
American Academy of Sleep Medicine calls for elimination of daylight saving time - oftenwrong
https://aasm.org/american-academy-of-sleep-medicine-calls-for-elimination-of-daylight-saving-time/
======
crazygringo
No... make daylight savings time _permanent_ instead.

As the paper states, the biggest problem is with the _transition_.

The paper also argues that standard time aligns more naturally with our
circadian rhythm... but doesn't bother to compare that with the psychological
benefit we get from hanging out with friends in daylight after work in the
summer, or the psychological benefit of it not being dark when you go home and
have dinner with your family.

I totally get that people who wake up early in the winter prefer standard
time... but it really seems that for the population as a whole, permanent DST
is the better option. And implementing it is so easy: once we're already in
DST in the summer... you just never "fall back" to standard in the fall.

~~~
prerok
I find it really funny that a lot of people are supporting keeping DST.
Basically, we wanted to sleep in so we started to shift our work time from 6
to 7, then to 8 and now we start work at 9. Then we realized that we have no
time in the evening so let's shift the clock so that 7 o'clock is actually
earlier.

At normal time, on an equinox the night is from 6 in the evening to 6 in the
morning and midnight is actually in the middle of the night. With DST it's
from 7 to 7 and midnight is at 1. So keeping DST basically means you are
shifting to a different "non-natural" time zone.

Let's just stop the DST keeping the natural local time and get up earlier
anyway.

~~~
laumars
While I agree with your sentiment, in practice that’s a harder goal because it
means changing millions of people’s daily rituals and businesses schedules.
Everything from daily meetings, times of worship, business opening hours,
class schedules, shared spaces (eg conference rooms, hired gym spaces for
yoga, karate etc)...everything would have to change and everyone would be
required to make that change themselves for it to work.

There is no “just” in “just stop the DST keeping the natural local time”.

~~~
Natanael_L
Intentionally making time be permanently stupid is a bit stupid, IMHO. Lots of
existing scientific standards that are stuck with old cruft that makes things
annoying (like the definition of electrical minus/plus poles), why add more
cruft?

~~~
simias
It's all just conventions anyway. Why does it matter if solar noon doesn't
match with wallclock noon? The perception of the solar time varies wildly with
season, latitude and even weather (how 6pm feels like nighttime in January but
the end of the afternoon in July for instance). Sundials are not exactly in
widespread uses these days.

There's also plenty of precedent for countries and blocks of countries using
"unnatural" time zones for convenience. Warsaw is currently in the same
timezone as Berlin, Paris, and Madrid. I mean look at this map, many countries
are already offset by one hour from their natural time zone, DST or not:
[http://www.trbimg.com/img-56c3a997/turbine/la-fi-mh-your-
tim...](http://www.trbimg.com/img-56c3a997/turbine/la-fi-mh-your-time-zone-is-
your-destiny-20160216)

That's true for a big chunk of the USA too.

I'm also in favor of keeping DST full time, I think it's the pragmatic choice.
That being said it's been pointed out to me that part of the reason I like DST
is because I don't have kids since when you have children going to school you
typically need to get up earlier to prepare them and bring them there. Having
DST year-round would mean that it would probably still be night time when the
kids arrive to school.

~~~
mapgrep
> It's all just conventions anyway. Why does it matter if solar noon doesn't
> match with wallclock noon?

Why does this thread exist? Because some scientists/doctors studied this very
question and concluded that there are negative health and safety implications
to continuing to do what we are doing. Conventions have consequences.

~~~
bobthepanda
The problem is with the change and transition, not the fact that solar time
doesn't inherently match wallclock time.

Even the actual position statement doesn't have a strong argument for which
one should be the permanent time, and is worded as a hunch:

> _Although chronic effects of remaining in daylight saving time year-round
> have not been well studied_ , daylight saving time is less aligned with
> human circadian biology — which ... _could_ result in circadian misalignment

[https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.8780](https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.8780)
(emphasis mine)

------
pc2g4d
Most people seem to have missed that this association of experts in _sleep_
are saying it is better for us to have solar noon and official noon more
closely aligned. It's not a popular position, but overall I think it would be
better for us to move to standard time permanently and shift our society to
accommodate the _sun_ rather than pretending it isn't there.

~~~
TACIXAT
At my previous job we were discussing this, I think because it was up for a
vote in California. My friend's argument was that children would be walking to
school in the dark and more would end up getting hit by cars. It was really
funny to me that we won't consider that our school schedules are stupid, or
that our driving requirements or vehicles are somehow inadequate, but no, in
fact it is time that is wrong.

~~~
cwhiz
What’s the difference between changing the time and changing our schedules?

~~~
protonfish
2 things I can think of right off the bat are that changing schedules can be
done per-person, per-industry, etc. and doesn't have to be forced upon
everyone whether it's good for them or not. Another reason is the technical
difficulties of readjusting all time keep devices, scheduled software, etc. is
a nightmare that should be avoided if you can. It's hard not to see that
adjusting individual schedules is the easier and more effective
implementation.

