sure.
        NeutronStar 6y ago
        Don't tell them the USA tried yearly DST in 1976 and people hated it, resulting in no yearly DST coming back with all its issues. No sun in the morning sucks more than no sun in the evening.
        6y ago
  - bluefirebrand 6y ago
    > I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal Everyone, and I mean everyone, I talk to about DST hates DST and wants it gone. It's definitely not just programmers who dislike it.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    I think it's hugely inconvenient, I have to shift my waking and sleeping time by an hour twice a year and it takes at least a week to settle into the new schedule, and I have at least a half dozen clocks to shift time on, including one that needs a ladder. Without DST why would I need to ask my boss to start an hour earlier? I've lived in places without DST and it was just fine, I didn't notice or miss any "extra" hour of daylight.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. I don't think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is not a huge pain in the ass. Twice a year your bodyclock gets screwed up and you risk getting to work at the wrong time; once a year you even get a shorter night of sleep. In Europe (hardly "programmer's country"), it took very simple polling to discover that DST was hugely unpopular. The population at large simply does not benefit, it was introduced for the good of industry and we're largely leaving behind that world. Good riddance.
    - BrandoElFollito 6y ago
      To be fair, the polling went largly unnoticed (at least in France). I discovered it by chance in the middle of summer, shortly before it got closed. Then the results were published and a few people were pissed off for not having been informed. OTOH, it would have had been a discussion for 20 years otherwise. I am happy we just have one tole shift left (to move to summer time, yay for me because I am on the western edge of a timezone)
- kjakm 6y ago
  It's even easier post-internet. Your clocks automatically change for you now. In the past you had to remember when the change occurred and updated all your clocks manually - and if you forgot you ended up an hour late/early to any Sunday appointment after the change.
- remram 6y ago
  Your argument sounds very similar to the "let's abolish timezones" argument so let me post this again: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish Changing your schedule works for you and your boss, but does not let people in other parts of the world know when they can reach you. Officially shifting something is necessary, and then you might as well have timezones.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    I find it insane that there are otherwise-smart people in the world that want to abolish time zones. For example, this NY Times article. [1] In includes the most bizarre history: > A century and a half ago, time zones didn’t exist. They were a consequence of the invention of railroads. ... and goes on to describe that it's suddenly so confusing and laughable that when it was 7:00 in New York, it would now be 8:00 in Chicago and 5:00 in San Francisco. But what on Earth did the writer think the time was in San Francisco before there were time zones? Before there were time zones, everyone synchronized to local noon. The result was much more fine-grained "time zones." What time zones did was to actually flatten those difference, leading to fewer time zones, because now suddenly the time in Maine was the same as the time in Michigan, despite being at completely different longitudes. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/time-to-dump-time-zones.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/time-to-du...
    - amalcon 6y ago
      For some evidence of this, consider that sundials have existed since about 1500 BCE. The existence of such a device easily disproves the notion that the "current time" was ever the same globally. Even mechanical clocks would obviously need to be set such that they would agree with a sundial, or the reading of the mechanical clock would be useless in a world where others are using sundials.
    - WorldMaker 6y ago
      Some extended timezone databases even have tried to collect historic city timezones from before the railroads, most often to the nearest 15 minute offset, but sometimes even minute specific offsets. It's interesting to explore those. On that Michigan versus Maine thing, as someone in a city that historically was -0045 from its current timezone, I feel it interesting to point out that DST is closer to local noon than "Standard Time" in the city, versus that cities that define the other edge of the time zone and have local noon closer to Standard Time noon. (Our hour-wide time zones make the question of DST versus Standard Time much more complex than just picking one or the other, when talking about abolishing DST or standardizing only on DST.)
- exporectomy 6y ago
  What's this inconvenience you're talking about? I often don't even realize when daylight savings changes because everything is automatic. My alarm wakes me up at the new correct time, the clocks on my phone and computer have adjusted themselves. Sometimes I wonder why the clock on the oven is wrong and then Google to find out that daylight savings just happened. Maybe some people have more dependence on non-internet-connected clocks or work through the night on Sunday?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fishywang 6y ago
>than getting every single person and company to adjust its schedule but by using DST we are just pretending that we didn't ask people/companies to adjust their schedules. in reality they did, just the "clock" stayed the same.
- dhimes 6y ago
  Exactly. Changing our clocks is changing our schedules, the easy way.
- kukx 6y ago
  Yes, it is similar to how creating inflation by the government is just a way to tax poor and the middle class, without actually rising taxes.
  - rowls66 6y ago
    Wrong. Inflation is a way to tax lenders, and reward debtors who get to repay their debts with less valuable currency. As the poor and middle class are more likely to be net debtors, they tend to benefit from inflation.

