[xyzelement]

You got a bunch of longish replies to your question and I can't tell if they covered the simple answer. DST changes the question of : is it dark at 7am when I get up or not? is it light when I get off work at 5 or not?

It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity.

[jolmg]

It's interesting how it's easier to change time than to change the hours in which we work. I wonder if there's any country where the government has enough control over working hours to shift those around instead. Instead of shifting the clock one hour, we could shift the time we start and end work.

It's like DST is the wrong solution to an XY problem.

Thinking practically though, DST is bound to work without enforcement, so it has that advantage.

[mikestew]

It's interesting how it's easier to change time than to change the hours in which we work.

What with covid/wfh, I have been wondering is this might be the push needed to end DST. Because I sure as hell have changed the time I work. Dog walk in the dark in December because about 4 hours of daylight in Seattle? Fuck that, we walk the dogs smack in the middle of the day now, we can work when it's dark. Strap on the reflective gear, headlamp, and go for a run? Oh, hell no. 2 in the afternoon, baby; I'll fix that bug late afternoon.

I still get up super early, but instead of getting in that run before work, I just work. Then shift that running time to when the sun's up. But I speak from the position of the privileged tech worker (and one w/o a lot of meetings). There are still the DST issues of when children stand waiting for the school bus, et. al.

[ben509]

> It's interesting how it's easier to change time than to change the hours in which we work.

I think the main pain point would be customers being confused as to when companies are open.

This doesn't even work well with smartphones; all the calendar apps are hopelessly manual and can't answer something like "what are good times to run an errand involving steps X, Y, Z."

At best, you can ask it when people are available for a meeting and it will show you that everyone important is booked solid.

[jolmg]

> I think the main pain point would be customers being confused as to when companies are open.

But why would so many people rely on a 1 hour difference that this would become a "main pain point"? I don't know the working hours of most places I go to. When I really want to know, I check Google Maps (or their website). Even then, when it's close to opening or closing hours by like an hour, I sometimes prefer not to trust it if it'd be too problematic for it to be closed after making the trip, because it does happen at times that it's incorrect. Small shops might not even follow their own stamped-on-the-window working hours strictly either.

[freeopinion]

I'd be interested to hear the experience of people in China. As I understand it, all of China shares a single timezone while neighbors to the north and south are spread across five timezones.

Clocks in western China are four hours out of sync with their neighbors just over the southern border in Pakistan, for example. So do businesses in western China open from 1pm to 9pm? Do people eat breakfast at noon?

I'm really curious about that experience.

[wahern]

https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/china-only...

[filoleg]

I think one practicality of it that you forget is the difficulty for people too, not just for businesses or government entities.

For example, people are used to banks always being open 9am to 5pm. With the approach you mentioned, it means that twice a year they will have to shift it. It means you will also have to shift your entire schedule, and calendar, and literally everything. Now think about some shops and places that will NOT be switching it and decide to keep the same hours. Then add-in the fact that some shops already change their hours even with the current system. For example, I have a daily recurring alarm for 7am. Under this proposed system, I will have to manually change it twice a year (while now it is done automatically due to the entire timezone switching twice a year).

You will simply get a logistical nightmare, since changing the entire clock is much much simpler than shifting each individual little scheduled item in your life.

Tl;dr: while i agree that logically your approach of shifting individual scheduling items to align with the daylight hours makes more logical sense, it makes more practical sense to just switch timezones twice a year for that purpose.

[jolmg]

> I have a daily recurring alarm for 7am. Under this proposed system, I will have to manually change it twice a year (while now it is done automatically due to the entire timezone switching twice a year). You will simply get a logistical nightmare

At least with respect to updating the alarm, that "logistical nightmare" can't be any worse than what we had before clocks updated themselves. I still remember having to update all clocks manually twice a year. It wasn't a big deal. Someone coming in late or missing an appointment because they forgot to update a clock happened rarely. Maybe it's not the case now, but you used to get multiple warnings reminding you to update your clocks.

> For example, people are used to banks always being open 9am to 5pm. With the approach you mentioned, it means that twice a year they will have to shift it. It means you will also have to shift your entire schedule, and calendar, and literally everything.

With respect to opening and closing hours of banks and shops, for those few people that go near opening or closing hours even in that time of the year, they'll make the mistake that day and either come back later when it's open or otherwise fix their issue that day or at least they won't make the same mistake the next day. The world wouldn't go up in flames because of this.

[bjourne]

> It's interesting how it's easier to change time than to change the hours in which we work. I wonder if there's any country where the government has enough control over working hours to shift those around instead. Instead of shifting the clock one hour, we could shift the time we start and end work.

Iran used to do that. But for some reason they abandoned it and now use "normal" daylight saving time.

[davchana]

Indian offices, schools, shops do this. Although I don't think its by government order, it is just the it is always. Almost every timings psoster show winter/summer times.

[somehnguy]

>It aims to shift the usable daylight hours to correspond with human activity.

But it fails miserably at it.. Here in NYS all winter long it gets dark at 5PM. Summer, 9PM.

It's useless and just causes inevitable confusion every year.

[jws]

There’s nothing to be done about winter, that is the “regular” time and you live in the north. You only get the sun above the horizon for 9 hours a day in late December.

The summer 9pm is the advantage of daylight savings. You get the sun up for 15 hours a day! Norther summer is great. Without daylight savings time, you’d get dark at 8pm in the summer and have an hour of “wasted” daylight before you got up. The “savings” part is to take the wasted light while you are sleeping and move it to the evening when you can enjoy it.

It does cause confusion though, and having implemented daylight savings code there are a bewildering number of rules around the world, there are even places that have double daylight savings. They shift once, then shift again for a two hour offset.

[somehnguy]

I appreciate the response and explanation, I guess I was mistaken on which direction DST was being used for! All my life I was under the assumption that it was the other way around, to try and get back more time during the winter. Thinking about it more now though, that doesn't even make sense given the direction the clock changes..

I'm still not sure it is worth the confusion it causes but I do have a better understanding of why it exists now. Thank you!

[1strepublicusr]

I love the extra hour of daylight in summer evenings and anytime I'm anywhere where it gets darker early in the summer I feel like I'm giving up part of the fun of my life.

[fireattack]

I still don't get it. During the winter, the daylight hour is literally shorter, not just shifted. Shifting one hour won't magically make it longer. At best it gives your more daylight in one end, while sacrificing the other (and more than 1 hour, since again, the total daylight hour is shorter). So why bother?

[notJim]

Because the idea is that sunlight during a particular part of the day is more valuable. One reason I've seen given (not saying I agree with it) is that if you "move" the sunlight to the morning, it means kids won't have to wait for the school bus in the dark. Or if you "move" it to the afternoon, then there will be a little bit of daylight at the end of the day for people working 9-5, which might be useful if you want to go for a run or something.