~~~
cwhiz
This reminds me of the idea that we could cut traffic if we staggered office
hours. In theory it would work but in reality businesses don’t operate that
way.

I feel fairly confident that the end result of this would just be that
everyone changes their schedules together. Too many industries are linked.

------
mrg2k8
Just wanted to say that here in the EU we have voted to abolish time changing,
with the countries deciding if they want to stick with the summer time or
winter time.
[https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/summertime_en](https://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/summertime_en)

~~~
corty
I'm not holding my breath for the implementation of this decision. After the
public poll, politicians quickly claimed to want to implement this right away.
Just to descend into the usual inability to decide upon anything (who wants
which time zone, how do we align neighbouring timezones, do we want a
timezone-difference between France and Germany (that geographically should be
there, etc) that is characteristic for the EU.

My prediction is that the abolition will be delayed for another 7 or 8 years,
after which they will just decide to drop the matter since "it's already a
decade old".

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
EU laws have fixed implementation deadlines and financial penalties for
failing to implement them. If it completes the legislative process, it will
happen. But indeed said process could be slow.

------
dudeinjapan
Imagine there's no time zones. It's easy if you try. No AM or PM. And no
Daylight Saving Time.

Imagine all the people... using UTC.

You--ooh--ooh-ooh-ooh

You may say I'm dreamer. Because I set my alarm wrong. I hope someday you will
join us. And the world will live as one.

~~~
idbehold
[https://qntm.org/abolish](https://qntm.org/abolish)

~~~
dudeinjapan
Just wait until we become a multi-planet species...!

------
beefman
The natural change in daylight hours is pretty sudden, actually. Either
sunrise or noon (or both) have to move. DST is a compromise to keep them from
moving too much. But sunrise is a more important time than noon.

So I've proposed something I call Sunrise Standard Time. It abolishes DST and
splits the 24 primary longitudinal time zones into as many as 120 zones by
cutting at the tropics and polar circles. Clocks adjust gradually each day to
keep sunrise near 6am. The tropics would follow sunrise at the equator, and
the temperate zones (between the tropics and polar circles) would follow
sunrise at ~ 30deg N or S. That adjustment is about 1 minute per day.

To refine things slightly, sunrise can be fixed at the latitude which divides
the population in half in each zone (with the constraint that the N and S
zones are mirrored). Those latitudes are approximately: 13.5deg for the
tropical zone, 34.5deg for the temperate zones, and 68.5deg for all 2 million
people living in the polar zones.

A further refinement is to split the per-capita sunrise aberration instead.
This pushes the boundaries to slightly higher latitudes. For the temperate
zones, the minimum per-capita offset of sunrise from 6am on the solstice is
achieved by following sunrise at 37.5deg. That's pretty close to Washington DC
(39deg), Beijing (40deg), and Tokyo (36deg).

I suggest the tropics use the equator for simplicity.

SST will improve sun tracking for the vast majority of the world's population
with no sudden changes. It will also be easier to understand than DST. There
are no dates to remember and, because the N and S zones are mirrors, it's easy
for someone in e.g. New York to understand what's going on in Sydney.

Supporting links:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Hours_of...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Hours_of_daylight_vs_latitude_vs_day_of_year_cmglee.svg)

[http://world.andersen.im/](http://world.andersen.im/)

~~~
thdrdt
_" Clocks adjust gradually each day to keep sunrise near 6am"_

While your idea might be very good, this is the reason why it won't be used.
Nobody is going to be happy to adjust their analog clock every day.

~~~
jere
Who still uses analog clocks though? If you don't care for modern tech, just
wake up with the sun and you're on time anyway.

The idea of keeping track of this system in software sounds terrifying though.
Getting rid of DST would simplify things, but this would ramp up the
complexity a lot.

~~~
masklinn
You can replace "analog clock" by "clock" in general. My computers update on
their own, but none of my bedside clock, oven clock, HVAC clock, … do, and all
of them are electronic.

Also many people do, in fact, enjoy wristwatches or analog wall-clocks.

------
idoh
Either eliminate it (preference) or make it permanent. Either choice is better
than this fall back / spring forward nonsense.

A - with kids it was super annoying having to deal with this

B - noon is defined as when the sun is at the highest point in the sky (with
allowance for timezones), simple

C - just let people figure out sleep patterns that work the best for them, do
we really need a national law around this?

~~~
tkzed49
with respect to C, probably, because many people don't choose the clock time
at which they have to be at work, at school, etc.

~~~
umvi
But surely they have the agency to choose the clock time at which they go to
bed, no?

~~~
shados
Neighbors and city noise ordinance dictates when you can go to bed. Neighbors,
city noise ordinance, work and school hours dictate when you have to wake up.