Lvl999Noob 6y ago

Perhaps it was easier in the times before the internet. Now a consistent timeline should be far more convenient than not having to change your habits by a little bit. Edit: If changing schedule is normalized, then it would be just as convenient as changing the clock. In countries without DST, if someone started using DST instead of changing their own schedule, it would be just as difficult.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal. That’s infinitely less complicated than asking your boss if you can start earlier, which means the store at the subway station will need to be open an hour earlier (since its business comes from commuters), which means restaurants will need to be open earlier to address the lunch crowd, which means your doctor will need to schedule appointments earlier, on and on.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In all fairness, people like parents with young children, pets, etc. find time changes disruptive. That said, there are good reasons to shift schedules in mid latitudes and daylight saving time is a good way to do that if you don't want 4am sunrises in the summer or heading out in the pitch black in the winter. The reality is that if you don't do daylight savings, you're not going to have a collective switch in schedules and you're going to have to deal with what, for most, is sub-optimal sunlight. Personally, I don't care much now because I mostly set my own schedule. But I'd have hated eliminating daylight savings when I was on a more fixed schedule.
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    What's the problem with 4am sunrises?
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Because most people would prefer the 4am-5am hour of sun in the evening after work.
      - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
        What, morning sunlight is worse than evening sunlight?
        ghaff 6y ago
        For many people? Yes. They wake up in time to go to work and they do their outdoor recreational activities in the evening. Of course, there are morning people who appreciate early morning time to go for a run or whatever but I'm willing to bet that most people prefer their sunlight after work.
        xboxnolifes 6y ago
        I prefer the sun out when I'm awake.
        GoblinSlayer 6y ago
        Yes? The sun is out in the morning for sure.
        NeutronStar 6y ago
        Don't tell them the USA tried yearly DST in 1976 and people hated it, resulting in no yearly DST coming back with all its issues. No sun in the morning sucks more than no sun in the evening.
      - 6y ago
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  > I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. The clock changes twice a year, big deal Everyone, and I mean everyone, I talk to about DST hates DST and wants it gone. It's definitely not just programmers who dislike it.
- Johnny555 6y ago
  I think it's hugely inconvenient, I have to shift my waking and sleeping time by an hour twice a year and it takes at least a week to settle into the new schedule, and I have at least a half dozen clocks to shift time on, including one that needs a ladder. Without DST why would I need to ask my boss to start an hour earlier? I've lived in places without DST and it was just fine, I didn't notice or miss any "extra" hour of daylight.
- toyg 6y ago
  > I don’t think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is much of an inconvenience. I don't think anyone other than programmers thinks DST is not a huge pain in the ass. Twice a year your bodyclock gets screwed up and you risk getting to work at the wrong time; once a year you even get a shorter night of sleep. In Europe (hardly "programmer's country"), it took very simple polling to discover that DST was hugely unpopular. The population at large simply does not benefit, it was introduced for the good of industry and we're largely leaving behind that world. Good riddance.
  - BrandoElFollito 6y ago
    To be fair, the polling went largly unnoticed (at least in France). I discovered it by chance in the middle of summer, shortly before it got closed. Then the results were published and a few people were pissed off for not having been informed. OTOH, it would have had been a discussion for 20 years otherwise. I am happy we just have one tole shift left (to move to summer time, yay for me because I am on the western edge of a timezone)
kjakm 6y ago
It's even easier post-internet. Your clocks automatically change for you now. In the past you had to remember when the change occurred and updated all your clocks manually - and if you forgot you ended up an hour late/early to any Sunday appointment after the change.
remram 6y ago
Your argument sounds very similar to the "let's abolish timezones" argument so let me post this again: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish Changing your schedule works for you and your boss, but does not let people in other parts of the world know when they can reach you. Officially shifting something is necessary, and then you might as well have timezones.
- SamBam 6y ago
  I find it insane that there are otherwise-smart people in the world that want to abolish time zones. For example, this NY Times article. [1] In includes the most bizarre history: > A century and a half ago, time zones didn’t exist. They were a consequence of the invention of railroads. ... and goes on to describe that it's suddenly so confusing and laughable that when it was 7:00 in New York, it would now be 8:00 in Chicago and 5:00 in San Francisco. But what on Earth did the writer think the time was in San Francisco before there were time zones? Before there were time zones, everyone synchronized to local noon. The result was much more fine-grained "time zones." What time zones did was to actually flatten those difference, leading to fewer time zones, because now suddenly the time in Maine was the same as the time in Michigan, despite being at completely different longitudes. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/time-to-dump-time-zones.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/time-to-du...
  - amalcon 6y ago
    For some evidence of this, consider that sundials have existed since about 1500 BCE. The existence of such a device easily disproves the notion that the "current time" was ever the same globally. Even mechanical clocks would obviously need to be set such that they would agree with a sundial, or the reading of the mechanical clock would be useless in a world where others are using sundials.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    Some extended timezone databases even have tried to collect historic city timezones from before the railroads, most often to the nearest 15 minute offset, but sometimes even minute specific offsets. It's interesting to explore those. On that Michigan versus Maine thing, as someone in a city that historically was -0045 from its current timezone, I feel it interesting to point out that DST is closer to local noon than "Standard Time" in the city, versus that cities that define the other edge of the time zone and have local noon closer to Standard Time noon. (Our hour-wide time zones make the question of DST versus Standard Time much more complex than just picking one or the other, when talking about abolishing DST or standardizing only on DST.)
exporectomy 6y ago
What's this inconvenience you're talking about? I often don't even realize when daylight savings changes because everything is automatic. My alarm wakes me up at the new correct time, the clocks on my phone and computer have adjusted themselves. Sometimes I wonder why the clock on the oven is wrong and then Google to find out that daylight savings just happened. Maybe some people have more dependence on non-internet-connected clocks or work through the night on Sunday?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fishywang 6y ago

>than getting every single person and company to adjust its schedule but by using DST we are just pretending that we didn't ask people/companies to adjust their schedules. in reality they did, just the "clock" stayed the same.

dhimes 6y ago
Exactly. Changing our clocks is changing our schedules, the easy way.
kukx 6y ago
Yes, it is similar to how creating inflation by the government is just a way to tax poor and the middle class, without actually rising taxes.
- rowls66 6y ago
  Wrong. Inflation is a way to tax lenders, and reward debtors who get to repay their debts with less valuable currency. As the poor and middle class are more likely to be net debtors, they tend to benefit from inflation.