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I've been trying to naturally get up earlier by going to bed earlier, and all was well until yesterday when I woke up and saw that it was 10AM. The hell, I thought? Then browsing on Discord I noticed somebody said that the time changed due to Daylight Savings Time. I was annoyed...it should be 9AM, but because of some arbitrary rule it's suddenly an hour later. And now I get to spend the next few days adjusting to a time change. Ugh. v_v

Turns out I'm not the only person who doesn't like changing times twice a year. According to an AP-NORC (The Nonpartisan and Objective Research Organization at the University of Chicago) poll, only 25% of Americans enjoy it. The real dispute is over what should replace it: should we have daylight savings time (32%) or standard time (43%) year-round?

Personally, I would prefer if we stayed on standard time year-round. It may just be because I like the night, but I really don't get much from an extra hour of daylight...actually, I like when daylight savings time ends and we get an extra hour of darkness.

How do you feel about this?

Funny enough, I was having this conversation the day before yesterday over in Karma about how absolutely useless I see DST being.  Sure, way back in the day it had its use, but it's far outlived it.

When I explained this, there was the argument that apparently it helps with curbing some energy consumption a bit since apparently less electricity is consumed during the day, but in all honesty I think that's a poor reason to keep what's obviously an obsolete tradition alive.

Some good news: U.S. Senate approves bill to make daylight saving time permanent - Reuters

@Michi: I believe when it was first conceived in WW2, the idea was that people wouldn't have to turn their lights on for an hour, saving energy that way. But between efficient LED bulbs, cheap outdoor solar lighting, and the rise of electronics that run day and night there's probably little if any energy savings at this point.

@taulover: I saw that! I would have preferred if they had made standard time permanent, but meh. We'll see if the House follows up on that.

States right now can already move to standard time if they want to, but the other than Arizona and Hawaii (which are already like this) the only momentum in the states so far has been to try to move to year-round daylight saving time.

Here in California I certainly voted for the permanent DST law.

Looking into it, it does seem like scientists tend to back permanent standard time, though, which isn't something I've realized before. And the thought of 8am sunrises does suck, though in places where I've lived the time of sunrise still isn't too bad. And even though it's perhaps worse for the body, I do like the thought of being able to see more sunrises.

@Michi: I believe when it was first conceived in WW2, the idea was that people wouldn't have to turn their lights on for an hour, saving energy that way. But between efficient LED bulbs, cheap outdoor solar lighting, and the rise of electronics that run day and night there's probably little if any energy savings at this point.

@taulover: I saw that! I would have preferred if they had made standard time permanent, but meh. We'll see if the House follows up on that.

Yeah, my argument was that with the insistence of having folks rely more on electric vehicles, the energy savings are going to become even more minimal to justify the DLS argument of it still existing.  Yes, folks are more than likely going to let their vehicles charge overnight, but there's still going to be plenty of folks that'll do it during the day since there's always those that forget to do the charging overnight thing.  It's going to basically be like how people fill up their gas tanks: You have the folks who remember to fill it up to the top when it needs it as they're heading home at the end of the day, and you have folks who continually forget until they're driving and realize their car is almost empty, and hurry to fill it up right there during the daylight hours.  Electric is going to go the exact same way the more it becomes more of a mainstream thing.

Also, I'm guessing year-long Daylight Savings Time is when we'd do the Spring Forward bit and push clocks ahead an hour, and just keep it that way permanently?  I'd support that.  I just think the whole push forward pull back tradition is getting annoying, and we need to just stick to one...either keep the clocks ahead by an hour, or keep them behind by an hour.  None of this wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

Also, I'm guessing year-long Daylight Savings Time is when we'd do the Spring Forward bit and push clocks ahead an hour, and just keep it that way permanently?  I'd support that.  I just think the whole push forward pull back tradition is getting annoying, and we need to just stick to one...either keep the clocks ahead by an hour, or keep them behind by an hour.  None of this wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

There does seem to be a conflict between scientists who back permanent standard time as more healthy and some popular movements / politicians that support permanent DST instead. Stopping the switch is probably the most important part, but it's somewhat telling that states have always had the ability to go to permanent standard time and yet only Alaska and Hawaii ever did that, whereas many states have passed permanent DST laws (conditional on Congress allowing it). But now that I know the scientists' stance on this, am conflicted.