~~~
nitrogen
One of the reasons I had to leave SF was because the sleepable window was just
too squeezed. Between people making noise in the evening, cars and motorcycles
racing at night, and sunlight, cars, and construction in the morning, there
just wasn't enough time to wind down (this can take a long time depending on
chronotype) _and_ get enough sleep.

------
elihu
I wonder what the logistical challenges would be to adding an hour of actual
daylight to a medium-sized U.S. city around dusk by means of orbital mirrors?

Sunlight irradiance is about 1000 watts per square meter if the sun is
straight up. We'll say that a city center is about 10 square km, and that 300
watts per square meter is an acceptable afternoon-evening light level. So, if
I did the math right, that's 3 billion watts if we wanted to illuminate
electrically with 100% efficient bulbs, or 3 million kwhs to provide one
evening of light, which would be $300,000 per night at 10 cents per kwh.

On the other hand, a giant sheet of mylar in space, correctly positioned,
might have a similar effect with no recurring energy cost. I imagine the
orbital mechanics and optics situation would be challenging, but could at
least be fun and interesting to talk about.

~~~
matsemann
Sounds like the Norwegian town Rjukan that doesn't get any sunlight during
winter, so they put a huge mirror on a mountain top.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/rjukan-sun-
nor...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/rjukan-sun-norway-town-
mirrors)

~~~
elihu
I like that kind of problem solving.

------
vmurthy
I don't see a mention of the spike in accidents directly attributable to DST
anywhere in this post on HN. I recently read "Why we sleep"[0] and there's a
fascinating section on the spike in accidents following the shift in timings.
I can't quite find the exact article but this[1] study showed a 6.3% increase
in number of _fatal_ accidents in the 6-day period after DST kicks in compared
to (presumably) other days. And this was consistent over a 10-year period!

So... given the pros and cons(especially around health and safety) .. what
would be your answer? :) [0]
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-
sleep](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep)

[1] [https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/does-daylight-saving-
tim...](https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/does-daylight-saving-time-cause-
auto-accidents)

~~~
vosper
I’m not saying that specific section of the book is wrong, but you should be
aware that both the book and author have come in for some pretty serious
criticism, including misrepresenting research

[https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep)

~~~
vmurthy
Thank you for this :) . Will read this article get the opposing views as well
and hopefully improve my thinking.

------
jlos
This thread is exactly why it will never change - you'll never get consensus
which time to choose.

I don't care which we pick, I just don't want to flip my (and my kids)
schedule every 6 months

------
robbiemitchell
I'm generally in favor of keeping DST permanent, as others have said.

But if you wanted to make it more consistent and strike a balance, would it
make more sense to flip the adjustments? Pull back on the nighttime daylight
during summer, and add to it during winter.

In NYC during summer it would get dark around 7pm, and in winter around
5:30pm... instead of 8pm and 4:30pm like we have now.

------
Guthur
I don't care which we pick but I personally find a centrally managed shift in
everyone's daily rhythm twice a year highly draconian, i have the somewhat
luxury that I don't really need to shift my sleeping pattern immediately but
it's highly disruptive to have to shift my daily routines.

So yes please let's all stop this archaic ritual.

------
vyrotek
No DST is definitely something I love about living in Phoenix.

------
dathinab
Given that today most people do:

\- Use smartphones as a primary (or major) clock

\- Have clocks at home which automatically sync the clock.

I wonder if we can just split the one large change of 1h to 6 smaller changes
of each 10 minutes spaced apart by a week or two.

I guess people with traditional wristband clocks or similar would be really
annoyed by it.

But then if you forget you are only 10min late/early ;) (which yes might be
fatal if you miss a train or so).

Anyway research shows that permanent summer time would have bad biological
consequences especially for people with a social jet lack, i.e. people which
need to stand up before their inner clock likes it.

Ironically this tend to also be the people which often favor permanent summer
time as it allows them to better use the reduced sunlight time in winter.
Except that this has a very good chance of making their social yet lack worse.
Which can have all kind of negative health effect from reduced mental capacity
over mode swings to overweight (or at least correlates with such negative
effect, and I know correlation is not causation).

~~~
efreak
> Have clocks at home which automatically sync the clock.

I'd say not. Your computer has a clock in it, yes, but it's unlikely to be
your main method of telling time. Same for any smart devices you have. There's
several analog wall clocks and several digital alarm clocks with battery
backups in my house; none of these sync the time. In comparison, there's only
4 rooms with computers in them, and these are usually off or on screensaver.
The time on a computer is small and only shown in the status/menu bar, making
it hardly convenient to check from the doorway. Smart speakers only respond to
their owners, and require stopping what you're doing to hear a response.

The average user on HN is far more likely to have such devices than the
average person in general; most of my friends have at most one such devices in
either their living room or bedroom, and that's it. Half the people I work
with wear and use a wristwatch at work (_not_ a smartwatch).

------
warabe
My point is kind of off-topic, but as a financial analyst, I really want every
country to stop using DST.

It is such a hustle to cope with financial tick data taking DST into
consideration... If you focus on only one country, it is not a major problem.
However, when you start looking at various markets (e.g. London, U.S., Japan
etc) at the same time, things get crazy...

