lemm.ee

2 points

1 year ago

I’d rather the light when I might be able to enjoy it.

There’s a subtext to every DST vs. ST argument that never gets talked about: how much control people have over their own schedules. If, instead of shifting your clock, you could instead shift your schedule, wouldn’t that achieve the same result?

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derf82@lemmy.world

2 points

1 year ago

I don’t want to change my schedule. I don’t want to have to go to work an hour earlier just so I can get daylight in the evening.

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2 points

1 year ago

So you’d rather change everybody else’s schedule to meet your desires? Because that’s what DST is: the government telling its people to change their schedules by an hour.

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derf82@lemmy.world

2 points

1 year ago

Who says I’m changing everyone else’s schedule? I the one that DOESN’T want the clocks to change.

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0 points

1 year ago

I’m not arguing for changing clocks twice a year. I’m arguing that permanent DST is no better than permanent Standard Time when it comes to scheduling. The difference is that people are falsely convinced permanent DST will give them “more daylight” when it will not. Schedules have always shifted between seasons. We can’t do anything about the motion of planets, but we can decide to go to work an hour earlier to maximize how much continuous time we have after work to do yardwork or whatever.

Today, we have this arbitrary “9 to 5” work schedule. Give it 20 years of permanent DST, and we’ll start wishing we “had more daylight” because we have a “10 to 6” work schedule. They’re just numbers. Why not choose the simpler standard?

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derf82@lemmy.world

1 point

1 year ago

I already go to work in the dark most of the year. It is the time change that robs me of that that it takes what was a dark hour to a slightly less dark hour, all the while costing me that hour earlier. Perhaps you think I work 9-5. No, I work 7-4. I have no desire to go to work an hour earlier, because it’s not arbitrary. The rest of the world operates on a schedule by necessity. Further changing my start time puts me further out of sync with everyone else.

I never said DST gives more daylight. I said it puts the daylight where I want it.

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2 points

1 year ago

Perhaps you think I work 9-5.

Apologies. I was using “9 to 5” to mean “a standard work schedule that doesn’t actually exist for most people except as a cliche.”

I have no desire to go to work an hour earlier

But that’s exactly what permanent DST is! Just because the clock still says “7 xDT” instead of “7 xST” doesn’t make it the same time. The sun still rises and sets on it’s own time no matter what our clocks say. Circadian rhythms ultimately depend on sunrise, zenith, and sunset, not some number on a clock. Switching between ST and DST effectively forces the whole world to adopt a “winter” schedule and a “summer” schedule, but in an incredibly disruptive and politically-charged way.

I agree that changing clocks twice a year is a bad idea. My point is, if we’re going to pick one, it should be the one that is based on the motion of the planet. The whole world has to coordinate schedules anyways. So let’s use a standard that more closely matches our biology, not some “you’ll save daylight” marketing.

Or maybe we should all agree to live in the future and just use UTC…

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