It turns out the US has actually tried permanent Daylight Savings Time before: The US Tried Permanent Daylight Savings Time in the '70s. People Hated It

It turns out that parents hated it because kids were having to go to school in the dark, and some were involved in car accidents. The article notes that some schools even ended up starting later so it would be when the sun was out. The originally law called for a 2-year experiment, but was repealed in time for Daylight Savings Time to end the next year. Apparently messing with the clock was a big idea back then anyways...one bill proposed at around the same time would have put the entire continental US in the same timezone.

Could this be a case of history repeating itself?

It looks like the supposed increase in car accidents was anecdotal though:

The factual picture was a bit more complicated. The National Safety Council reported in February that pre-sunrise fatalities had risen to 20 from 18 the year before. In July, Roger Sant, then an assistant administrator-designate for the Federal Energy Administration, wrote a letter to the Post that noted a 1 percent energy saving achieved by going to DST equated to 20,000-30,000 tons of coal not being burned each day. Further, he wrote, accidents had fallen in the afternoons.

Pre-sunrise fatalities were up before permanent DST and accidents went down in the afternoon.

If schools start later that's honestly a good thing for the children... it's been shown that starting later is good for child/teenage development anyway.

I've seen comparisons between the previous permanent DST experiment and now. One big difference is that back then, DST was only in place for 6 months, and was relatively new/sporadic, whereas now DST is in place for 8 months. For the great majority of the year we are already in DST now, and people tend to see it as the norm now. It's quite likely that people would not be as thrown off by permanent DST now that it stretches decently into the winter season already.

In politics, perception tends to be more important than reality.

Daylight Savings Time is longer, but it still doesn't extend to the shortest days of winter when it would have the worst effect. I'm not sure how many people are going to like going to work and school in the cold dark even more than they already have to, and there's no guarantee that most schools will open later because of it (though some already do open later in recognition of more recent science on teenage development).

At the end of the day though, I just prefer Standard Time and don't care for Daylight Savings Time...I actually like it getting dark earlier in the winter, and imagine I would be just fine with it in the summer too. Daylight is overrated.

In politics, perception tends to be more important than reality.

Which is perhaps why permanent DST is so much more popular than permanent standard time.

I think part of it might be that Americans are less work-oriented these days. People want daylight after work. At least anecdotally on reddit it seems like people do seem to prefer that option even if it means darker mornings.

Imagine : you wake up at 6AM, it's dark. You arrive at work at 7AM, it's still dark out. Sunrise is at 7:30. You spend the day inside at the office, maybe you catch a window or two. Nevertheless, 95% of the light you get is artificial.

You get out of work at 16:30. It's dark. Sunset was at 4PM, so sucks to be you.

I actually enjoy the dark too but I find I have to supplement with vitamins in the winter months, else I feel a bit out of it.

If it were standard time throughout, in the summer the sun would rise at 3AM. If it were DST throughout, in the winter we wouldn't see the sun out until 8:30. But at least it'd go down at 5 instead of 4.

To me it does seem like a lot of these experiences are also somewhat specific to where you are, not just north/south but also east/west in relation to your time zone boundaries. So any proposal that gets rid of clock changing will likely hurt some more than others.

Yeah permanent standard time is much better for human circadian cycles and stuff generally.  If we are going to do one of the two, lets go for that one.  Besides, the only real advantage of making DST permanent is the one hour we get to sleep in one day, vs feeling slightly shittier *always* for the rest of time.  I really think that just abolishing DST is definitely the better solution both short and long term honestly.

Though personally, I'm in favor of keeping both, mostly because I prefer roughly standard sunrise time.  

From a purely selfish perspective, scripting and programming software and having to worry about time zones is hard enough, especially cause of situations where some time zones aren't full one hour differences but 30 minute differences (at least pretty sure there are a couple like this).

Throw in having to deal with DST and then throw in states in the US that don't follow it at all anyways and then dealing with other countries where they implement DST at different times than other countries is also difficult enough. Then you have some instances where a city or town chooses not to follow DST at all even though their country does! But everyone always wants their app to show the right time, it's tough!

So I'd rather just see the shifting between DST and not DST to just be done away with completely. But again, this is just a purely selfish perspective...