~~~
dade_
It adds to the confusion for meetings as some places don’t change time, others
at different times of the year. I am happy to take Russia’s lead on this one.

------
imoverclocked
I would love to see a new standard of time that talks about sunrise+1hr
instead of artificially moving our antiquated wall clocks around. We have
enough technology to make it happen and what we really care about is when the
Sun comes up on a particular part of the globe anyway.

The whole time zone + offset is such an antique way of looking at things.

~~~
pseudalopex
[https://qntm.org/continuous](https://qntm.org/continuous)

------
kylecordes
Like many others, I agree with summer time year-round; but oppose staying on
wintertime year-round. This is a trade-off between time at work/school versus
free time, socialization time, outdoor leisure activities, etc., and how the
two categories split the limited resource of daylight.

~~~
Ericson2314
What if we did winter time but switched to 8-4 workday? :O :O :O

Once we stop switching, the numbers are arbitrary.

~~~
geofft
What if we did winter time but switched to a 1-5 workday? The 9-5 schedule
came from an era when roughly half as many people (per capita) were in the
workforce. :)

~~~
Ericson2314
Hahaha, easy there, can't propose too many good idea at once or the
argumentative experiment looses it's controls. :)

------
jader201
The obvious solution is to just surround the earth in a giant spherical LED
source that is on for the entire globe for 16 hours, then off for 8.

Repeat for all 365 days.

~~~
topher515
Instead of evenly distributing the lights on the inner surface we could
distribute them at random. That way at "night" we could turn the LEDs to very
low and still have "stars". Then during the day we would turn them up and it
would be pretty cool to have thousands and thousands of micro suns.

------
dexterdog
Can we just all go UTC and be done with this nonsense? Let organizations
change their hours throughout the year. People would get used to the cycle
fast enough, you know, after they're done killing people like me who think
this is a good idea.

~~~
flukus
Then there would be a thousand timezones and no one would agree what normal
business hours are.

~~~
asdff
business hours would just follow whatever the national stock exchange settles
upon, like they do now. people in finance in SF keep eastern time.

~~~
Jolter
It would most certainly not. What does a fruit stall in Minnesota care about
the NYSE’s opening hours?

------
mark_l_watson
Right on. We live in Arizona where daylight savings time is not implemented.
Much nicer and there is not time transition twice a year.

Off topic, but monitoring your sleep can serve as a training resource for
improving sleep. My wife and I allow our AppleWatches to share sleep data with
our iPhones (data never leaves the watch/phone, never goes to the cloud). My
sleep is so much better now because I have learned habits that improve my
sleep metrics. Recommended.

------
ekianjo
Next: make the actual time where you are located closer to the actual solar
time instead of being several hours off (plus or minus) versus the actual
solar time.

------
usr1106
Here openening hours have been "liberalized" a lot during the last 5-10 years.
Bars are open until 4 - 5 am, supermarkets even 24/7\. And an increasing
amount of people are using those, otherwise businesses wouldn't offer them.
Many travel over timezones more than once year just for fun. All that disrupts
sleep patterns. The one hour twice a year seems minor in comparison.

~~~
Jolter
I think if you look up the actual facts, less than 10% of the world’s
population travels internationally in any given year. Check your privilege
please.

------
marcrosoft
Let’s switch to the metric system too!

In today’s political climate I could totally see this becoming political. “
it’s unamerican” to want to the metric system!”

~~~
wjsetzer
I have to constantly look up US imperial amounts. I like that the imperial
system is sometimes based on twelves, the problem is where it isn't (volume is
based on doubling, inches are successive halving). It's really easy to divide
things into halves, quarters, and thirds in imperial, where in the metric
system you have to round.

Honestly, a system completely standardized around twelves or sixties would be
near optimal.

~~~
zeveb
I forget where I first saw the idea, but I have adopted it as my own: the
really sane thing for the French revolutionaries to have done would have been
to switch to a duodecimal ('dozenal') counting system, not to base things on
ten (which is a really terrible number).

------
personlurking
Lots of geographical locations in my time zone (AST), including Puerto Rico
and USVI, don't observe DST [1]. It's nice to not have to care about it for a
change, as opposed to when I was living stateside.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Time_Zone#Areas_cover...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Time_Zone#Areas_covered)

~~~
coronadisaster
There are different issues in PR... Like how long it takes to get power back
after a hurricane

------
fiatjaf
There was never any proof or big evidence that DST has any advantage in any
aspect. It was implemented using pure ignorance.

In Brazil it was suspended last year and I hope this year too. No one was
upset by the change, much to the contrary, and as far as I know no one said
anything about noticeable changes in energy consumption or anything.

------
sumanthvepa
What I love about living in the tropics, is that the time of sunrise varies
very little. In my location in South India, sunrise is between 5:45 AM and
6:30 AM and sunset similarly between 5:45 PM and 6:30 PM. Twilight is short.
So essentially, I don't need an alarm to wake up. Sunlight streams through my
windows in the moringing, and when it's dark I know that its time to stop
working. I love that. I used to live Seattle earlier, and never got used to
the wide variations in when sunrise and sunset actually happened.

------
austincheney
I don’t even think we need time zones. India and China do not observes DST or
time zones and they aren’t having any problems waking up, going to work, or
living due to the hour on their clocks.

~~~
pseudalopex
Some people in India think it's a problem.[1] Some people in western China
unofficially use the same time zone as neighboring countries.[2]

[1] [https://qz.com/india/1542969/indias-single-time-zone-may-
eff...](https://qz.com/india/1542969/indias-single-time-zone-may-effect-
education-and-poverty/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Time)

~~~
austincheney
Looking at the article the Xinjiang Time looks more political than functional
with the result being confusion and nonsense. Political divisions are the only
practical reason why people maintain time zones. There are people through out
the world who do just fine living on UTC or Zulu time.

------
wittyusername
Another reason to love Puerto Rico and move here - our time zone, Atlantic
Standard Time, has no daylight savings. All my fist shaking at the clouds in
EST/EDT, welp, I solved it!

------
6510
It often happens during my night shifts. You cant imagine how many plannings
can go wrong. Finishing work in 1 hour less is just about as funny as spending
an extra hour at work without actual work to do.

I wonder how much fun people who have to communicate plannings across borders
get to have:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_countr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_by_country)

------
4WIW
Would love for this pointless hack to be abolished. One less reason for
confused aliens to declare our civilization an evolutionary dead end and vote
for our recycling.

------
sjburt
Have they examined the effects of the sun rising at 4:30am in the summer (if
we adopted permanent standard time) or 9am in the winter (permanent daylight
time)?

What our current system does is keep sunrise time more consistent at the
expense of more variation in setting time. I think this is reasonable
compromise: work and school schedules are fixed, most people like to awake
near when the sun comes up, and most people have a fixed morning regime.

~~~
noahtallen
I feel that the current system makes it more difficult to have a fixed morning
routine since it totally throws off my sleep rhythms. Plus, DST introduces a
pretty abrupt change in when the sun rises and sets. If there were no DST,
then it would be a very gradual shift in those times, which I think would be
easier to handle.

------
01100011
So I keep seeing more and more support for getting rid of DST and a consensus
seems to be building. Who are the holdouts? What's their reasoning?

------
ponker
A lot of the people here clamoring for permanent Daylight Time get to set
their own hours and often wake up at 10am. But is a less powerful
socioeconomic class that has to wake up at 3am to take two hours of public
transit to open a coffeeshop at 6 before we get there. They don't have much
political power but they need to be considered in this decision.

------
m0zg
The problem is more complicated than that IMO. For any of this stuff to make
sense at all, our life and work patterns need to be able to adjust to the
fluctuation in circadian rhythm throughout the year. I do not see how this
could be done if we insist on 9-5 workday (and rigid scheduling for schools,
childcare, etc).

------
whereistimbo
Luckily I don't have to put myself into all of this nonsense since I'm living
in the equator area.

------
perryizgr8
I never understood the appeal. If you want to do things earlier or later in
the day, do it. What's it for to do with the clocks? My school used to have
different summer and winter timings. No need to decide a horribly convoluted
system of changing clocks every year.

------
jb775
> _63 percent support the elimination of seasonal time changes in favor of a
> national, fixed, year-round time, and only 11 percent oppose it_

This is some early-bird conspiracy BS. Those stats obviously don't mean people
want to eliminate daylight savings time, it means they want to eliminate the
change itself. I think a much higher % would prefer making daylight savings
time permanent (staying light out later).

Also, their justification for earlier darkness is sleep related health issues.
But what about the health issues related to hearth disease: the #1 cause of
death in the USA?[1]....think about the amount of exercise done between the
hours of 5pm-9pm (after work jogs/walks/gym, youth sports, etc). There's no
doubt in my mind there would be less overall exercise if it were constantly
dark out earlier.

[1] - [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-
death.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm)

~~~
xyhopguy
waking up two hours befor sunrise is miserable no matter how dark it stays. In
anycase, for anyone in the northern US the sun would still set before or at
5:30.

~~~
dade_
No, it is glorious watching the sun rise each morning. I miss it.

------
maerF0x0
Call me entitled, but Why not just get up with the sun and go to bed with the
sun. If the time of year makes "8" on a ticking device too early, maybe wake
up a 8:22? Core hours make sense for businesses, but at the fringes we should
just let it float.

~~~
CamelCaseName
This is what I used to do. It was glorious.

Unfortunately with a partner, and being a light sleeper, it's simply not
possible anymore. My bedtime is up to me, but my wake up time now has a hard
ceiling.

------
projektfu
We should also renormalize time zones or use modern technology to eliminate
them. It’s obnoxious having the sun rise so late in the western edge of time
zones or so early in places (like the Eastern seaboard) that should be one
zone ahead.

~~~
minusSeven
Well getting rid of daylight saving time will be one step to that.

------
xellisx
Down with timeshifting. Add more timezones, and possibly move some boundaries
around.

------
semerda
Daylight saving is not observed in few Australian states like Queensland, the
Northern Territory, Western Australia, Christmas Island or the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands. They seem to be doing well.

~~~
lostsock
We have daylight savings time in Melbourne, Australia.

Without it the sun would set at 4:07pm on the shortest day of the year, which
is incredibly depressing.

I'm so glad we have DST.

------
jalk
Serious question: The people who are sensitive to the DST swap, do they avoid
crossing into other time zones and sleep there, as that has the exact same
effect on the clock.

------
audiodude
Just came here to give props to the title of the article, using the proper
Daylight Saving Time (A system of Time for Saving Daylight) and not the
commonly heard Daylight Savings And Loan Time.

------
around_here
This entire thread is full of anti-DST madness, and since it’s HN, I can only
assume you’re all from areas that don’t have a massive swing in the length of
days. DST is amazing.

------
taeric
This is something everyone wants, but I suspect many would hate in the middle
of winter.

Folks seem to think that the day is static and we shift it. It is a bit more
complicated than that.

~~~
Cd00d
I'm confused. Standard time is already the time in winter, so abandoning ST
won't change anything about the middle of winter....

That said, I agree with an above comment to just be DT year round. I _do_ hate
afternoons/evenings in the middle of winter.

~~~
taeric
Apologies, I had to cut my comment short. You are right that the folks getting
rid of it would be fine for winter. But summer would have issues.

I was anticipating the folks that want it permanent. Who would then complain
on winter.

You could probably go for _more_ divisions in the year nowadays. Almost like
it would be if you were doing true sun clocks. But there really are no
panaceas here.

~~~
Cd00d
I like more divisions. I'm sure it fails large subsets of the population, but
for many of us time is told to us by an always internet-connected device.
NOBODY claims to be 3 minutes late because their watch was off anymore - we
all see the same time to the second.

So, why can't we just have our devices just gradually shift the time by a few
seconds each day? So that in our time zone noon stays roughly when the sun is
overhead. We have (supposed?) benefits of switching our time, without the
dangerous and disruptive discrete 1-hour events!

Not realistic, implementable, but fun and preferable to the current rough
transitions.

~~~
taeric
Agreed. As someone that have used an alarm clock ever in my life, I can most
relate to folks that want the day to be with natural light.

And now that I have kids convincing them that it is bed time when the sun is
out, is not easy. My sympathies to folks way way off the equator.

------
coucou
For non-dst reader
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4)

------
bananabiscuit
The best solution would be to keep DST but change “spring forward” to occur
not on Sunday night, but instead, an hour before lunchtime on Monday.

------
basicplus2
How about split the difference and keep that permanently..

------
semerda
I read that “every year on the Monday after the springtime switch, hospitals
report a 24% spike in heart-attack visits around the US.”. Source:
[https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-
dead...](https://www.businessinsider.com/daylight-saving-time-is-
deadly-2018-3)

If this is true then daylight saving is a bigger killer than covid-19.

Why is this even up for a debate when we killed every country’s economy for
Covid but here we are debating how our lifestyles will need to change if we
remove daylight savings. ️

------
the_other
We could go further. We could use a nonn-based clock.

Wake at -5, or -6; Lunch around 0; bed around +10. (Or whenever suits.

I’m not too serious about this. I’ve not thought it through.

------
jim-greer
Without DST, I either bike my kids to school in darkness at 8am, or the sun
rises before 5am in summer. This is in San Francisco.

------
mschuster91
While we're at it, mandatory staggering of school open times and
flexibilization of work times would also be a great idea.

------
__MatrixMan__
Can we nix time zones while we're at it?

If I want to eat breakfast when the sun comes up, what does it have to do with
the numbers on the clock?

------
awl130
The whole genesis of DST was to save energy costs (particularly during 70s oil
crisis). I don't see that mentioned anywhere

~~~
dade_
It is a fallacy. The only real reason I ever found were people in positions of
influence and power wanted another hour in the evening for a round of golf.
Though we can make DST permanent, keep the hour and eliminate the horrible
time changes.

------
lovetocode
I have been rallying around this for a long time. I think we should eliminate
time zones while we are at it.

------
tvelichkov
For me the big issue with DST is the stress to the organism it's causing at
every transition from winter to summer time. So I was wondering instead of
picking between Winter and Summer time, can't we make the transition less
stresfull? I.e. instead of shifting the time by 1 hour twice a year, shift it
by 15 minutes 8 times in a year? Maybe this way the organism won't feel it so
much?

~~~
grugagag
Everybody would be confused and late. It’s much simpler to stick to one - DST
- and not change it at all

------
coding123
Usually when this kind of article comes up there are 3 things that pop up and
are just unresolved by the next day and after enough time that no action will
be had.

1\. Make it so that we're all on ST.

2\. Make it so that we're on permanent DST.

3\. Make it so that we're all on GMT.

So can we cut the crap with these yearly things and just live with the fact
that because we invented the internet nothing in this area is going to change?

------
mmhsieh
imagine the opposite: suppose we do not have the clock switching, killer
(literally) chaos twice a year.

someone proposes it, with predictable deaths to ensue every year, forever.

who would support it?

i would not!

------
shmerl
Pick either one, but stop switching it back and forth.

------
867-5309
I wonder if they name-drop themselves in every headline..

------
valuearb
Just move to Arizona, we never had it!

------
kevsim
Can we get rid of timezones next?

------
coronadisaster
the person who invented this must not like gradual changes like the sun
provides naturally

~~~
tzs
I've wondered if at some point it would be feasible to add a second, sunrise
based time system (SBT) for use within time zones in addition to the standard
zone based time (ZBT).

You'd use ZBT for things that need to by synced or coordinated across time
zones, and SBT for things like school hours, work hours for businesses that
only have to deal with things within the time zone, store hours, local
concerts and shows and games, and similar.

The key feature of SBT is that sunrise would occur at a fixed time, say 06:00,
every day. Yes, this means that on an SBT clock, noon would not necessarily
correspond to the point of highest sun, and even more radically the interval
from 06:00 one day to 06:00 would not necessarily be exactly 24 hours.

This is essentially a continuous form of DST. In many places this would
actually give you more sunlight after work than the current DST system does,
and has no disruptive transitions. Another advantage is that it would let more
people go on schedules that let them wake up naturally from sunrise instead of
having to use an alarm.

It would be computationally more complex than what clocks currently do, but we
are at the point where it is cheap and easy to include sufficient computing
power in clocks to handle it.

~~~
pseudalopex
[https://qntm.org/continuous](https://qntm.org/continuous)

~~~
tzs
Note that what that page is talking about is quite different from what I was
wondering about.

It's talking about replacing time zone based clock time with local noon based
clock time. Each current time zone would go from having one time within it to
having 3600 times within it (assuming clocks only keep time to 1 second
resolution).

That has many drawbacks which your link ably covers.

What I'm talking about is adding a second kind of clock time within each time
zone. Each time zone would have two times within it, the current time, which
I'll call zone based time (ZBT), and a time that keeps sunrise fixed, which
I'll call sunrise based time (SBT).

It's not meant as a _replacement_ for time zones like the thing in the link.
It's meant to address the same issue as daylight savings time--better
utilization of daylight during the summer.

Many proponents of eliminating the twice yearly DST time change acknowledge
that we probably still should have some kind of seasonal schedule adjustment
at latitudes where there is a big different between the amount of daylight in
summer and winter, and usually suggest we do it by changing the hours of
things like work and school.

E.g., instead of working 8 to 5 year around, we'd work 8 to 5 part of the year
and 7 to 4 part of the year.

You can divide everything into two categories: (1) things whose times change
between winter and summer, and (2) things whose times do not change.

The idea then is to put these categories on separate clocks. Things in
category #2 are on a clock that does not have any notion of standard or
daylight time. It just ticks on, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Things in
category #1 are on a clock that does get adjusted.

So instead of having to note the date, recall if that is in the range of dates
during which we shift work an hour, so you know if you need to be in by 7 or
by 8 that day, you'd just have to remember that your work schedule is on the
SBT clock, not the ZBT clock, so you go to work the same time every time, year
around, on your SBT clock.

But why stop there? If the SBT clock just changes by an hour twice a year it
has all the disruption that the daylight savings time has. If we are going to
have a separate clock for those things we want to vary seasonally, and that
clock is going to automatically adjust, why not go all the way and make it
adjust daily?

For each region, we can figure out the best way to make use of the available
daylight for each day throughout the year, and have SBT time make it so 8 to 5
on the SBT clock each day fits in with that.

Do this right and there are no more big schedule jumps, and most people will
be able to have a sleep schedule that allows them to wake up naturally due to
the brightening morning instead of having to regularly use an alarm clock.

This might seem like it would be pretty inconvenient because you'd be
constantly dealing with some things on SBT and some on ZBT...but would you?
Most things you do locally that aren't directly tied to work or school are
still going to be influenced by them, because we need to fit other things
around them.

So I think we'd end up using SBT for most of the stuff we deal with in our
region. We'd most use ZBT for things outside the region. For instance, TV
networks would be on ZBT. But most people do things like watch TV in the
evening. I think what would happen is that you'd use SBT during the
work/school day, and when doing other things in your city, then after dinner
you'd stop looking at your SBT clock and start paying attention to your ZBT
clock.

------
dathinab
(German, sorry) Since communication yt channel which sums up the facts quite
good:

\- Sleep:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LprmzAzarRU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LprmzAzarRU)
\- DST:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwmQ6RhWk7g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwmQ6RhWk7g)

But here is a view things (Sleep):

\- we don't have a fixed inner clock, but a cyclic one which can be adjusted
"early birds" have a cycle <24h and "late owls" a cycle >24h (this means that
_only_ the abrupt change is fundamentally bad)

\- society is biased to benefit "early birds"

\- but in current society more then half of all people are "late owls"

\- using a alarm to forcefully wake you up has negative effects even if you
got enough sleep

\- the amount of sleep you need is independent of weather you are an early
bird or late owl

\- forcing owls to stand up early causes sleep deprivation

\- you can manipulate your inner clock through light exposure, food and sport.

\- the best light to affect you is the natural sun, going out (Added by me
from context:in the morning) can be especially useful

\- How your long your inner cycle is depends on your age, this effect seems to
be biologically based and appear in all people around the world

\- Sleep scientist try to convince (middle) schools to start at 9am instead of
8am because of the previous point.

And for DST:

\- 80% of people in a EU questionnaires "voted" in favor of the removal of DST

\- more people wanted to keep summer time then winter time

\- But this should be decided based on since as this has major biological
effects on the body

\- In Germany "common time" is winter time, summer time was set as sun rises
earlier in summer. (Me: No idea if that's the case in the US to or if it's the
other way around, people in Germany also use the terms summer and winter time
so "common time" isn't really a thing anymore)

\- Recap of previous points ("early birds"/"late owls"), (btw. the terms where
freely translated by me, in Germany they use Lark and Owl as terms, Lark is
known as the "early bird")

\- Explanation of Yet Lack and why it can a bit of time to fix it. (The inner
clock is a "strong oscillator")

\- More details of how the clock self calibrates itself.

\- The differences in the inner clock are often just a view minutes but due to
how it synchronizes with the day the actual differences are larger

\- Just the sunlight rising difference in the same time zone can lead to
noticeable differences in when people "naturally" stand up.

\- There is a social yet lag (your inner clock being out of sync with society)

\- Having sleep deprivation (e.g. because of social yet lack) is correlating
with all kind of problems from reduced mental capacity/abilities over mode
swings to overweight.

\- Permanent summer time would make it worse for people already being affected
by social yet lack (i.e. late owls).

\- _Because of this the scientific consensus is that (most?) scientist in that
field warn that permanent summer time would be a very bad idea for health
reason._

\- Me: Interestingly I did observe that late owls tend to more likely to have
strong opinions about permanent summer time even through this would be
biologically bad for them.

\- Most people are neither "early birds" nor "late owls" but somewhere in
between, there are more people edging in the direction of late owls.

\- Hardly anyone (<2%) has a negative social yet lack (most likely through
indirect effects). While much more have a positive social yet lack, i.e. stand
up earlier then they should. Which is way to reason why permanent summer time
would be generally bad for society due to negative biological effects on many
people.

\- _How_ bad permanent summer time is for people in general isn't clear, but
we know it is bad.

\- The negative effects are tricky to measure as they appear long time.

\- We should get away from ideas like "the early bird catches the worm" or
starting schools at 8am.

\- Due to the _potential_ serve (accumulated) consequences of choosing the
wrong time (i.e. permanent summer time) the decision should be based on
scientific analysis not of opinions about how people feel about it.

------
ReptileMan
Depends on the latitude. DST makes amazing sense in the latitudes between
Sicily and Moscow.

And I never had problem with switching. Takes a night sleep or two at most.

I think the issue just moves into culture war territory.

~~~
wott
> And I never had problem with switching. Takes a night sleep or two at most.

Don't bother to try arguing that here or on Reddit.

Apparently 99% of people in those conversations go to sleep, fall asleep and
wake up at the exact same time every single day of the year. No week-end, no
trip, no dinner, no special thing to care about, no sport, no entertainment,
nothing. Nothing ever changes their habit. And in that parallel world, they
must also all leave under the equator, since the sun does also rise at the
exact same time all year long, rising time doesn't shift much more than a one-
hour change (heck, actually even under the equator, you get a similar span of
variation).

Also, energy savings are usually dismissed as being tiny. Except that we spend
years investing billions and billions in order to save energy / reduce CO2
emissions and barely reach this "tiny" level of savings which is obtained by
simply shifting the needle of a clock twice a year, in a simplistic process
which has been working for decades.

